I went to my fist AA meeting last Thursday. I found a group that really stresses that "god" is whatever we understand him to be, which is important to me because I am not a religious person. I have always viewed AA to be really religious-centric, which is a turn-off for me.
I was scared to death going to my first AA meeting. I was not technically ordered to go there, although my family has been urging me to for quite some time. Despite my fears, I have never felt so welcomed and so understood by a group of strangers. At my first meeting, I received phone numbers and assurances that I could call anytime. At my second meeting, I had a man share with me some writings of his that had helped him. One of the women who gave me her phone number stood up as someone who is willing to sponsor.
But I am still drinking. My mom left me a message earlier tonight that a very long-time family friend who was hospitalized on Saturday passed away that night. It seemed she was suffering from some sort of infection and her systems just shut down, but I haven't spoken with my mom so I don't know the specifics. I am still in shock about this, and I feel like I used it as an excuse to go to the liquor store tonight (this was the day that I was going to stop drinking for REAL).
I have started reading the Big Book, and I WANT to stop hurting myself. I want to ask the woman in my group to sponsor me. What is holding me back? The hardest thing for me to embrace is that I can't do this by myself. I HAVE to ask for help. I am a stubborn person, and I have been taking care of myself for a number of years. I know I need to ask for help, but knowing it and doing it are two different things.
Why isn't it enough to know that I have a family that loves me? Why isn't it enough that I have nieces and nephews that look up to me as a role model? I continue to lie to the people who love me just so I can numb myself to the pain of my everyday life.
The more that I learn about AA the more I realize that it may very well be the program that saves my life. What is holding me back? Why do I have to keep giving myself "one more day" of drinking?!? I feel like I know the answers but just can't implement the solution.
Thanks for listening to a new member rambling on...
You are NOT a lost cause and yes, there is hope for You !!
When you are ready to let go of your old idea's, emotions and attitudes and are willing to do whatever it takes to get sober, then you will begin to change and get healthy.
Until that happens, you will stay sick and most likely drunk.
Alcoholics Anonymous and the God I found there has saved my life and it can save yours too.
Keep an open mind, keep going to meetings.
I can promise you 2 things .....
#1. If you continue with AA, get a God of your understanding, a same sex sponsor, work the steps and help others, your life will get better, guaranteed.
#2. If you dont do the above ... Your life will get worse - guaranteed !!
Im glad you are here. Yours is the first post I have seen this morning and it does me good to read your share, so thanks so much for being here !!
It sounds as tho a seed has been planted from your first couple meetings. Its up to you now to fertilize and help this seed grow . Progress doesn't happen over nite. It takes time and work on the members part. There isn't anything magic about AA, but it can and will be miraculous for You if you let it.
Meg, brilliant writing and introspection. That's you peering out from the inside. Don't let your disease cover you back up. Call that women and set a schedule to attend a meeting daily for 90 days. It's the best to do it and the only way that worked for me. I would venture to say that most of us sober folks did a 90 meetings in 90 days. "Keep coming back, it works"
-- Edited by StPeteDean on Tuesday 9th of February 2010 08:02:44 AM
Thanks, Meg! You're on THE RIGHT track! The whole God thing will come when it's time...and it's amazing! Don't give up 5 minutes before the miracle happens.
Meg...It does sound like you are right where you are supposed to be. Some people go to their first meeting and stop at that point. Others (more commonly) grasp on to AA and surrender as more of a process. No you are not a lost cause. Nobody with a desire to stop drinking who comes to AA is a lost cause. It sounds like you are recognizing and learning more about your alcoholism. You sound frustrated and this puts you in an even better place to just surrender and begin this journey. You are okay and remember that we all started with day 1 here also. It works if you let it.
Mark
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
Nutmeg, I can assure you that your not a lost cause. We all start from where your at. No one comes to AA on a winning streak or because life is great and we want to make it better. We were all lost, scared and hopeless. The suggestions above are a great start to your journey. Now it comes down to willingness. Let go off your flawed thinking and ask others for help- even if you don't want too. For me personally and many others I seen, this is a major stubbling block, but it doesn't have to be. Please keep posting and help us stay sober as we assist you in your recovery.
Welcome to the family,you are in the right place and just about where you need to be ,this is process and not an event.Stick around,follow suggestions and things will fall into place..You showed up here for a reason and that is a blessing......
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Selfishness-self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles.
Nutmeg, what all of the others have said on here is right on the money.
When I came into AA for real (I had tried it a couple of times before that, but I didn't get it), I was drinking every day.
I didn't drink yesterday and I'm not going to drink today. If I stick with AA, I'm really, really sure that I won't drink tomorrow.
I came in in a certain state, some people weren't as badly off as me, some were worse. But I do know that for all us it will work if we stick with it. I've just seen too many incredible recoveries in AA to doubt that now. So, nope, you're not a lost cause. None of us are, if we we work AA.
Aloha Nutmeg...It always surprises me how a newcomer like yourself can open up the doors of the past for me and let all of the thoughts and feelings I had when I first got into recovery back out for me to review. Of course you also let out what happened that caused it to change. You are doing what it takes...keep doing it; following thru. Ask that lady to sponsor you. She has a choice as to yes or no and at either answer you then put the next foot in front of the other and do the next step.
The answer to Why? for me was Fear and Fear of change without experience. That I did not exercise trust in anyway shape or form up to that point didn't help. AA is a learning experience and I learned from the experiences of others who came before me. They couldn't all be joshing me...they had to be for real and I needed some of what they had at first so my initial trust was "blind trust". When I drank I would habitually just walk off cliffs in risk...taking this risk without drinking and for a very very different reason was beyond humble it was as you describe here...frightening and so I'm still here, alive and well, happy as I can be for the minute and open to more that the program and my Higher Power has in store for me.
I will give you the acronym for fear that was given to me in recovery. F E A R...False Evidence Appearing Real. The evidence against coming to believe is false...all false and it appears real because it lives in my own head not anyone elses in the program and rooms. They are recovering...it is me that isn't so much.
We practice the steps, traditions, slogans and all principles "religiously" as anyone would of something that can and will save their lives. Daily and constantly. I have come to believe that it is this spiritual program and only this spiritual program that can do for me what I can't and couldn't ever do for myself. All of my AA fellows say exactly the same thing.
For me today when a member speaks of God as they understand God I never take it as religion. I was born into the Catholic Church...I know religion. The Church is and has been looking at the 12steps as spiritual guides and behaviors for its congregations. Of course there are not only a few members of AA who are priests and nuns.
You are not a lost cause because we say so. The false evidence in your head is not real and you are not a lost cause because The Great Creator doesn't create junk. Your struggle for change for the better is evidence that you don't believe it either. Stay with that evidence and continue in your AA journey.
No one is a lost cause. No one knows better than another alcoholic how hard it is in the beginning & we're scr***d if we were to forget. Because if we forget where we came from we can always go back to that hell we just left. Just because you're still drinking doesn't mean you're hopeless. You're asking for help & that's more than a lot of us will do in the beginning. Asking for help from someone I didn't know or trust has probably been the hardest part of being a member of AA. That is until I realized that alcoholism is too big to handle on my own!! You're heading on the right path!!!
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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Rheinhold Niebuhr
Lost cause, No Alcoholic is a lost cause. This is a Disease as stated by the AMA, American Medical Association. We are people with a Disease, a dreadful disease, that can be arrested and treated without medications.
All of the suggestions that have been outlined is the treatment that have worked for millions of Americans.
I am saying this so that perhaps I can dislodge the shame that I feel you have attached to your own illness, Alcoholism. If you had another life threatening Disease, more than likely you would not feel shame at all. Shame is just a part also of the Disease that we all experienced before surrendering to the Program of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Just briefly I want to address your first item in you Post, AA is not, nor has it ever been a Religous Organization of any kind. It is, a Spiritual Program.
So Happy you have joined us, and hope to see you again Post here about your first Meeting.....
With apologies, I must disagree somewhat with those who say you're not a lost cause. I was a lost cause, and admitting that fact to myself is how I was able to let go of my own control and allow others to help me.
So for your own sake, I would urge you to consider yourself a lost cause!
just questioning that drinking might not be the best way to deal with this current sad news you've recieved is progress....this is a good thing. not everone stops drinking as soon as they start going to meetings....i didnt and i felt very much like you do about it..i walked into a meeting one night after getting drunk the night before and an old timer in the program said after one look at me "havent suffered enough yet eh cindy?" (im canadian eh) lol...i struggled big time with the "god" thing and he told me to read "came to believe" ..AA has a lot of literature if u like to read by the way..going to lots of meetings proved to me that there really is a "higher power" people at meetings were astonishingly patient with me, as long as i kept trying and asking questions they were warm and caring. its been thousands of days since the last time i got drunk...now a days i can get up at a meeting and say "im cindy a grateful recovering alcoholic" and it comes from the heart..dont give up honey..it is well worth the journey! (hugs) and Welcome Home! ( the door greeter say this at one of my favorite meetings)
I was a lost cause for 7 years - stuck in the revolving door of AA meetings. I was out more than in - and drunk more than sober when I WAS in. I hae been told, since I got into recovery, that I was one of the worst women they'd seen in the rooms, I was a VERY scarey 'lady', and in answer to my question, 'How come when I got a lift to meetings, they travelled in 2's or 3's?' and was told that was because no-one dared to be alone with ME in their car!!!!
And there's ME, not a lost cause, just a lass who'd lost her way in life, and hd a 'bit of a drink problem' GAWD, how I can look back and laugh at this now - though I guess it wasn't that funny at the time, certainly not for my parents and my kids who lived with and around me.
I'll tell you what I was told when I asked, 'WHY can't I get this? How come I can't get sober?' and an oldtimer told me, 'Avril darling, YOU CAN'T STOP DRINKING TILL YOU STOP DRINKING'
SO, are YOU a lost cause? Maybe you are at this moment in time, and unless you decide to not be a lost cause, you are heading for the graveyards of lost causes.
BUT, there's another choice - believe in whatever you wanna believe in - (My angel found me a superb parking space in town today, which was really busy, and I didn't think I'd get a space anywhere close) I also believe that if I go to the store tomorrow to buy a chicken, a chicken I will buy, BUT do I understand exactly how that works?? You know li'l chicks born to be reared in one place, then sent on elsewhere, maybe to produce eggs, then eventually reach my supermarket - How does it wok?? HELL, I dunno, but I believe it works because it makes my life much easier, as does having electricity, another concept I have no understanding of, other than if I flick a switch, my lights and heating works!! GOD, now THAT sure does improve my life, I don't need to understand or believe, just ACCEPT and USE.
Cosmic ordering also works, I know cos I try it many times, and it has never let me down yet. There is only ONE THING I really need to truly believe - and that is - I believe that if I don't pick up the first drunk, I cannot get drunk, and if I don't get drunk, life is a lot more worthwhile, for me, for my kids, grandkids, partner, father and everyone else whose path I may cross in life.
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Serenity is Wanting what you have, not having what you want
Always remember non-alcoholic beers are for NON-ALCOHOLICS
