I dunno what's going on with me. If I'm still feeling like this tomorrow night, I'll call one of the ladies from my meetings. I think I'm just in a funk or something. I'm going to immerse myself in a fantasy novel and curl up on the couch with my boyfriend, who knows what's going on.

I guess I should only watch comedies when I'm feeling like this. Casualties of War is a good movie, I guess, but it had me all teary-eyed. I'm being such a girl. Ha.

Ahahahaha, you just made me laugh. Thanks for that. I would say I'm hormonal, but it's not the right time for that. God help me when it IS, and I'm still such a newb to this.

AmyWillWin wrote:

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Tonight sucks, and I certainly need to get rid of this tough-girl pride that makes me balk at the thought of calling someone from my little card from my first meeting tonight and just face up to the fact that the Lone Soldier approach hasn't worked for me in the past when I was drinking and trying to deal with my traumatic past, so it's not going to work for me now when I'm at peace more or less with said past and trying to deal with LIVING in the now.

I am sober today. I'll wake up and work on being sober today tomorrow, too.

---

Some of THE most important suggestions I listened to was "practice calling people" "call someone every day" then when the s*** hit the fan I was comfortable reaching out

we are always happy to hear from newcomers

in my experience it is INCREDIBLY important, the phone has saved my butt on countless occasions

We give out our phone numbers because we WANT newcomers to call, it's how we get out of self

 

LB hit it right on. I wouldn't give out my # if I didn't want them calling. I value the talks I have with those who call, whether it's a cry for help or just a BS session. Nothing gets me out of my head like working with another alcoholic. Why wait Amy? Pick up the phone and call someone. It's been my experience that the person you get a hold of will be the exact person your supposed to be talking to. It happens to me every time I make a call. Seems like God knows who needs to connect and when it should happen. Like you said, you DON'T have to go through this alone.

K.....

I am the same way about calling.  I call my sponsor now, after a year of practice.  I call the gals for various reasons.  Now that sometimes others call me I have to agree with the above-know that a newcomer can actually help someone else just by calling them and allowing them to share their experience, strength and hope.  Get into the habit of it.  Never know when a phone call is the saving grace.  If several don't answer, keep trying because the right one, is the one who will answer.

Hang in Amy,it really does get better.................We ,can do this together,a day at a time!!! I always found getting out of my head and helping someone else,somehow ,anyway .always helped me..  (((((amy)))))

Aloha Amy...I remember "trying by myself" and putting off the suggestions - calling
for help and having that make the problem even bigger.  I was told that when I stay
within myself I am staying within the problem and that was sooo right.   I despised
being sick and so I went after the fellowship like a man hanging on the edge of a
cliff with one remaining hand hold.   Call immediately because often times the assumption
that the alcoholic can hang on for a number of hours isn't the same assumption as
the supplier.  I just had a sponsee relapse...didn't call me for a week had received
at chip the week before and was using and drinking for the entire month.   The
disease wins when we attempt resistance alone without any power ourside of ourselves
to rely on.

Make the call.   ((((hugs))))

I am very active usually, in fact I have an orange belt in Kempo karate and jiu jitsu but I dropped out of it a year ago when I got laid off from my job. I came back (job) in the late spring so I am looking to resume my previous level of fitness...and beyond, since I won't have all those empty poison calories to burn off from the booze.

I think it's safe to say I'm done with withdrawl, I haven't had a drink in a week now.

@ everyone: I looked over my numbers today and rest assured if I'm feeling wiggy tonight I'll call somebody. I'm feeling pretty fantastic right now (oh you lovely emotional rollercoaster, sobriety!) but that could change later. Even so, I AM going to my women's meeting tomorrow night and I'm looking forward to seeing all those ladies who were so wonderful to me a week ago @ my first meeting.

Thank you thank you thank you for all the helpful thoughts and advice. I love the meetings, but seriously, having you guys is like a 24/7 online meeting for me...it really makes me oh so much more peaceful when I'm flipping out. xoxox

Hey Amy.

Early on, I was terrified of getting numbers and even more terrified of calling folks. I thought that I'd feel like a tool.

Finally, it got to the stage where I HAD to do it. It was that or hop onto a bar stool. I'd tried the latter, and that hadn't worked out very well for me.

And when I did it, it was painless. AND it worked. I didn't drink.

Now I find that even if it's just something like "hi there, how you doing" it's still hugely powerful.

I've been dealing with a ton of challenges at work, home, everywhere. Bigger pressure and uncertainty than I've ever had before. Who knows where they'll take me.

Though today I don't have the obsession to drink anymore (thanks HP), I still find that working the phones with other sober alkies does wonders for my head.

Even if it's like my conversations today, which was reminding our coffee guy that he needs to bring more tea bags for the next meeting but doesn't need to bring milk and phoning a few more folks to try and get them agree to speak at upcoming meetings (no luck on that ;) ). It just works.

Suffice to say, the power of one of sober alcoholic talking to another is incredible.

Keep coming back!

Steve

AmyWillWin wrote:

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Just going to AA and admitting I needed help was HUGE for me. I've been an island to myself since I was four growing up as the adult with two drunken drug-using parents, so asking for help is akin to panhandling in the street to me: completely foreign. I'm getting there. I SO need a sponsor, but I am too...afraid to ask. Aren't I a piece of work? Instead, I tell my boyfriend, who is loving and supportive but doesn't really understand what I'm struggling with...and get online and tell someone who is probably half a world away. Still, I feel quite a bit better for having done so.

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I would like to reiterate what Paul said

This is a "One Day at a Time" program, among other things that means what have you done TODAY for your sobriety

Just going to AA and admitting I needed help was HUGE for me.

Congratulations, well done but I have to ask

What did you do TODAY for your sobriety

yesterdays actions and yesterdays spiritual experience don't keep us sober today So I leave you with what I feel is the most pertinant response in this entire thread

paul86 wrote:

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Sounds like it might be time to really get into this program. Hit 90 meetings in 90 days, get in the routine of going to meetings regularly. Get a sponsor and start writing the steps. Make friends with people in recovery and try to be around them when you're feeling messed up. Early recovery can be tough there's no doubt about it but you can make it through with calling people and telling them when you're feeling messed up, crash at a sober/clean persons house if it means you're gonna stay sober another night.

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(((hugs))) by the way, hope your day is well and you have another day of sobriety under your belt

 

Hi Amy, and Welcome to Miracles In Progress!!

  My name is John, and at one time I had a sponsor named John.  We ended up drinking together sitting on one bar stool. 

Part of the problem was that having lived such a high impact, adrinaline pumping, crisis crazy life - that in early recovery we had confused peace and serenity with boredom.  Simply because thats what it felt like early on.  Where's the excitement???  No darn fires to put out today???  Oh crap, I forgot to start one!!  No sirens escorting me around town, that let me feel like a celebrity, being chased by the Paparazzi so they could get one more darn mug shot of the infamous alkie!  There wasn't even any bruises or scapes any where on my body that I could sit and ponder about as to where or when I got them any more!!  How boring!!  People around me didn't have the digusted look on their faces anymore that I had become accustomed to seeing from them, and that I had spent years trying to manipulate by earning "good boy" points, like on a video game, to change their facial expressions! 

Peace and Serenity felt like a heart beat monitor I was hooked up to at that AA hospital that suddenly went flat lined...
------beep--------beep------beep-----beep-------

It wasn't comfortable in the beginning.  I had to learn how to value the peace and serenity, to live in it comfortably.

My mind raced...what the heck do these people do for FUN????  Where do they get their heart beat from now, with no drama, no conflict, no crisis???  They have got to be full of crap... content with a of being darn meeting makers, that spend any extra time they have helping someone else???   Oh gawh, what have I been condemned to because of my wicked ways??

Then one day with the help someone who had sat on a different bar stool at a different time, in a different place sat down with me before after meeting.  He shared his story with me some, and it sounded a lot like mine, he talked about feeling bored in early recovery, how he had imagined his life being a series of days of getting up, saying a prayer, getting ready for work, going to work, coming home, eating, going to a meeting, going home, watching some tv, going to bed, and the next day doing the same boring stuff all over again... and again, and again,... for the rest of his life.  Then he smiled, his eyes lit up and he shared with me about a race car he was building, that he was engaged to be married in a few months, that he had spent part of the summer with his son taking surfing classes at a distant beach, that his dog didn't grawl at him any more, but laid its head in his lap every chance it could.  He shared about being available to his mother when she needed some help around her house, that his boss had given him a promotion and a rise, that his phone rang all the time, and he could actually answer it because it wasn't bill collectors any more, it was people that trusted and respected him, had befriended him and was just calling to say a simple "hello".

He painted a picture of a life so full, so rich, so colorful, so exciting that I wanted it for myself.  I didn't want to keep doing the "ism" of alcoholism (i.s.m....I Sabotage Myself.)
I immediately fired my sponsor named John, who really wasn't all I had made him up to be, and who only had one sponsee also named John, who was a freakin' idiot for having let John sponsor him for so long...

And I asked this man with the smile on his face, and a light in his eyes if he would sponsor me.  He said he would but I had to keep in mind that if I truly wanted what he had, I had to be willing to do what he did.

He patted me on the back and said, "let's go in this meeting and find out what other people are doing today to live sober and happy at the same time".

That was over 20 years ago, and today my life is full of excitement, colorful and rich.  So far from boring, but full of peace and serentiy.

John