After 15 months, I went back out. I post this reluctantly, and admittedly, still intoxicated. And I am sitting in my basement, asking myself, did life get better. It's been a week, not crazy, just drunk, for a week, every night. Only nights, not days or mornings like before. But finding old behavior coming through. And asking, did life get better? Well, I've justified my drinking, no problem. To be normal again, I'm not hurting anyone, "leave me alone". YOU still drink!!!
i think, what will I do differently next time, will there even be a next time. Can I do this again, or is this just easier? And I don't have an answer. But, life hasn't gotten better.
My first year and a half it seemed as if life wasn't really any better - but it was. I wasn't drinking, I was clearing up, and gaining perspective. At one point I found myself miserable and unhappy. Right about that time I immersed myself in the steps. I only did step meetings and began taking a really close look at me.
It worked. Its about thirteen yeas from that time. Now I'm married, two kids, I've got a great job, and will soon have earned a doctorate. This from someone who couldn't get out of his own way....God has done awesome things for me through AA and some work of my own.
Come on back. One more time. If this bum from Boston can do it - so can you!
Hello! Glad you reached out to us here at MIP. I will only say that my experience has been that if I'm drinking when I don't really want to, evidenced by going to a AA message board at 11pm at night while I'm sitting in a basement intoxicated, things arn't any better at all. I'm still drinking when I really don't want to.
I don't believe I took even one drink that I didn't have to take, to finally concide to my innermost self, to smash any reservation, and to finally fully surrender.
And then I remember so clearly, like it was yesterday feeling much like you probably feel..
scared... alone...
Knowing I can't keep living that way, but scared to death I won't be able to live this way either...
And I stepped into the rooms "one more time"... picked up one more "damn white chip"...
And that was on Dec 21 1989....
And yes, it is better, a lot better...
What I learned along the way is that "it" is ME...
I'm better.
Hope you will step over that threshold into a meeting and give yourself another chance to find your way home, to your self again.
John
PS. Like any other disease that isn't being agressively treated... it will only get worse instead of better. The treatment isn't in your basement, its in the rooms of AA and in the hands of a Higher Power. C'on out of the basement, without the bottle, and get to a meeting...
Have you watched the video at the top of this message board... you might want to take a few moments to view it, k?
-- Edited by John on Friday 17th of June 2011 08:19:27 AM
Relapse is not the shame ,not making it back is! Pick yourself up,dust yourself off and start again...We will be here..Your heart is showing by you taking time to post...........I will lift you up in prayer and support..peace.
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Selfishness-self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles.
One of the symptoms of alcoholism is that it is a relapsing, emotional & uncontrollable disease. Without sheer work on my spiritual life as prescribed by the 12steps of AA, I would be drunk everyday of my life. It's easier to get drunk than to work the steps. If you asked me some 24 years ago to chose between AA & the Bar, I tell you honestly I would have chosen the bar. I found this to be true for every abnormal drinker. That's how we are built. Coming to AA for sobriety is only the starting line. I cannot stay there forever. Somehow, a few us cannot stay drunk, like you have just proven. If I had started drinking I would be running away from AA. I did run away from AA, but I came back because my life was still unmanageable.
Thanks Ferris for your share. As Lin said, finish your last night of drinking & come to a meeting. You can share your experience with a newcomer who is thinking of doing the same thing.
Ferris, the feelings you are having and the discouragement about life are TEMPORARY...it is when you add relapse to the picture that things start snowballing and becoming more permanent and the problems multiply. Next time you start feeling that it is all pointless and your life isn't better sober, Do something about it! Don't drink over it.
The reason for coming back is that you belong in AA and have so much to offer others. Sure....you do need AA, but you AA needs you also and that should motivate you some.
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
fall down 7 times, get up 8. Taken as a whole, over the last nearly 5 years, my life has got better. There have been bad times, but I've dealt with them in a better way. You can too.
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It's not having what you want, it's wanting what you got. BB
Hope it is ok, I went back throuht some of your writings and Post, I saw two things, first is how you found the 4th step so difficult you were going to go back to? Did you ever go back?Perhaps you overlooked that drudging up the past, it was way too hard for me, unless I had a second sheet of paper to write down any attibutes, found that gave me the courage to then ....continue. This step as we all, pretty much agree is the hardest, swea producing, knee knocking one, but also doing a Fifth Step immediately is highly recommended, you can also do it with professional AA counselor, that is what I chose to do....there is a saying that "Do the 5th, before you drink one.
And you know from your 15 months, hope so, that your current thinking is you Disease talking you out of coming back.....When we Surrender to this AA program, We are putting to sleep this Monster called Alcoholism. and that Gorrilla if woken, wants you to stay in your misery....
I have written about this before, but feelings are so transitory, today you feeling on way a
nd if you stay with feeling, there is a guarantee that is will turn into another feeling.
I sure hope your Posting is a call for help, that is why we are here, you have always been such an asset to others, c"mon back, please.
I saw somewhere that a doc had put you on Valium. when I came in I had just finished a guelling end to that cold turkey withdrawal.
Valium is powdered Alcohol, I say that because once I wanted to go to a popular, known for it's high success rate, and when I was speaking to the Take in Nurse, she smiled and said absolutely not....no one is allowed to enter our Program and continue with a Valium usage....she added, again with a little smile, appprently you don't know that Valium IS alcohol in powder form. So I thought it over, and said to myself, not thats not true............then but 6 year later, when the disease had progressed to so far, I cold tuekey off, way harder than the Alcohol addiction, but it was getting pretty clear, my life wa circling the drain..sure hope that is not a problem for you, it starts out so innocently and just like alcohol, a cross addiction has started. We have those little brochures on our walls on Cross addiction.
Hope you walk up those stairs, can't you hear you life calling, into the Sunlight, then let the 12 Steps take you up to the Sunlight of your Spirit.
Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again... Many, many alcoholics slip and take that first drink again, so you are no different than thousands upon thousands before you. Just learn from this and ask your HP for the willingness to get back with the program and the sunlight of the spirt. Remember, you are not alone, glad you are back.
Even though I don't know any of you, I care about all of you. I hope to be back soon.
Well don't die and come find us when you are done, we care too, we really do, be careful out there, it's a wild world
yes I know yer a dood, it's still appropriate though, it IS a wild world out there, so take good care, hope you make a lotta nice friends out there, just remember there is a lotta bad out there and beware
-- Edited by LinBaba on Wednesday 22nd of June 2011 02:04:43 PM
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it's not the change that's painful, it's the resistance to change that is painful
