How to Go Back Out

jonijoni1 · MIP Old Timer

How to Go Back Out

Sid · Senior Member

Joni were you at the meeting I went to tonight? I know you weren't, but thought it so interesting that you posted this. We had a couple people having tough times and said they had come real close to going back to drinking. Many of the reasons they gave for this happening are expressed in your list above.

I appreciate you sharing your experience.

Sid

Jerry F · MIP Old Timer

For me it will be just as simple as "Yeah okay, I'll have that." I don't practice
saying yes anymore...simply "No", or "No thankyou" or "No thanks I've had
enough" (Tks Mike S...where ever you are.) smile

SteveP · MIP Old Timer

Yep, based upon my own expert experience on slipping, that sounds like a pretty thorough guide to getting drunk again, Joni. ;)

Steve

Dave Harm · Senior Member

When I am "happily" sober two-thirds of number four aren't part of my equation. For me at least.

When I am at peace I am never lonely... nor ever bored. In fact, earlier today I was sharing with someone that early in my recovery my main goal was to have a boring life. No drama, no excitement... just a smooth road....

With that said, I quit for five and a half years and what you wrote was very true with me...

SoberSteve · MIP Old Timer

Start a new job, start a new relationship, move to a new town, quit going to church... that did it for me..

jonijoni1 · MIP Old Timer

Steve,
what you described sounds like a geographic cure.... meaning that "I am in a new town and am a NEW MAN with a new honey.... and therefore I don't need the same things I needed at first, to stay sober." Good reminder, as I am moving across town soon, and while it is only about 20 blocks away, my brain has a way of making me feel totally "transformed" by such events. What a laugh... I'm an alcoholic on High St. as Mrs. Somers-Phillips, I will be that same alcoholic on 4th St. as Ms. Somers.

Good stuff.
Joni

SoberSteve · MIP Old Timer

Thanks Ms Somers. I did truly feel like new job, new girl, new place, I can go ahead and drink like a normal person. But every time I try I fail. It becomes a obsession and all I want is more and more. I pray to God to help me.

Avril G · Senior Member

Here's probably what kept this alkie going back out - I didn't hear the recovery programme right.

The 12 steps to Insanity

1. We admitted we were powerless over nothing - that we could manage our lives perfectly and those of anyone else who would allow me.

2. Came to believe there was no power greater than ourselves, and the rest of the world was insane.

3. Made a decision to have our loved ones and friends turn their wills and lives over to our care even though they couldn't understand us at all.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of everyone we knew.

5. Admitted to the whole world at large the exact nature of everyone else's wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to make others straighten up and do right.

7. Demanded others to either "shape up or ship out."

8. Made a list of all persons who had harmed us and became willing to go to any length to get even with them all.

9. Got direct revenge on such people wherever possible except when to do so would cost us our own lives or, at the very least, a jail sentence.

10. Continued to take the inventory of others, and when they were wrong, promptly and repeatedly told them about it.

11. Sought through bitching and nagging to improve our relations with others as we couldn't understand them at all, asking only that they knuckle under and do things our way.

12. Having had a complete physical, emotional, spiritual breakdown as the result of these steps, we tried to blame it on others and to get sympathy and pity in all our affairs.

-- Edited by Avril G on Wednesday 21st of April 2010 05:32:56 AM

Larry_H · MIP Old Timer

Great post Avril

I was working that program before coming to AA but did not know it

Larry,
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Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you'd have preferred to talk. ~Doug Larson