I've been drinking alcoholically since Spring, 1980 sometime around my 14th birthday. I was fully immersed at my first drunk. I've been in AA since July 6th 2009 and it seems like every 90-120 days or so I get drunk again, each one worse than the last.
I know that I need to work a harder program. I know that I need to look into out-patient treatment. I should get to more meetings.
This topic is about triggers.
So, with my entire teenaged and adult life an essay in drinking, drug abuse and assorted debauchery, it's difficult to nail down my "triggers". It's looking like pretty much everything is a trigger.
I'm feeling kinda lost right now. My sponsor doesn't want to talk to me until I've gone to treatment and between the new baby and the three other kids, she & I haven't had any real time to talk.
I've been drinking alcoholically since Spring, 1980 sometime around my 14th birthday. I was fully immersed at my first drunk. I've been in AA since July 6th 2009 and it seems like every 90-120 days or so I get drunk again, each one worse than the last.
I know that I need to work a harder program. I know that I need to look into out-patient treatment. I should get to more meetings.
This topic is about triggers.
So, with my entire teenaged and adult life an essay in drinking, drug abuse and assorted debauchery, it's difficult to nail down my "triggers". It's looking like pretty much everything is a trigger.
I'm feeling kinda lost right now. My sponsor doesn't want to talk to me until I've gone to treatment and between the new baby and the three other kids, she & I haven't had any real time to talk.
Help? What can I put between me and my triggers?
Rob
Rob,
Your statement "she & I haven't had any real time to talk". Are you talking about your sponsor or your wife? If your sponsor has stopped talking to you until you have gone to treatment you may want to consider another sponsor. Right now is when you need a strong sponsor the most. Time to get back to the basics of the twelve steps. Nothing in the Big Book or the 12 steps talks about triggers.
Get in contact with a sponsor and get back to the basics starting with step one.
My prayers will be with you. I really do care!!
Larry, ------------------- If you dont know where youre going how do you expect to get there ?
Aquaman wrote:What can I put between me and my triggers?
Rob
God
That's It, that's all that works for me, and I'm an atheist/Agnostic
Larry is right, aint nothing in AA about "Triggers", that's something different, that's not AA, you may hear it in the rooms it still aint AA
You are suffering from an illness that only a spiritual experience will conquer, and all the shielding you from your "triggers" in the world won't work
In our belief any scheme of combating alcoholism which proposes to shield the sick man from temptation is doomed to failure. If the alcoholic tries to shield himself he may succeed for a time, but usually winds up with a bigger explosion than ever. We have tried these methods (Trigger lists, avoidance of people, places and things). These attempts to do the impossible have always failed.
I know that I need to work a harder program
IMO there is no such thing as "working a harder program" you either jump in, immerse yourself in this thing with the desperation of a dying man or you don't.
Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point and asked for his protection and care with complete abandon.
I should get to more meetings.
You have, I am sure heard me deride "Don't drink and go to meetings" as a program of recovery, but I have gone for years at a time where I went to meetings every day, including Christmas and Thanksgiving (what I am deriding is leaving the steps out)
They say go to meetings every day until you like going to meetings, I was able to hit a meeting every day, work 16 hours a day, get laid, and still do my step work my first few years, we older now, and you married, but I suspect you could do the daddy thing and still get to a meeting every day AND work the steps
Truly I have only found one thing that works, and it didn't have any shoulda, woulda, coulda in it
There is no try, there is only do, when I got sober this last time I had to drive 2 hours a night twice a week, and four hours a night twice a week, and half an hour once a week to get to meetings, on a suspended license on one road in and out with cops that knew my vehicle, so I know about "going to any lengths"
There is no try, there is only do
In the preceding chapters you have learned something of alcoholism. We hope we have made clear the distinction between the alcoholic and the non-alcoholic. If, when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely, or if when drinking, you have little control over the amount you take, you are probably alcoholic. If that be the case, you may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer.
If a mere code of morals (or a trigger list) or a better philosophy of life were sufficient to overcome alcoholism, many of us would have recovered long ago. But we found that such codes and philosophies (or trigger lists) did not save us, no matter how much we tried. We could wish to be moral, we could wish to be philosophically comforted, in fact, we could will these things with all our might, but the needed power wasn't there. Our human resources, as marshalled by the will, were not sufficient; they failed utterly.
Lack of power, that was our dilemma. we had to find a power by which we could live, and it had to be a Power greater than ourselves. Obviously. But where and how were we to find this Power?
Well, that's exactly what this book is about. Its main object is to enable you to find a Power greater than yourself which will solve your problem. That means we have written a book which we believe to be spiritual as well as moral. And it means, of course, that we are going to talk about God.
God
The steps
I don't understand it, but it works
Why does he behave like this? If hundreds of experiences have shown him that one drink means another debacle with all its attendant suffering and humiliation, why is it he takes that one drink? Why can't he stay on the water wagon? What has become of the common sense and will power that he still sometimes displays with respect to other matters?
Perhaps there never will be a full answer to these questions. Opinions vary considerably as to why the alcoholic reacts differently from normal people. We are not sure why, once a certain point is reached, little can be done for him. We cannot answer the riddle.
We know that while the alcoholic keeps away from drink, as he may do for months or years, he reacts much like other men. We are equally positive that once he takes any alcohol whatever into his system, something happens, both in the bodily and mental sense, which makes it virtually impossible for him to stop. The experience of any alcoholic will abundantly confirm this.
These observations would be academic and pointless if our friend never took the first drink, thereby setting the terrible cycle in motion. Therefore, the main problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind, rather than in his body. If you ask him why he started on that last bender, the chances are he will offer you any one of a hundred alibis. Sometimes these excuses have a certain plausibility, but none of them really makes sense in the light of the havoc an alcoholic's drinking bout creates. They sound like the philosophy of the man who, having a headache, beats himself on the head with a hammer so that he can't feel the ache. If you draw this fallacious reasoning to the attention of an alcoholic, he will laugh it off, or become irritated and refuse to talk.
Once in a while he may tell the truth. And the truth, strange to say, is usually that he has no more idea why he took that first drink than you have. Some drinkers have excuses with which they are satisfied part of the time. But in their hearts they really do not know why they do it. Once this malady has a real hold, they are a baffled lot. There is the obsession that somehow, someday, they will beat the game. But they often suspect they are down for the count.
How true this is, few realize. In a vague way their families and friends sense that these drinkers are abnormal, but everybody hopefully awaits the day when the sufferer will rouse himself from his lethargy and assert his power of will.
The tragic truth is that if the man be a real alcoholic, the happy day may not arrive. He has lost control. At a certain point in the drinking of every alcoholic, he passes into a state where the most powerful desire to stop drinking is of absolutely no avail. This tragic situation has already arrived in practically every case long before it is suspected.
The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Our so called will power becomes practically nonexistent. We are unable, at certain times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink.
The almost certain consequences that follow taking even a glass of beer do not crowd into the mind to deter us. If these thoughts occur, they are hazy and readily supplanted with the old threadbare idea that this time we shall handle ourselves like other people. There is a complete failure of the kind of defense that keeps one from putting his hand on a hot stove.
The alcoholic may say to himself in the most casual way, "It won't burn me this time, so here's how!" Or perhaps he doesn't think at all. How often have some of us begun to drink in this nonchalant way, and after the third or fourth, pounded on the bar and said to ourselves, "For God's sake, how did I ever get started again?" Only to have that thought supplanted by "Well, I'll stop with the sixth drink." Or "What's the use anyhow?"
When this sort of thinking is fully established in an individual with alcoholic tendencies, he has probably placed himself beyond human aid, and unless locked up, may die or to permanently insane. These stark and ugly facts have been confirmed by legions of alcohoholics throughout history. But for the grace of God, there would have been thousands more convincing demonstrations. So many want to stop but cannot.
There is a solution. Almost none of us liked the self- searching, the leveling of our pride, the confession of shortcomings which the process requires for its successful consummation. But we saw that it really worked in others, and we had come to believe in the hopelessness and futility of life as we had been living it. When, therefore, we were approached by those in whom the problem had been solved, there was nothing left for us but to pick up the simple kit of spiritual tools laid at out feet. We have found much of heaven and we have been rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence of which we had not even dreamed.
The great fact is just this, and nothing less: That we have had deep and effective spiritual experiences* which have revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows and toward God's universe. The central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that our Creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous. He has commenced to accomplish those things for us which we could never do by ourselves.
If you are as seriously alcoholic as we were, we believe there is no middle-of-the-road solution. We were in a position where life was becoming impossible, and if we had passed into the region from which there is no return through human aid, we had but two alternatives: One was to go on to the bitter end, blotting out the consciousness of our intolerable situation as best we could; and the other, to accept spiritual help.
Rehab is for people who want to want to stop, who know they should stop but deep down don't really want to, AA works for people who want to stop more then anything else in the world
Only you can decide which category you are in, Rehab has proven to be effective in breaking denial in 1-20 cases, I am oversimplifying some papers I have read by Doctors who work in the field, but what I write is truth, controversial though it may be.
Maybe try a sponsor who will take you through the steps as outlined in the Big Book, who will read the book along with you, or more accurately, make you read it out loud and work each step as you come to it?
If neither your wife nor your sponsor will talk to you that means you should have plenty of time to go to meetings and work the steps, with a sponsor that hasn't given up on you, maybe one that says "do the steps" not "don't drink and go to meetings" and suggests non AA stuff like trigger lists
I am praying for you Rob and will help in any way I can, we can hold the light but you are the one that needs to start digging like Larry says
-- Edited by AGO on Sunday 9th of May 2010 07:21:19 PM
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Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a night, light a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life
Hey Rob, thanks for your honest share.For me it was always God, I could not do it for any length on my own,that is recovery!You see I could stay abstinent but not working spiritual priciples even with God in my liEf(see I also tried to game God,you know ,Let me hit that late daily double i'll tithe top 10%, well just because IM making love to my wife and thinking of my old girlfriend that aint so bad, well maybe if I just sell drugs and have a little glass of wine thats not really using and on and on)Sickness EMBODIED IN MY SPIRIT,Spiritually bankrupt,not drinking but worse than ever,Putting down the drink,the drug just the 1st thing,now I have to address the "exact nature" of what keeps me sick.Triggers,defects,fallen nature,excuses I have them all,Only the God of my understanding can get between me and that..I am a firm believer of service any kind,greeter,GSR ,coffee committees for conventions,speaker jams etc.Keeps me out of my own head,a very dangerous place to be when Im twitching ,even if I havent had a drink of alcohol in 25 years,the disease is always lurking,.Search deep Rob i'll keep you in prayer,this illness kept me hostage almost half of my life,only thru Gods grace and mercy have I been able to free myself"one day at a time"...Good luck man,i'll definitely be praying for you and the babies and all around you who take the brunt of this monster,It is our self will that continually brings us back to the edge,,'MAKE THE DECISION TO TURN IT OVER"
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Selfishness-self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles.
Your sponsor doesn't want to talk to you til you go to treatment? hmmm.... keeping my "peanut gallery" opinion to myself. grab another recovering alcoholic in your support group and let them help you. You certainly need an active sponsor right now, whatever avenue you take to fill that need right now.
The first thing I noticed in reading this post is that you said, "I get drunk every 90-120 days". No. You GOT drunk, at first, every 90-120 days. You are reporting that as a fact, and it is a fact of the past, and dos not have to become today's or tomorrow's fact.
What were you feeling the night you picked up, Rob? You were "coming down" from a whole lot of goings-on in the past month or so. I know I have had times where I was strong as an ox while life was throwing crazy insane things at me. And then........ when it all cooled down..... drunk.
I have been told that I was addicted to chaos, and I create it for myself when things get too "mundane". Makes a hell of a lot of sense to me. Remember, we drank to mourn, to celebrate, to wallow, to enjoy triumphs, and to try to create even more triumphs. Sometimes we drank because we simply felt uneasy. We drank because we were alcoholic. Triggers are there every single day. It is what we do about them, what we do about the thought, that dictates whether or not we do get drunk.
Ask yourself: how long did you entertain the thought before you picked up? Minutes? It only takes minutes, as you know. I have thought of a drink lately, and God help me, I have thus far pushed that thought away IMMEDIATELY. You gotta catch it early, Rob, it is like a virus and once it gets in the proverbial "blood stream" of our thinking, it starts to multiply rapidly. That's when a good quick dose of PHONE CALL kills the virus, until next time.
If I could list the things that "trigger" the thought of using right now for myself, it would be (and maybe you want to make a list too, it can help):
- I am sad as hell. - I just lost my "best friend" (husband, albeit sick, but still..) - I am getting old and now I am all alone - I could get away with it because I live alone now - I could get away with it because I live alone now - I could get away with it because I live alone now - I could get away with it because I live alone now
You know what though? It's not the drink that I really want. It's the ESCAPE. And at times like this is when I need to reveal the TRUTHS about myself, and the truth of the matter, and if I can't come to the truth by myself, then I have to talk to someone right now who will reveal my Truths. MY TRUTHS. That's what this disease and it's recovery are all about. Lies and Truths. Except for sad-part, every one of those things I wrote above are out and out lies. And for all my self-proclaimed brilliance (LOL) I could not come to the Truth without putting the Lies out into the sunlight. It really is that simple Rob.
What are YOUR truths right now? What are you trying to ESCAPE from right now? Alcoholics are always always trying to escape from something that reality has put in our path to deal with.
............
I started writing this earlier, and had to set it aside for a few hours as someone stopped by just before I was going to start getting ready for the meeting tonight. Looking at it now some things I discovered at the meeting make it all make even more sense.
Stop running, Rob. Face Everything And Recover. We can do it, Rob.
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~Your Higher Power has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.
Hey Rob, All good stuff above. Heres the thing for me; keep it simple. I would get a new sponsor PRONTO! There was no inpatient treatment in the early days of the program. If you want to go, do it. However, you were doing pretty well in the program and if you do not want to be away from the fam at this critical time, nicely tell your old sponsor to kiss your "a"" and get a new one. Keep it simple. You were a hard core drunk up till July 0f 09! It sounds like you were pretty good at being a drunkard like the rest of us. Your life was filled with deciet, debauchery, and darkness (thats the short list) If you prescribe to the program, (and I know you do) you know there is an evil force out there that YOU are powerless over. Your ingrained habits are still in your brain. Thats what you are calling a trigger. (Disclaimer: I am not a Doctor, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night) Your years of bad habits are going to take time. They will diminish. They never go away entirely BUT they get 99.2% better and they give you what AA promises: A REASONABLE chance at happiness verses a life of sloth. Some new challenges are on your plate. With AA you will meet them with dignity. Without AA you will just become another drifting "victim" that turns your family onto its own possible path to some form of "victimhood". I am not the "Sorting Hat"" from Harry Potter so I can not claim to look into your brain, but from the last years worth of posts you have made I see:
Sorting Hat: Hmm, difficult. VERY difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind, either. There's talent, oh yes. And a thirst to prove yourself. But where to put you? Aquaman: Not Slytherin. Not Slytherin. Sorting Hat: Not Slytherin, eh? Are you sure? You could be great, you know. It's all here in your head. And Slytherin will help you on the way to great drunkeness, there's no doubt about that. No? Aquaman: Please, please. Anything but Slytherin, anything but Slytherin. Sorting Hat: Well if you're sure, better be... GRYFFINDOR!
Uh...Kind of the same, only make Slythern=Alcoholic and make Gryffindor=a life living in the light through AA and your HP. You know, the old good verses bad thing. Honestly you may need a new sponsor if you are being abandoned at this time. Lets go ahead and drop the whole suicide thing because I have looked into your mind and I see great things and leaving your family behind is not an option. If you really think it is, seek help, but I think we all have dark thoughts at dark times. It is something that drunks say a lot when drunk to seek attention and get sympathy and then regret saying when sober. Honestly Rob, you have a lot on the ball and you simply need to keep it simple, rest, pursue the program, pray and get more in touch with your HP. That relationship grows with time and effort. Hang in there my friend! Hugs (in kind of a NFL way pretty much followed with a manly backslap and a fist bump for good measure.) Tom
-- Edited by turninggrey on Monday 10th of May 2010 09:18:52 PM
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"You're in the right place. That's the door right there. Turn around."
Um, I used to believe in triggers, upto about 4 minutes ago. Triggers are just deep, ingrained ways, looking for excuses.
the thought of drinking alcohol is not with me today. It wasn't there yesterday, it hasn't been there for a while. It might come back tomorrow.
Escapism. That what boozing does, you escape from your up front issues for a bit. But the problems stay. 'Normal' drinkers know this. They have a temporary respite, give their head a holiday, then come back and deal with it.
Me, I used to believe that if I got a holiday for my head, then when I came back someone else will have solved all teh problems for me. In the end, I woke up to the problems again and again and again.
So is the question not what do I put between me and my triggers, but how do I change my deep ingrained way of (not) handling life.
Fuck Everything And Run? or Face Everything And Recover?
If i run, I take everything with me, including myself and my old ingrained ways. If I face everything, I have to do things diffrerently. I have to try to be calm, to accept that things don't follow my script, that 95% of what i worry about won't ever happen, that things don't happen in my time and that the only power I can rely on is a power greater than myself.
So, I need to slow down. I need to put sobriety first. If I need to walk away, calmly, from a situation where the temptation may be too great, I have to have the balls to walk away, before I get to the point where I have to storm off. If i have to drop to my knees and give my higher power 20, then I have to do just that> I have to keep gratitude in my life. I have to see the others point of view, allow them to have that point of view and keep my opinions to myself when it matters.
Sponsor - not a petulant bugger who won't talk to you until after you've had rehab, but one who believes you do the steps to get well, not one who seems to want you to get well to do the steps.
Steps - I had to stop analysing and arguing and just accept that these steps have worked for thousands of others so they will work for me
Service - do for others just for the sake of it, but don't over do.
Higher power - a power greater than I and by implication, greater than the bottle. Not necessarily the highest power, just one that I can relate to, that I understand however imperfectly, one that will help me to see the insanity of my old ingrained ways and help to keep me motivated to continue moving forwards, by the millimetre if necessary
Fellowship - people who will love you until you can love yourself, and love you for who you are not who you portray yourself to be and who you can learn to love as they love you.
Truth - I'm willing to hear the truth, even when I don't like it. I tell myself the truth. I truly want to stay sober and enable the changes that keep me moving forward a day at a time. I do not want to drink alcohol today. I do not want to screw up my life and the life of others for the sake of a nice tasting, gives you a wee buzz, drink. I developed a desire to stop drinking, which has grown into a desire to stay stopped. Do you want to stop drinking? Do you then want to stay stopped? Are you willing to change? Will you go to any lenghts?
Measure - I measure me. I try not to measure anyone else. It makes it easier for me to live with other people's opinions of me if I believe that I don't have to measure up to what others say are the measures.
the above are but my opinions. they are worth exactly what you paid for them.
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It's not having what you want, it's wanting what you got. BB
Your statement "she & I haven't had any real time to talk". Are you talking about your sponsor or your wife? If your sponsor has stopped talking to you until you have gone to treatment you may want to consider another sponsor. Right now is when you need a strong sponsor the most. Time to get back to the basics of the twelve steps. Nothing in the Big Book or the 12 steps talks about triggers.
Get in contact with a sponsor and get back to the basics starting with step one.
My prayers will be with you. I really do care!!
Larry,
^^^^^^ What Larry said. It's time for a new sponsor, this one's not working out for you to well anyway, not that He/she? is responsable for your drinking. I don't recommend having a sponsor of the opposite sex, if that's what your post was saying.
You said something about "getting to more meetings". I'm taking that as you don't attend meetings daily. I can't express how important it is to go to daily meetings in the first 6 months to a year, especially when a member has had relapses. You know my story, 2 years of going in and out about every (just under) 90 days. When I go sick of picking up white chips (have you picked up another one yet?) I decided to go to a meeting every day (without fail) until I got my year medalion. I wound up going daily for the first 3.5 years, because I was afraid of losing what I had and didn't really feel comfortable and solid with my program untill then. I took that long to (what my sponsor would call) "Build my sober identity", which involved letting go of my old ideas absolutely (pretty much all of them) and creating a new sober mature, sensible person. It's still happening, I'm still learning. I started drinking at 8 years old, smoking cigs at the same time. I started smoking pot at 11, lsd at 13, coke at 15 and so on. When I got sober at 29, I was still somewhere between 8 and 15 years old emotionally. I've aged (emotionally) about a year for every year sober, so I'm somewhere between 28-35 now (as a 50 year old). In a lot of ways this is a good thing, because I don't feel old and I'm very active. Sometimes a little too active for my age and I injure myself, but that's another story.
Make this your #1 priority Rob, or (after you lose everything, family etc...) it Will be your only priority. Get busy, get a kick ass Male sponsor and work your ass off in this program every day.
On you Topic of "Triggers" , I believe that word was sort of coined by Terrance Gorsky in his Book, "Relapse Prevention" Dean is the one that knows the correct name of the book, I am close but not completely accuate. Also Dean knows the names of some other Books, the John Bradshaw Books, the one I know about is "On the Family" that book is about the entire family dynamic of having an alcoholic in Recovery, and before Recovery. Both excellent reads, and your big question of the 'Triggers" you might really get a lot out of the Gorski book. (just my little opinion)
In your last Post you talked a lot about feeling sort of abandoned my your wife, because of your new baby River Rose.
You have talked many times about your Sponsor, the man from the other Radio Station, right...I am just confused as to what his statement was really about. Was he really firm about not speaking to you.."until"xxxxxx......well if your families needs and you worries over you job that you also talked about, would prevent you from doing this because of financial and family needs, how about looking into an evening out patient Program....
Also, unless you are out of town, you have your week day noon meetings,Monday thru Friday, perhaps a week end meeting, Sat. and Sunday, just to keep the flow going in a continueos way.
I agree with Joni's thoughts on it is not the Crisis, that will set off in every human being a ton of adrelaine, but it is in the coming down of that powerful "Fight or Flight" scenario, where I feel we are in more of a "risk" factor, as we have been drained of too much adreniline, and just have to wait til our bodies re- adjust......
Rob, I am sort of confessing something, after I have gone through some of "More that I can handle" moments, I will wake up in the middle of the night, and romanticize, "well, if I were to end this now Sober, who would care?".....then when going back to bed after only getting up to go pee, sorry, but it is what it is, anyway, as I lay my head back on my pillow, I say silently to God, So very Sorry God, dont know where that came from.....we are very simply powerless over our first thoughts, and personally feel just for myself, that would be one way to fall so fast out of God's Goodness and Grace, would be to consciously really entertain that thought - ever.....This Program is about learning daily to turn our Will over to God's Will at all times, not just pick and choose when.
"A very permanent solution to a temporary Problem" is my very favorite.
That's all I got for today, you have been doing so well my brother, and you will continue to do well, I believe that with all my heart...
Love and Hugs, Toni....today is a New Day Rob.....dont forget to .......
Rob, literally smiled to open up the site and see you posting here again pronto, buddy. Soooo glad that you've jumped right back into the saddle.
And I certainly agree with what others have said, time for a new sponsor. My sponsor always says to me that to keep his life, with his 29 years in, he needs to make *AA* his number 1 priority. I don't see just being told to call back after rehab making AA, number 1 priority. AA works, we know it does.
Ya'll are the best! I wish I could toss you ALL a bag of peanut M&M's...but I'm back on a self-imposed "no-cash" restriction. With cigarettes 18 days behind me, it's a lot easier now to keep just my meeting bucks on me.
I signed up for Intensive-Out-Patient. 9 hours a week, starts tonight. Told my boss I need to get off work 1:15 early 3x/week and she said "I love you Rob. Just do something to make it LOOK like you're making that time up somewhere...so Mom & Dad don't think you'rte getting away with anything."
My Sponsor & I talked. I asked him if his hard-line stand was for me as a specific case or an Old School thing and he said "No. It's a 'my-mom-is-dying-thing' and I was wrong to give you an ultimatum like that. If you want to fire me, fire me, but I'd rather you not. I took my shit out on you because you were drunk and I had The Old Black Bird on my shoulder looking for a way in. I'm sorry, buddy" (these quotes aren't exact...but pretty close).
I did not 'fess up in meeting today. I didn't want to smell X's hairspray, look Y in his rheumy old eyes, or get tangled up in Z's oxygen hose during the hug-fest.
I like (((((((((((((((((((((((((((((these))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))) from ya'll a lot better.
So, back to square one. 9 hours of therapy and 6 meetings a week. Gotta talk to God a lot more, too. Listen, too, s'pose.
I'll make a point of putting SOMETHING on this board everyday.
Ya'll are the best batch of friends I've never met and i only hope that I can be of help to ya'll, as well.
We do, or I do, I care very very much, I like you and like what you have to say, and look forward to hear about you being a great husband and father to that family of yours, they are depending on you, River is depending on her daddy, I pray she never sees her daddy drunk and she lives to be 100
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Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a night, light a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life
i believe in triggers but i believe that i can overcome them now, when i am angry i dont feel the need to drink anymore it doesnt even come into my thoughts.....i think i had such a wake up call and caught this early enough to stop it in its tracks. i work in a bar and i see drunk people and it actually helps me not want to drink.....i dont want to be that drunk at the bar or at a party. i wanna be myself....for the first time in 5 years i can say that! i just wanna say goodbye "drunk cait", you will not be missed. and to everyone that is having trouble with their triggers just think back how well that situation worked out when you drank last time.....you want to be sober to get through your triggers so you will remember next time how to truely get through them.
I would put a higher power between yourself and your triggers. God is what you make it to be. I sense rob, that you are like me and a religious "christian conversion" is not going to do it for you. No amount of wishing is going to make you believe in a god that you never did to begin with. Time sober will allow you the perspective to see miracles where you could not before and then you may start to believe in a more personal "God." For now, the program and taking action are more important than anything.
This is AA not Jimmy Swaggart's walk up to the stage, get smacked on the head with God's healing powers and be cured.
I am glad that works for some, but people repeatedly suggesting THEIR God to me without even asking what my HP is...that is fruitless.
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
and I see great things and leaving your family behind is not an option. If you really think it is, seek help, but I think we all have dark thoughts at dark times. It is something that drunks say a lot when drunk to seek attention and get sympathy and then regret saying when sober. 
