1. Surrender. So absolutely important in my recovery. After recognizing I had a problem with booze I found out the only way to win was to surrender. To admit I was, without a doubt, beaten.
2. Uncertainty: Coupled with fear. Will I be the same? What is going to become of me? Will I really stop drinking just like that? Will this AA thing work for me?
3. Confidence: This comes as the days become weeks and the weeks becomes months. New records of sobriety are bypassed. I start walking a bit taller, look people in the eye. Talk to others.
4. Faith: What else could have it been but the help of a H.P. This new life I'm leading is helping me adjust to family, work, society in general.
5. Gratitude: This new life I'm leading has taught me to be thankful of the things I have in my life rather than dwelling in the negatives of what is missing, or what I have lost thru my drinking.
6. Humility: Everything I have, including my new life, has been given to me by my HP. I am no better than the down and out drunk in the park.
7. Action: I could not expect anything to happen until I started doing the steps myself. No one else could do them for me. If I do as is suggested then the promises will also come into my life. Any thing less is the easier softer way.
8. Commitment. I have to be totally committed to the program. That means I have to want to keep my sobriety every new day. I have to work at it every new day.
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* We eventually realize that just as the pains of alcoholism had to come before sobriety, emotional turmoil comes before serenity. *
I'm scared sh!tless about coming home after detox, after attending a meeting, and coming home. Will I want that nightcap before bed? That haunts me. I'd like to think I've got the will power to push my addiction aside, but my addiction has gotten me into my present state.
It's been so long, so very long, to contemplate stopping drinking, "just like that," that I am so very worried. I hope it is less painful than what I am fearing. M
I too was scared shitless. I was terrified of the thought that I can NEVER drink again. What works for me is working the AA program. I do everything my sponsor tells me and I mean everything, even if I think it's the dumbest thing I've ever heard, I still do it. If the woman told me to stand on my head with my left foot pointed north, my thumb up my ass while chewing on a rock, I'd be doing it!!! I changed other things also. I rearranged my furniture, so that comfy chair I used to sit in and drink is in an awkward place now and I've had to back off from old friends. By working the AA way the desire to drink has left me, atleast for the last several weeks. Even being dumped after a 2+ yr relationship, I did not have the desire to drink! What an awesome gift I've received.
If you want it and are willing to go to any lengths to get it, you will my friend.
Love and hugs
Doll
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* We eventually realize that just as the pains of alcoholism had to come before sobriety, emotional turmoil comes before serenity. *
