I'm so pissed at myself. How can I type an e-mail telling you all that I've been drinking, and feeling pretty down about it, while staring at a glass of wine. I left the store, then went back in... "I don't have to drink it. I can just get it." WTF? Not the first time that has happened. All I need to do is just keep walking. On the way home, I was walking behind a man with his two daughters. I felt like it was God telling me to remember my hubby and daughters. But, I'm drinking anyway. I could SO relate to Rob's post about being lonely. It's not an excuse, but I do see my drinking is in direct proportion to my anxiety or negative feeling about myself or the world around me. Numbing, I guess. Feels good to vent, but until I can do step one right I guess I'm stuck.
We all went through the stage that you're in (denial) to one extent or another. It is much easier to accept our loss of ability to drink safely after we've lost marriages, good jobs, homes, health, wealth... etc. but at what an enormous cost. You will have to work much harder at this then those that have lost much or all because your mind (and you disease) will try hard to compare out by thinking "My drinking is not that bad" I still have a marriage, house, car, good job, my health... You will also have people around you telling you that you don't have a drinking problem. And your payoff will be great in those things that you didn't have to lose. It will help you to increase your gratitude for these things that you have. This is a very hard habit to break, requiring our utmost effort, determination, but also help and education. You're just starting to get an idea of what you're up against.
Meetings, using a sponser, engaging the fellowship, and working the steps are powerful tools that help us to get and stay sober. If you had been to a couple beginners meetings you probably would have heard "stay out of stores that sell booze for a few months" or take someone with you if you have to go to a grocery store, or stay out of those isles. When I was first getting sober, I would walk into a drug store to get a few items and I'd immediately find myself standing in front of the beer cooler dumb founded. It happened again and again until I told myself, as I was entering the store, "stay away from the beer cooler" lol. That worked. I was allowing the "adult" that lived in my head to run my life instead of the "reckless kid".
Dean
-- Edited by StPeteDean on Tuesday 12th of January 2010 09:54:49 AM
Good to know you are still connecting with us here in recovery my friend, but you can't stop drinking till you stop drinking was drilled into me for seven long years of being sober, being pissed, being sober, being pissed, and it was only when I took that last drink which got me absoluitely down and out on my knees and unable to string 3 words together that I reached out YET AGAIN, and 2 members were there with me within the hour and I got back into recovery for what (up until today was) my last time.
That was July 10th 1990, and my first day sober was July 11th, and I am amazed that I made it, and the only way I could make it was to stop fighting it and surrender. Surrender?? ME?? You gotta be joking right? But that is what it took, and I believe that is what it will take for you. You gotta decide which is best, drunk or sober, and if you choose sobriety then you gotta kick the booze right outa your life and put as much effort into getting sober as you did into getting drunk, and you just might make it.
Drunk or sober is acceptable in AA - AA IS after all, for drunks - BUT it would be great to see you sober. Stick around and stick with the winners, or win with the stickers.
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Serenity is Wanting what you have, not having what you want
Always remember non-alcoholic beers are for NON-ALCOHOLICS
I wish you luck. I don't really believe in luck anymore but it sounds good. I had to be stopped in my tracks in order to quit. Jails, Institutions, and Death..........lovely alternatives. I have tried all three and found them wanting. A.A. has given me a purpose in life. In the beginning it was putting the bottle down. Now it is more dealing with life on lifes terms without escaping reality via the bottle. It's pretty simple, but by no means easy. Take care, I would suggest to call someone in the program (sponsor?) and get honest.
I faltered many times.....finally 'surrendered' ( hated that word - still do in a way !) when the pain got too much and I just wanted out of life kind of altogether.
AA never rejected me through those times. Some people were harsh with me - some were gentle. I truly believe it was the combination of both that helped me get sober today.........
Once I had truly commited to and accepted from the depths of my heart Step One, stuff changed and I was almost eager to hand myself over to the 12 Step program & tools of AA which I find not only keep me sober a day at a time but have brought a joy into my life I never could have imagined. I now face life on life's terms and I think as Biker Bill said somewhere - I now, for today, don't drink- what ever happens!
Another thing which helped me which probably sounds crazy is the following...which I say to myself....
"OK today is shit, I feel I can't cope, I hate everybody & everything this morning/afternoon/evening......AA....EVERYTHING ! !.........................OK!! I am NOT going to have a drink today............ but I am DEFINITELY going to have one tomorrow......."
Of course,as the saying goes, tomorrow never comes! ! ! - weird physchology I know but has worked for me on countless occasions alongside the tools of AA ! !
Hey Runnergirl!...back to the drawing board,step 1 revisited and maybe "a jarring experience that can bring about a more rigorous application of the program.Thanks for your honesty, it is the antidote to our diseased thinking..Glad your hear to share and know what you need to do.peace
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Selfishness-self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles.
As many people here have already said, you are not alone. I for one drank on and off for a year after my first meeting before I ever got sober. Yet I got sober so young that I had very few things to lose - no job, no house, no car, no husband or boyfriend. You really don't have to wait to lose that stuff. Denial is a nasty beast, but you aren't completely in denial if you are writing on this board, right? I have to say that what Louisa said is true in my experience - that I got sober because of the variety of people who were hard on me when I drank, and those who were loving and kind. But NO ONE asked me to leave, even if they were hard on me I was encouraged to "keep coming back". My mother died of this disease, I want everyone to come back if they are willing and able. Personally I think there is some magical spark of clarity, coupled with the very realistic direction of this program, that helps get people sober. I will pray that those things will happen with you. Meanwhile, keep coming back!!!
Way to go philip! yes it is a"continuous uphill journey,but the rewards of a "new life' out weigh the consequences of jails instituitions or death!! peace keep doing the work.....
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Selfishness-self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles.
Sitting and listening and turning myself over. It's all important...all of the time. I have no idea how close it is lurking all I know is that my best defense is God and AA simul- taneously. It isn't a moral issue RC...and it isn't about being "weak". It's about cunning powerful and baffling...24/7...run back into the rooms and glad you came back here to share it so that we can stay strong and ready. ((((hugs)))))
I know exactly where you're at. There were many many times when I would walk into a liquor store actually saying to myself "You shouldn't be doing this" but like a robot I bought alcohol and went home and drank it. Like many others on here can tell you and from my own experience, a belly full of booze and a head full of AA is an absolutely miserable place to be. Sometimes it would help me to consider what I would lose if I kept drinking as opposed to what I'd lost.
-- Edited by Dodsworth on Tuesday 12th of January 2010 10:23:13 PM
OK, you struck a real nerve with me. I read my old posts almost daily. The majority of my posts that I make, aer not "when I feel the urge" but when I'm drinking...sadly, this one too. I can't offer any advice on how to handle this, but I can tell you that you are NOT alone. I know that I should put this drink down, but I need to sleep, escape...whatever.
Why is it that we do what we know is bad for us?
I know that I should be posting on how great thing are, how it gets better, how we can make it through, but that ISN'T how I feel.
The question I heave is How do we stop, when we know we don't wat this, but there is this unbelievable urge? (need?)
As I read my old posts, I remember where I was...Why am I/we back again.
I am not in any way trying to discourage anyone, but I know that I'm not the only one "here."
-- Edited by MDC on Tuesday 12th of January 2010 11:27:11 PM
Guys/Girls, you've really got to want this thing with all your heart and soul. Every cell in your body needs to be saying "we do not want alcohol anymore". It helps to do some writing about pros and cons, the way that you feel with/without. Write your goals and how sobriety will take you toward your goals and drinking will take your goals away. Write your priorities, health, family, prosperity... and how sobriety/drinking will affect them. Then write your plan of how you're going to achieve those goals step by step, week by week, day by day. Even write your prayers. Then look at all that daily and whenever you get the urge to drink. Talk about all this stuff to yourself, your sponsor, your group, whenever you feel like drinking. It's those moments that we even have a thought about drinking that we need to have a script prepared for, a plan of action (talk ourselves through, call a sponsor, call a sober friend, get to a meeting, read our writings or AA leterature...) to keep ourselves from even thinking about a drink. It's the thinking were the relapse begins, way before we actually pick up that drink. If you're in your first year and you even have the stupidest little thought about drinking you should be picking up a phone and calling someone and talking through what is going to happen once you pick up that first drink, the progression, the consequences, the shame/guilt. The disease doesn't want you to do any of this. It wants to isolate you and kill you. When you see homeless people on the street and wonder how they got there, that's how. It cuts you off from everyone (your higher power too) so it can kill you. Here that voice? The one that's saying "that won't happen to me"? That's your disease talking to you. It's time to start talking back and tell your disease "stfu, we're going to a meeting".
-- Edited by StPeteDean on Wednesday 13th of January 2010 02:32:57 AM
Dean, I appreciated the urgency you expressed through your writing. I agree that writing it down is key. I've heard this over and over. This is good weaponry for the evil diseased voices that pop up in our heads. I used to be mildly annoyed by old timers in meetings who seem to begin every share with "this is life and death". Today I see more than ever how true it is. I want to live sober and know that many people do not come back, they end up dead, horribly. AA and the online community are here waiting with firm, loving arms. Keep coming back.
Angel, I felt the same way and would roll my eyes, when I was new in the program (age 27). When I heard folks in AA talk about how this disease kills people, I thought "it's not going to happen to me". I mean medically, I could've drank for at least another 10 years probably more. It's the accidents (cars, falls, step in front of bus...), personal conflicts (getting stabbed or shot by some jealous bf or bubba in jail), alcohol + drug = od, and suicide that are more likely causes of death for an alcoholic. But the reality is that most of us will live a relatively long, lonely, desperate, and painful life first before the physical aspects of this disease take their toll and check us out. And by that time nobody cares. Those people that are out on the street (or in there little flat) are there because they've become incapable of having a relationship with anyone, and most often their brains too pickled to recover ("wet brains").
When AA began and for decades after, people didn't stumble into a meeting till they were 50 or 60 years old. They didn't need to be schooled on what alcohol was going to do to them because it had already happened. Most were just looking for a way to keep from going back to the Asylum or Jail. That's why, today, a lot of the old timers will tell high bottom drunks (youngsters that haven't lost enough yet) to go back out "you're not done drinking yet" because the ego will keep telling these people "I'm good, I've got him/her, I've got all this going for me, and it's not going to happen to me". If you Are your ego, then who is the poor sob that has to listen? Your brain is not your friend.
It took quite awhile (about 2 years of going to meetings) for me to grasp the concept that I was not in control of my thoughts. There were dialogs running whether I liked it or not. If that weren't bad enough, I was compelled to do what these thoughts were telling me. I just thought it was me and it's what I wanted to do (I loved to drink right?) until a day or two later, when my authentic self emerged from an alcoholic haze and said "wtf happened, and why am I here again and who's been driving this bus while I was gone"? Your brain is not your friend
-- Edited by StPeteDean on Wednesday 13th of January 2010 04:54:42 AM
Two nights ago a girl I met in a detox facility two weeks ago called me crying about how her husband hadn't been home in two days and how she didn't deserve to have him anymore because she was a stupid drunk and she had relapsed in the short few days she had been back home in Kansas. I didn't know this until later but she had been drinking before she called me (not a surprise) and was loading a shotgun talking about shooting herself. After a few short conversations (mostly me just telling her not to hurt herself) she hung up. When she called back 30min later she sounded a little funny and she told me she swallowed 50 trazadone and lunesta pills (sleeping pills). I told her to call 911 but she wouldn't. Then she just passed out on the phone. I could hear her breathing for a good couple of minutes. Since I live in Indiana, not Kansas, it took a few phone calls before I reached her local 911 dispatcher. I didn't even know her address, just her name and phone number. Luckily, the guys and gals on the other end of the line were good at what they do and were able to track down her location and sent police and ambulance over to pick her up. Her husband called me and told me she is ok, but is locked up on the "5th floor" of the hospital. She is only 26 (I'm only 27) and her drinking history has none of the violence, carnage, legal trouble that mine or others has (according to her). My point is, much like Dean said, this will kill you a hundred different ways, whether its organ failure, or drunk driving, or fighting, or a spur of the moment suicide attempt, or, etc.....That is why I'm not drinking today. The last time I got drunk I decided the best thing was to check myself into a detox/mental hospital....That suggests that if I got drunk again, ALL BETS ARE OFF. I don't want to wake up in jail, institution, or not wake up at all. Just for today!
Well...I know why it's higher up...cuz it takes longer to escape to have to trek down to the 1st floor. I do not know why the magic number of the mental ward seems to always be 5 though..why not the 10th floor?
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
- weird physchology I know but has worked for me on countless occasions alongside the tools of AA ! ! 
