I've been drinking since 18 and I'm now 47. Beer is my drink of choice, never had a taste for the hard stuff. Beer after work has always helped me wind down and calm my nerves. Sometimes 3 or 4, sometimes 6 or 8 or maybe 10 or 12 on a weekend evening. I don't drink and drive or frequent bars. If I drink at a resteraunt, I have my wife drive home. I attended my first meeting Friday which turned out to be a dud, maybe 6 people there to get court papers signed and it was over in 20 minutes. My brother, a recovering addict and AA member told me to find another meeting, so I did last night. That meeting was very good but I still came home and chugged 4 beers then went to bed after being sober for 2 days. Now I feel guilty for cheating on myself. I am going to keep going to this group for support. I bought the Big Book yesterday and am just staring to read it. Sorry to ramble, I just need all the support I can get.
If you really want to quit and you really want to make a tremendous change in your life, just keep coming back. Early sobriety is scary, but it is so worth it to stay on the path.
Read the first 164 pages, go to a meeting daily if you can, and get a sponsor.
We all have different drinking patterns. I can only assume that you've tried on your own to quit or to cut down but were unable to do it. I also assume that in spite of your description of your drinking, it is causing you some kind of problem--most people don't just get up one day and decide to go to an AA meeting out of idle curiosity.
It's good that you have a brother in recovery to help get you steered in the right direction. Every meeting is different, and you're right--a small meeting with a bunch of court-ordered attendees isn't where you are likely to hear anything that will grab you.
Read the book, go to some more meetings, and see whether you can identify with the feelings described.
Incidentally, you would do well to get the beer out of your house if you are serious about this. How badly do you want to quit drinking?
Your story sounds like mine (only beer for last 6 or 7 years). Sounds like you've qualified yourself as an alcoholic and have made the decision to quit and be sober. If that's the case, it will take some doing. Most of the long term sober folks you will meet in meetings or on this site followed the suggestion of going to 90 meetings in 90 days. It's crucial to make it to 90 days of continuous sobriety and the best way is to go to a meeting a day preferably during the time that you'd be drinking. I liked 5:30 pm meetings during the week, as I'd go to them right after work (when I'd usually begin drinking). This knocked me off my routine of starting my daily drinking and replaced it with a good habit. You can find good meetings by calling your local AA intergoup office (google for it or look in the phone book under AA). These phones are manned by recovering folks that can tell whatever you need to know. Ask them where good beginner's meetings are, good speaker meetings (generally there at churches on friday or satureday eves.), where good 12 & 12 step meetings are, and also look for AA clubs. You can attend a lot meetings there and get to know people more quickly. It's important to raise your hand at every meeting, for the first 90 days, when the chairperson asks "who is new to the program". This will prompt member to introduce themselves to you and offer you phone numbers to call them for help when you are tempted to drink. At the end of our meetings, the chair person asks who the members of that group are, to raise their hands and also those that are available to "sponsor" people. It would be good to ask one of these folks to be your temporary sponsor, to guide you through your first 90 days and get you going on working the 12 steps. These often turn into long term sponsors and friends to an extent. You need to make getting sober you're number 1 priority and schedule your meetings in daily planner and schedule the rest of your life around going to meetings. When they say "It works if you work it" this is what they are talking about.
Our stories are similar -- beer was always my drink of choice. I was drinking daily since 19 and I'm 48 now.
As StPeteDean said, 90 in 90 gives you a good basis for starting your sober life. Get a sponsor and start working with him.
Most of all keep coming and keep an open mind. I'm sober 6 months next week and it's been the best 6 months of my adult life and I mean that sincerely.
Don't get discoraged, it's hard work but the rewards are more than you can imagine.
That meeting was very good but I still came home and chugged 4 beers then went to bed after being sober for 2 days.
(((Stratman)))
In my experience that is not unusual. Like has been said, please don't let that discourage you. I remember telling a friend who dropped me off at my first few meetings that AA said "it was important I taper off my drinking.....very important....so I need to go to that off liscence please to get some alcohol.......NOW" !!!!
I now sit here a day at a time with 8 years sobriety. I did NOT get sober instantly- there were many tries.......but here I am !
So please don't get discouraged. I am an alcoholic, left to my own devices my inner default setting is/was to drink. (I tend to keep a beginners mind as that is what works for me) It is only through the program of recovery of AA that I sit here now.......with a peace and joy I could never have imagined.
It is not until being sober for a while that I realized exactly how obsessed I was with alcohol. The fact that you went to a meeting and drank right afterwards is not that unusual. At first, I wondered what good meetings were when they just made me think about alcohol more. Yah...that is cuz I was obsessed with alcohol. Anyhow, being sober is truly like being let out of jail and suddenly having choices to do a variety of different things with my time and my money. I hope you give this a try, follow suggestions, and that you want it bad enough to do whatever is necessary to stop drinking. If you try half-heartedly, it won't work. We are here for you.
Mark
__________________
Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
Thanks to all for the support and well wishes. Some background: I've never been arrested, beat my wife or kids, verbally abused them, have a very good job, nice home, pay all my bills on time, etc etc. My son brought up my drinking too much in an argument the other night out of the blue, and also lashed out at my wife (who drinks very little). He then contacted my brother (recovering addict/alchoholic) and basically told him I was a hopeless drunk and that is where all of this started. Now (my son) is trying to pit my other two kids against me and I have always been there for him/them emotionally and finacially. Maybe he needs some couseling in his own life? So anyway, I decided to take this step for the sake of the family and my own health.
Thanks again all for the support!
-- Edited by Stratman on Sunday 15th of August 2010 10:49:41 AM
Thanks to all for the support and well wishes. Some background: I've never been arrested, beat my wife or kids, verbally abused them, have a very good job, nice home, pay all my bills on time, etc etc. My son brought up my drinking too much in an argument the other night out of the blue, and also lashed out at my wife (who drinks very little). He then contacted my brother (recovering addict/alchoholic) and basically told him I was a hopeless drunk and that is where all of this started. Now (my son) is trying to pit my other two kids against me and I have always been there for him/them emotionally and finacially. Maybe he needs some couseling in his own life? So anyway, I decided to take this step for the sake of the family and my own health.
Thanks again all for the support!
-- Edited by Stratman on Sunday 15th of August 2010 10:49:41 AM
Welcome to MIP Stratman. I can relate to most of what you have to share. I had the good job, nice house, 2 cars in the driveway, and love and support of my family and friends. That was 6 years ago when I went to my very first AA meeting (it took me 5 years in and out of the rooms to finally "get it"). I shared all this, and felt good about myself for not being as "bad off" as most of the others in the room. After the meeting an old timer came up to me and thanked me for sharing. He then proceeded to tell me if I kept drinking the way I was going, I would come to understand what the word "YET" in recovery meant. I kept drinking and learned that "YET" simply meant "Your Entitled To." Yup, I was entitled to...to lose everything I thought I could never lose. Numerous jobs, cars and trucks, my house, allot of my family and friends, and most importantly I lost Brian. See what I didn't understand was that I could get off the "elevator ride to the bottom floor" any time. I didn't. I rode that wretched thing all the way down to hell, where I spent all my days and nights wishing for the end.
Thanks to the God of my (somewhat limited) understanding, the end came in the form of complete and total surrender to the fact that I could never take another drink again. With Gods help, and the fellowship of alcoholics anonymous, I haven't had to drink today, and have managed to put a few days between today and my last drunk. There is NO part of my life or who I am that AA has not profoundly changed. Today I am the man I've always wanted to be, and the person that God intended for me to be. My day's are sometimes filled with pure bliss, and others almost un-bearable depression, hurt, and pain, just the way it was meant to be. I now understand a little better what it feels like to be a human being in an imperfect world. It feels pretty good, even through the hard times. I'm not the center of the universe anymore, thank God for that!
All I have to worry about today is me, and what changes I have to make to keep enjoying life on life's terms. I can't change anyone or anything, but I can (with the help of God) change Brian. That's why I attend AA today. Not to quit drinking, I've done that already. AA helps me learn how to live life as a sober, responsible member of society, and do it the best I can. It's a very simple program for people that make most things difficult as hell. I simply don't drink. I go to meetings, have a sponsor, work the steps, and try to practice the principles laid out in the 12 steps in all my life. I work with others who want sobriety, and try to give back the gift that was so freely given to me. You will find friends who probably know you better than you know yourself right now in the rooms of AA. You will find support and un-conditional love there as well. Most importantly, if you follow the simple program set before you, you may find yourself once more.
Stratman, as noble as it sounds, you can't do it just for your family. I mean, if you're really an alcoholic it going to come down to staying sober to stay alive, out of jail, or to keep from losing your mind. If those are of no concern (or not a problem), it will be harder for you as you haven't experienced much more than perceived loss of respect from your son. As Lexie pointed out above. How do you feel about alcohol? We've heard that you're a regular drinker, we've heard that you've got a lot going for you and that you haven't lost anything, we've heard how you're trying to save face with regards to your immediate family and your brother. What we haven't heard is how you can't stop drinking once you've started and that you loose control when you drink, and you think about drinking a lot when you're not drinking and/or obsess about having enough beer to tide you over at any given time. No disrespect toward your family, but getting sober is a personal matter and we call this a selfish program, mostly because we're here to save our own @$$. And that's kinda what we want to hear from you. What's in it for you?
Welcome, Stratman. Boy, do I identify with you. When I first came to A.A., I had a particular picture in my mind of what it meant to be an alcoholic, and none of it matched. I came to A.A. to get my parents off my back (I was 24 at the time). But, even though I did not feel I had "hit bottom" as others I heard at meetings did, I stayed and I listened, and I stopped drinking and using a day at a time. In a fairly short time freed from alcohol and drugs, I began to "identify" with the stories I heard in A.A., mainly the feelings being shared. I came to understand that it really didn't matter what my "bottom" was; that I could make where I was my bottom. I also had a very powerful experience with what someone else called the "YETs". A speaker at an A.A. meeting shared her story and it was absolutely identical to mine, except I was 24 and she had gone on drinking into her 40s. But, up until her mid-twenties she had been drinking and experiencing life pretty much like me (no arrests, no violence, good education, etc.). But, since she continued drinking another 20 years, she got to experience the arrests, the violence, the loss of jobs and family. Suddenly, the "light came on," and I understood what people had been saying about the "YETs."
In the old days, A.A. used to believe that if one came into a meeting with a wristwatch, one was unlikely to stay sober because everything had not been lost. Fortunately, that changed as time went on, and A.A.s discovered that if they shared with these newer, "higher bottom" drinkers what happened to them, many of those with higher bottoms could identify and be spared the experience of a low bottom.
Please keep going to the meetings, and try to listen for the similarities in stories and feelings, rather than the differences. If it turns out that you are in fact an alcoholic, you will have saved yourself much pain by getting help and stopping drinking now.
Stratman, there are many long term members of AA who started out just like you... by going to meetings and going home and drinking and feeling guilty. The meetings wreck your drinking... Keep coming back! You'll get it.
