I've never been to a meeting. I never wanted to stop drinking I guess. Ot I did and just couldn't. Im sad and drpressed and very afraid. What can I do to get there?
The best thing to do is to call the local AA phone number in your phone book or look up the local AA intergroup office online (google AA intergoup in X city). Those phones are answered by recovering AA folks that can answer all your question and suggest a meeting for you to attend. Sometimes they will provide you with a ride (if you ask). Meetings are nothing to be nervous about. There just people just like you that are learning how to have a good life without having to drink. We can also answer any questions that you have here. We have a lot nice folk here and many caring women as regulars of our board. Welcome to the board.
-- Edited by StPeteDean on Thursday 4th of February 2010 12:16:21 PM
Hello Rebeca! welcome to family....you are searching ,a good start.You have to want this for it to work for you so admitting you are powerless and your life is unmanageable(not sure where you are at in your drinking)is where we begin..You will need to get "honest with yourself and only you know "your desire".I would suggest finding a meeting,share your feelings and follow suggestions until you know what you want to do..I dont know if you need detox,or any other situations but most all here have lived thru the feelings and fears and doubts you are probably going thru now..There will be many here to offer their suggestions you will have to decide how you are to go.Keep coming back and letting us know how you are doing as we are here to keep each other sober one day at a time....
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Selfishness-self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles.
We all felt like that, but the best thing to do is to go the meeting and introduce yourself as a newcomer and get some of that stuff off of your mind. You'll be warmly welcomed into the AA family.
Rebeca, Welcome! It's good to have you here. I would do as suggested above. Call the AA hotline or go to a meeting and let them know your new. The group will take over from there. You'll be amazed. It may seem impossible but just put 1 foot in front of the other. The people at the meeting will pick you up, dust you off and start you on your journey. This will be done with true understanding, love and compassion. We've all been in your shoes. Please come back and let us know how it went.
I promise you you will be welcomed so warmly and most of all - understood!
They will understand your fear too. Every one of those people walked through the door to their first meeting at some point.......they will love you better! They did me!
My own fear just seemed to evaporate the moment I got in the room & spoke to people who truly understood - it was as if I'd kind of come home.
And Yes! You do deserve that love and compassion and you will get it.
Hi Rebeca and welcome. Here, I'll get up and you can have my seat. Please. It would make me very happy if you came and sat down with us.
Our minds are ready to play tricks on us when our minds want to get drunk. "It's okay, you can have just one." "It'll make you feel better." "You may not be able to get through this thing without a drink." "This calls for a celebration! You deserve a drink!"
So it's only fair that we can turn the tables and play tricks on our minds when we have to. Like this one, that works for me.
I get scared a LOT. Part of my job is that I have to walk into businesses that would rather run out of toilet paper at the wrong moment than see me walk through their door. Scary moment. But I have a secret that they don't know about. Nobody has to know about it, but I'll share it with you, because you asked me to.
For twenty-five cents my daughter sold me an imaginary friend. Roosevelt. Roosevelt is a purple bull African Elephant. He's the strongest land animal on the face of the earth and when I want him to, he can sit on my shoulder and go places with me, so that I'm never, ever alone. Roosevelt helps me go places and do things that I know I have to do, but my mind is scared to.
I'm a 43 year old husband & father of three and sometimes just to get through the day I trick my mind with a secret imaginary purple elephant named Roosevelt sitting on my left shoulder.
What I'm saying is...your mind hasn't played fair with you up to this point so do whatever you have to do to get to that meeting and walk through that door.
In fact, if you lift up your keyboard right now, you might have an imaginary friend there.
Aloha Becca...I know where you are at also and so do the others and that is how I felt at first too. What I did was take the fear and confusion and anxiety and all the other "stop me" emotions with me to the meeting. They don't lock the door so I could run at anytime and I suffered from that "claw your eyes out" type of fear. If anyone got between me and the outside I'd go thru them to get there. I never had to do that ever. It was painful for just a short time and then it was over forever. Or as was suggested to me years ago...write your fears down on paper...put that in a paper sack and leave them at the front door of the meeting...pick them back up on the way out if you want.
Keep coming back here...Don't drink, don't think in the mean time. Just keep coming back. ((((hugs))))
We all were afraid to get to our very first meeting (s ) . You are not alone .
Please allow some of the members of AA the opportunity to help you. You will be surprized after going to your first meeting how wonderful, friendly and accomodating We can be
The fear is understandable and we've all been there. So far I haven't seen a single newcomer to a meeting, who has shared that they are new, die of mortification on the spot. Of course anything's possible
But the main thing I would tell you is that you don't have to do anything you aren't comfortable doing. The main thing is to get through the door and sit down, (actually one newcomer recently didn't even sit down and that was cool too!)
Walking in the door does not constitute an admission that you're alcoholic - it just means that you are looking for information. You don't need to say a word, you don't need to talk to anyone before or after, if they ask whether anyone's new to A.A. you don't have to raise your hand, and if by some chance you get called upon to speak, it's 1000% ok to just politely say "I'm just here to listen, thanks!" In fact that's pretty much expected from newcomers. You don't have to stay through the whole meeting. You don't have to do ANYTHING you don't want to do.
Hope this helps get you through the door, and good luck!
Yes....I have been there for sure. 3 statements struck a chord with me that you shared. Immobilized by fear. Yep. I stayed there for a long time and it sucked. I am learning to walk through them in AA. Sometimes it's scary but I am so much better off having AA in my life. My insides are cored - Another prevailing feeling I had was utterly empty when I came into AA. I can remember stating at the end of my drinking that I felt like a shell of a person. That did and does change when you put down the bottle and become part of the fellowship of AA. Though it's some work and you have to put yourself out there when you feel comfortable. Last...I don't deserve anything. Wow..that is one that I think most of us have in spades. In fact, I venture to say most of us actually used to think and some (like myself) still struggle with that....to the point of sometimes thinking I deserve bad things to happen to me cuz I'm a crappy person. So untrue. I didn't have much of a strong belief in God when I came into AA, it's coming along....but here is a saying that does make sense to me...
God don't make junk. Okay. You were put here on the earth with the rest of us for a reason and now you are just at a crossroads like all of us were. Let this be the point were you unlock yourself from a prison of self-hate, self-punishment, and self-destruction. It is a scary bridge to walk across, but we are here cheering you on as you do it.
Love,
Mark
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
WOW all those phrases you used to explain how you feel about going to meetings are the very ones that I used when I first realised I needed to be in AA. Not one of us woke up one morning feeling great and saying, 'What a nice day, insteadof getting drunk, I think I'll call AA.
As been said before, find your local helpline number (you'll find it online if you type in AA Meetings, then your town) there will be a contact number, and it might allay some of your fears in going to a meeting if you call the helpline first and a lady will escort you there and introduce you to people you will very soon look upon as family - in fact closer than family, I wouldn't dream of telling my family what I share with other AA's.
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Serenity is Wanting what you have, not having what you want
Always remember non-alcoholic beers are for NON-ALCOHOLICS
