I was just curious. Please share if your comfortable. I am going on 5 days now,but even though I know we only have today (24 hrs) its still inspirational to me to hear others lengths. Thanks
__________________
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.
Thought I would mention that I went to my first AA meeting this past March, but before I did that I started coming to this forum. I'll also mention that one of the first people to welcome me here was YOU.
I remember that because you had just a bit more sober time than me, so I felt you could probably really relate to the experience I was having being as you had so recently been at the same point in your sobriety. You offered some suggestions that I found helpful and it appeared you were working the program of AA and by doing so staying sober and experiencing positives in your life.
One of your suggestions was to hit 90 meetings in 90 days. I pretty much did that, along with another suggestion I had heard, to not pick up a drink between meetings. When I went to that first meeting I was truly miserable, but I committed to doing the above suggestions and see if it was true as I had been told, that my misery would begin to ease. Those first couple months I kept things real simple, I put sobriety in the #1 slot, vowed not to drink just for today when I awoke, went to work, went to a meeting, read a bit from the big book and gave thanks for another day sober before going to bed. I also said the serenity pray often.
I also tried not to think much about the past or worry about the future. My experience was that during those first couple months the fog lifted and the misery was fading away. I also started getting to know and make friends with a great group of people. And it has just gotten better and better since.
In any event, I just wanted you to know that when I was first getting started in sobriety you were one of the people who had something I wanted. I know there are many around here who have something you want and you can, that I have no doubt. I'm older than you, but feel I have plenty of good years ahead of me if I take the time now and follow the suggestions necessary to firmly establish a way of living that doesn't include alcohol. Other stuff will wait.
Congratulations on the sober days and keep the committment to yourself to get the next 24 hours.
Thanks as well for the contribution you've had in helping to keep this drunk sober.
-- Edited by Sid on Saturday 22nd of January 2011 11:50:11 PM
Congrats to all, welcome Mandarr, I was hoping some new people would register and respond to this..keep coming back, you can do it, Aquaman, I am so proud of you, love reading your posts and Sid, Im speechless, I remember when you first came, to think I had some impact on your sobriety, Im just smiling, humble and beyond words.. :)
-- Edited by SoberSteve on Sunday 23rd of January 2011 12:46:25 AM
__________________
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.
Wow Rob, thats almost as long as I been alive, to think you did a lifetime sober, thats amazing!!! I cant even comprehend that.... you are amazing!
Thanks Steve, but I'm not amazing, just grateful God saw to it that I finally would drink myself into a state of reasonableness. The AA steps, program, God, and the hundreds of people God put in my path along the way are amazing.
__________________
Rob
"There ain't no Coupe DeVille hiding in the bottom of a Cracker Jack Box."
19 months. Not sure if it's a good technique or not, but pride in my sobriety length does seem to contribute to my motivation. I want to be looked up to as somebody dependable and I need durable sobriety for that.
__________________
Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God that which is God's.
Well, I have 2 days. I've been at it since Nov. of 2009. By now I "should" have over a year. I got up to 79 days first time and relapsed. I now have a sponser who has 9 years in. She's very good for me. Not afraid to scold me when I need it. Thankfully she did that 2 nights ago and told me to get my a-- to a meeting. Reluctantly, I got dressed and went off in the bitter cold at 5:00 P.M. I'd planned to sit by the fire and read. She reminded me that she'd watched me relapse and start again numerous times over the last year. That the weather wasn't an excuse. That even though I'd just started yoga classes (claiming that kept me too busy to drink) that they weren't going to keep me sober. She was right, although I didn't want to admit it. I hate having people tell me what to do. But last night I was planning to go get some nice Pinot Grigio and just have one glass. (ya, right). But I couldn't get her voice out of my head, so I trudged off to a meeting. By the time it was over the craving was gone. As she says, "meetings are your medicine!) So...here I am with 2 days and hopeful that I'll have many more. It is WORK. My problem has been that I wanted it to be easy. Sponser told me, "I darn well better plan every day around a meeting and make sobriety my first commitment." I know she's right and I needed a firm hand this time around. Guess I'm a stubborn cuss, wanting to do things my way. But there's a reason that the accumulated wisdom of this program works. Thank God for sponsers! MAL, gratefully
2 years and 4 months. I came here to MIP when I had just about 60 days sober. Some of you guys here picked me up and carried me along throughout this time whether you realize it or not. I am glad to say I have many higher powers and my fellows here at MIP always were and certainly remain, a power greater than myself!
Mark
__________________
Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
Hi, Sober date is May 17, 1979. Been a Ride hard to describe. Kind of full of all the ups and downs. Still smoke Little Cigars. and drink coffee. The longer I am sober the more I enjoy the challenges of growing up. Wayne
4 and a bit years. Or about a ninth of the time that I'd been boozing.
I've heard said that a rule of thumb would be serenity comes along after a month sober for every year boozing! But rules of thumb are notoriously innaccurate, as are statistics. Did you know that 87% of statistics are made up on the spot? (OK I made that up.)
__________________
It's not having what you want, it's wanting what you got. BB
This is YOUR Post, but I have to say the last response by Bill had my brain so tangled up, not good for Sunday Bill, 87% ya right.
Ok to the time in the Program, my memory always goes back to a meeting I attended when I had just over a year, I was watching this beautiful, very healthy looking blond woman talking about how she had just made her 4th AA Birthday, Steve I swear, it made me ache so hard inside, cause I wanted to be there, have what she had, her time I mean.....it literally made me feel ill................
I made a firm decision after that that I would never let anyone elses sobriety disturb me like that again....
It was a hunger, but just one day at a time if I continued to follow the suggestions, meetings everyday, I did a meeting almost every day for 10 years, the first 5 or 6 were from an internal terror that I would find a way to go back to ended up drunk.....I had been such a chronic relapser for over 7 years, and in that time, I had convinced myself I was such a useless drunk that I was NEVER going to make it, and I would even have a drink to that.
Funny in a way, I am in my 21 year, AA Birthday in September, but the other day in a post, I said I had 21 years, I scrabbled to find it and change it, but could not find it......
So with this kuki response ...........I beg you please, go into your bathroom hold out your hands and say, so, how much time do you have, and proceed to give yourself one big hug......seriously, this is about YOU!!!!!!!!
If you have a good Sponsor, work the 12 Steps rigorusly it is all yours, your Glorious Sober Life, out and away from the disease that has kept you down....
When I had finally thrown out my enclyopedia set of my I hate Toni books, I was looking at how do I ever get to the I love Toni Books, that one was a real Stumper, then the Answer Came. I asked GOD, with HIS Wisdom to Show me how to see myself a new way, a person with self respect, self esteem, and a forgiving nature, and I soon found all the things I Prayed to HIM, I was receiving.
Prayer, awe the Sweet POWER of Prayer.
I just now Prayed to my HP, that I always choose to call GOD that he will send you these gifts as well.
You're the Best Steve, don't forget that.
Love and Hugs, Tonicakes
and PS, you will see someday, when you have lots of time in AA, years adding up, and you'll begin to understand dear friend what Just one day, this day January 23rd is, that all we get, never any thing else, well, until tomorrow, if we are blessed. Hugs my dear brother, toni
Which reminds me, I have only been to one meeting in 2011. I was on vacation and on returning got snowed in and only made it to my home group a week ago Thursday. So I'm heading out this evening for a meeting. Still cold but the sun is out and the roads are clear, time to cure cabin fever.
i have 2 years this month. been watching and reading on this site for almost 3 years. keep coming back, Steve, and all of you. your posts help keep me sober. thank you. jj/sheila
Sobriety for me is about quality, not quantity. I've know people with decades of sobriety that demonstrate very little of the healthy attributes that we should have as the result of working these steps, and people with much, much less "time" that are fine examples of living "how it works."
Just because someone is especially relapse-prone does not mean that the quality of their sobriety between episodes is not sound and valuable. We never lose what we gained while sober and there is no shame in having a disease that has come out of remission. This disease is chronic and recurring. The fact that some of us are blessed with never having a relapse is a miracle, and cannot be credited to any human power.
When we flail at ourselves with shame for relapsing (presuming we have been rigorously honest and have gone to any lengths to take each step, in order, exactly as suggested) that is just another way of saying that on some level we still believe we should be powerful enough to control it. That kind of thinking is the complete antithesis of the A.A. program. Be proud and grateful to be blessed with the ability to come back...many never make it back.
7 months on Jan 14th. First came to AA thru this site, which was May 30, 2009. Got a year and drank one night on June 13, 2010. Thankfully I came right back the next morning and haven't had a drink since. I love life sober and I am grateful for AA and the blueprint of living by spiritual principles. It gets better everyday, even with the trials of life.
-- Edited by angelov8 on Sunday 23rd of January 2011 09:21:05 PM
By the grace and mercy of God, working and living spiritual principles in my life and the support of my peers I celebrated 26 years December 2nd 2010.I was actually very sick (tick borne illness from hunting,erlichiosis)for my celebration at my home group so celebrating this coming up monday the 31st January.Anniversaries are a celebration of life AND NOT ABOUT US, as we are told that our spiritual awakenings bring us a new awareness of our HIGHER POWER that is developed by sharing our recovery with others.We are visions of hope and the joy of living clean is an attraction to those still sick and suffering.. If you are new ,stick around,if you been around for a "few cups of coffee" stick around,the therapeutic value of one helping another is definitely without parallel!!! Have a blessed and productive day
__________________
Selfishness-self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles.
Steve glad you are back. You telling me you have 5 days although its possitive doesn't produce any more power than me telling you I have been sober by his grace for well over 19 years. Until I found out for sure tot stop drinkibg on my own. Frothy emotional appeals seldom suffice.I. was incapable of being honest.because I was always dis honest but woesr dillusional.god removed the lie. Trust god clean house help others. I did and the results are there I did not have to drink today that problem has been removed.gone bye bye .I did not do any thing to produce that. That god for a 12 step program
Emotional appeals do not suffice on their own, but they do mean something and they do matter. I hope this has given you something to inspire you Steve. It is a WE program and if WE as the collective of MIP can be the start of you really getting the program this time, than hooray for us and you. Over time, it will be GOD that takes over, but you don't have to force that and it will come to you if you consistently stick with the program and work the steps.
__________________
Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
150 days!! Thinking about how many days I have makes me want to keep going!! I hate starting anything over! So the further I get away from that last drink... the more I want to stay away. Even though it really has nothing to do with what I want... Its a reinforcement :)
__________________
When you find peace within yourself, you become the kind of person who can live at peace with others.
Emotional appeals do not suffice on their own, but they do mean something and they do matter. I hope this has given you something to inspire you Steve. It is a WE program and if WE as the collective of MIP can be the start of you really getting the program this time, than hooray for us and you. Over time, it will be GOD that takes over, but you don't have to force that and it will come to you if you consistently stick with the program and work the steps.
(Mark, the frequent references you have been seeing lately from some members about "frothy emotional appeals" and "does the statement have depth and weight" come from this quote, it's a frequently quoted passage from the Big Book....just so you know)
We believe, and so suggested a few years ago, that the action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy; that the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker. These allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all; and once having formed the habit and found they cannot break it, once having lost their self-confidence, their reliance upon things human, their problems pile up on them and become astonishingly difficult to solve.
Frothy emotional appeal seldom suffices. The message which can interest and hold these alcoholic people must have depth and weight. In nearly all cases, their ideals must be grounded in a power greater than themselves, if they are to re-create their lives.
If any feel that as psychiatrists directing a hospital for alcoholics we appear somewhat sentimental, let them stand with us a while on the firing line, see the tragedies, the despairing wives, the little children; let the solving of these problems become a part of their daily work, and even of their sleeping moments, and the most cyni cal will not wonder that we have accepted and encouraged this movement. We feel, after many years of experience, that we have found nothing which has contributed more to the rehabilitation of these men than the altruistic movement now growing up among them.
Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. They are restless, irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks-drinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery.
On the other hand-and strange as this may seem to those who do not understand-once a psychic change has occurred, the very same person who seemed doomed, who had so many problems he despaired of ever solving them, suddenly finds himself easily able to control his desire for alcohol, the only effort necessary being that required to follow a few simple rules.
__________________
it's not the change that's painful, it's the resistance to change that is painful
Ok. I get it. Kind of like all the pleading, promises, and deal making never meant squat to me. I just "said" I was going to stop drinking 100 times at least...I even promised. Others did try and convince me to no avail. It was not until something bigger than me really kicked in. I had to surrender to a higher power. For me, I did surrender to the program and then, ultimately to God.
__________________
Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
6 Months on New Year's Day! But I did not get a certificate, diploma, medal or trophy...and won't at 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, or 20. This is lifelong work, but meaningful work. There is no end. No finish line. The gift of the program is a daily one. :)
I think it is not all that important how much time you've accumulated...but that TODAY you are sober. Whether you have hours, days, months, years, or decades we are united in our desire for sobriety.
87% ya right.
