I have been in A.A. for a lot of years and have had several 1 to 2 year stretches of sobriety. In the last two years I have experienced the most growth in sobriety that I have ever. Growth defined as learning to act in new ways in spite of my fear, being engaged in meaningful relationships, seeking challenges. A lot of the promises have come to me.
This spring I relapsed. Within a week I had a couple of nights I really regretted, called my sponsor and got back into meetings and steps. Three weeks later I picked up again. For the last two weeks or so I have tried to manage/contain my drinking. I have avoided mortification and extreme hangovers.
However, I am getting very little pleasure out of my drinking and even dislike it a lot of the time, so keep thinking that therefore I will just stop naturally without even trying. I am starting to make commpromises and let down a good friend over the weekend. I know that if I keep messing with this I will lose the promises.
I am going to a meeting shortly with the following section of the Big Book in mind.
If we are planning to stop drinkng, there must be no reservation of any kind, nor any lurking notion that someday we will be immune to alcohol.
What part of the first step are you having trouble with? Which suggestions are you reluctant to follow? Are you significantly engaged in the fellowship? Do you have a circle of AA friends that you do extracicular activities with? Have you tried living with other successfully recovering AAs? Is continuous sobriety something that you want? What triggers are largely responsible for your relapses, relationships? Are you still maintaning relationships with your drinking buddies? Sound to me, like you still want to drink and make it work.
Before I started to work this morning I wanted to share this with you.
A sponsee had some difficulty staying sober for a period of time. At this time he has been in AA for about eleven years. About four years ago he relapsed. For about the first year of his relapse he would stay sober from about thirty to ninety days and then relapse from one to three days. He continued to come to meetings. The second year of his relapse he four one day relapses and kept coming to meetings. After one of the relapses he was really beating himself up for relapsing again. I asked him how many days he had been out drinking in the last year and he replied four days. I pointed out to him that he had been sober for slightly less than 99 per cent of that year. We then estimated that the year before he had about twenty days of relapse with three hundred forty-five days of sobriety. We figured that during that year he had been sober a little less than 95 per cent of that year. He now has about two years of continuous sobriety.
Go to meetings and share your exprerience. You will help other alcoholics to achieve, maintain, or regain their sobriety.
You have helped me today.
Dear God, please keep Nate, me, and whovever else reads this today sober today.
Nate, Thank you for your share today. You helped me. Have you and your sponsor taken a look at what happened this spring? Sounds like the promises were coming true and life got good? Did you continue to work the program during this time to get that daily reprieve from alcohol based on the maintenance of our spiritual condition? Based on what you've wrote, it sounds like you may have taken back your will. You mentioned steps- have you been through them: 1-12? If it were me, I would dive into the entire program with a new attitude and openmindness. Let others(experienced AAer's) guide you for awhile. Most importantly keep coming back!
harm reduction did not work for me. replacing the alcohol with a 12 step program has worked for me so far.... so i keep going to meetings and try to be of service to others.
Hey Nate,welcome...glad to see you back>And what are you going to diffent this time?:) Thanks for reminding me I am always "one bad decision away from devastation" unless I stay in the solution!!!
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Selfishness-self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles.
Hi Nate, Thanks for posting. You have helped keep me sober today because I see that if I don't keep my boat moored I will drift away from sobriety and relapse...maybe all the way downriver.
AA meetings & The 12 Steps are the strongest ropes of my mooring points. The others are daily interactions with my wife and all of my children, daily prayer and meditation, a daily phone call to another sober boat and daily reading/contributing to this board.
That's what I'm doing, because I'm powerless over alcohol and my life has become unmanageable.
Nate, that is a great quote. Perfect. Something I will meditate on tonight.
One thing that my sponsor used to say that I love is that I can't NOT do something (ie not drink), but I can DO something (go to meetings, call my sponsor, read the bb, pray). Somehow that really hit me. Seems so simple, but once I stopped trying to quit (even trying to get/be sober) and I just continually focused on working the steps and AA completely, thoroughly, honestly, then I got and stayed sober.
Thanks everyone for your thoughtful replies and good suggestions. I have started or re-started doing some of the things people have mentioned and will do more too: a.k.a. whatever it takes. I am lucky to have a sponsor who is very grounded in step work and is very consistent. I am availing myself of him.
Have you and your sponsor taken a look at what happened this spring? Sounds like the promises were coming true and life got good? Did you continue to work the program during this time to get that daily reprieve from alcohol based on the maintenance of our spiritual condition? Based on what you've wrote, it sounds like you may have taken back your will.
Mike, yes you are right on I was taking back my will. Falling in the trap of trying to make up for lost time by plunging into activities and acheivements and slacking back on meetings and prayer. This week I am on a simplification kick. Going to meetings etc. but also cutting out non-essential activities that don't aid my recovery.
Nate, I've been there too. I can now look back on my experience and can see it was part of my recovery journey. I needed to go through my relapses to learn sobriety and recovery need to be my priority no matter what. I can never forget what it took to get to where I'm at and need to stay vigilant doing what I do so I don't start going backwards.
Keep moving forward Nate and continue to post your E,S & H.
hi all, Mike, great reply. after my first 8 months of recovery, i took back my own will and listened to my committee and relapsed. i decided i was "cured" immune to alcohol after 8 months of abstinence.... thought i should be able to drink like a normie. it did not work for me because i am an alcoholic who cannot take a first drink without drinking "the whole bottle" of whatever it is. that stinking thinking landed me in jail again. that is what it took for me. my relapse showed me clearer than anything else i had seen or heard that i am destined for incarceration, institutions, or the cemetary if i continue to drink. AA meetings, reading the BB, and working the steps (i am on 8) have been my strength. i have a phone list that i use just to get out of my head and connect with another AA, reassuring myself that i do not have to take a drink today. i have a daily choice of what i will do today and what i will not. self centeredness and self righteousness and not being honest leads to drink for me. they are the character defects that give me permission to drink as much as i wanted to. those are the character defects i pray about every day to become smaller and smaller. i want them removed, but it is up to me to daily change my thought process and grow because of them. our humility grows from our weaknesses to become our strength.
