I know all the right words and how sobriety sounds and looks on people around me. I've studied the Big Book enough to know that head knowledge is not enough. My faith is so small. The only way I know how to care about life always leads to constant worry. I am so so sad and I just don't know why. Why can't I let myself have any peace. Just coming up on 90 days again ( in and out of the program since 1996). I catch myself planning getting a motel room and getting drunk until I'm so pathetic that prison is a good alternative. I got a dwi in Tennessee 3 years ago and never faced it. So the only thing that gives me any semmblance of peace of mind is to get the work in my schedule done ( remodeling contractor) quit taking on any new work, and checking in a motel until the siezures come again along with those hideous four horsemen. Then detox and get a bus to Tennessee to do 20 months in prison. I called the clerk of courts and they won't come get me as it is a misdemeanor. When I look at myself and realize this is the best I can plan my life, I have no doubt my life is completely unmanageable by me. I need God to let me know- to make me aware that He really loves me. So much wreckage of the past, so much irrational emotion. I'm not ok. Then the cliche "time takes time" and "surrender to win". I surrender today. I hurt bad today. I am confused but will not drink today.
You remind me of myself many years ago. I had reached the point where drinking & oblivion is the only thing I knew. Then I found AA, got sober, relapsed & the cycle began again. Only this time I did not care much for any type of recovery. The only thing was that I got sick & tired of drinking. I came back to AA. I got on the program, started to know the book & guess what. I was ready to drink again. Only this time a "kind" sponsor intervened & "forced" me to do these steps as suggested. I did not want to, but he persisted & I did it for him, but I ended up getting well my self. Strange thing, is that there were many times where I had all the reason to drink again, but God always provided an escape for me. I never ever thought that I would submit to a sponsor, but once I found the right person, I shared my whole life with him & he has led me on this recovery path ever since.
David, Your post sounds like a reasonable 1st step, but you don't mention the steps at all. Could it be that simple? I managed to get sober over 30 years ago through the steps, but I can think of at least three others that came in the same time as me or before, who have all attended way more meetings than me, but who never did the steps. They tell the same story you do. Meetings and cliches won't get alcoholics of my type sober. Only taking the steps, which are so clearly God's will for me, will bring about the requisite spiritual awakening. In my case my spiritual awakening was of the educational variety over a period of time. But the changes began very soon after I began praying for guidance and for others. When I made an honest attempt to understand God's will for me, He made himself known through his works. This began to happen around the 60-90 day mark. You are closer than you think. Trust god, clean house, help others.
So your plan is ' ... checking in a motel until the siezures come again along with those hideous four horsemen. Then detox and get a bus to Tennessee to do 20 months in prison'?
Good luck with that. Let us know if getting drunk again helped anything.
It will take time. Stop romancing the drink unless you want to find yourself drunk. Self-pity is your enemy also. I understand the harsh emotions and mood swings. Early sobriety launched me into a depression also. DO NOT GIVE UP. I will pray for you also and hope you pray for yourself too.
Mark
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
David, Your post sounds like a reasonable 1st step, but you don't mention the steps at all. Could it be that simple? I managed to get sober over 30 years ago through the steps, but I can think of at least three others that came in the same time as me or before, who have all attended way more meetings than me, but who never did the steps. They tell the same story you do. Meetings and cliches won't get alcoholics of my type sober. Only taking the steps, which are so clearly God's will for me, will bring about the requisite spiritual awakening. In my case my spiritual awakening was of the educational variety over a period of time. But the changes began very soon after I began praying for guidance and for others. When I made an honest attempt to understand God's will for me, He made himself known through his works. This began to happen around the 60-90 day mark. You are closer than you think. Trust god, clean house, help others.
God bless, Mike.
Quoted for truth
you ever try actually working the steps with a competent sponsor?
"In The Program" doesn't mean "meeting attendance" except to those who haven't worked the steps, we aren't "in The Program", we "work the Program", as in pen to paper, helping others, working the steps with a sponsor, then with sponsees, being accountable, meeting attendance without actual -work- is no different then sticking feathers up your ass and claiming you are a chicken, cluck all you want but it aint gonna happen, there is a reason the Big Book says we are 100 men and women have recovered from a seemingly hopeless condition of mind and body, they "recovered" by working the steps, not by attending meetings
Truthfully you sound like a "real alcoholic" to me, just suffering from untreated alcoholism, been there done that, and when my alcoholism is untreated and I'm not drinking, one of two things is going in my mouth, a drink or a gun
One of those misunderstood things about AA is people think we go there to -stop- drinking, while that is true it's only part of the truth, we go to AA in order to work the steps so when we don't drink we don't feel the need to blow our brains out, all the meetings in the world won't help the perverse soul sickness the real alcoholic suffers from without working the steps
so you have discovered meeting attendance doesn't work, human power can't help, and self knowledge and self will don't help, what's next?
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it's not the change that's painful, it's the resistance to change that is painful
From your other posts, I think you are working the program. I don't know exactly what you are doing cuz I don't have a spy cam on you. I fear that untreated depression is your bigger issue (not to diminish the alcoholism) and I might recommend seeing a doctor about that David. Do you have these symptoms?:
1) depressed mood most of the day, nearly every day, as indicated by either subjective report (e.g., feels sad or empty) or observation made by others (e.g., appears tearful). Note: In children and adolescents, can be irritable mood.
(2) markedly diminished interest or pleasure in all, or almost all, activities most of the day, nearly every day (as indicated by either subjective account or observation made by others)
(3) significant weight loss when not dieting or weight gain (e.g., a change of more than 5% of body weight in a month), or decrease or increase in appetite nearly every day. Note: In children, consider failure to make expected weight gains.
(4) insomnia or hypersomnia nearly every day
(5) psychomotor agitation or retardation nearly every day (observable by others, not merely subjective feelings of restlessness or being slowed down)
(6) fatigue or loss of energy nearly every day
(7) feelings of worthlessness or excessive or inappropriate guilt (which may be delusional) nearly every day (not merely self-reproach or guilt about being sick)
(8) diminished ability to think or concentrate, or indecisiveness, nearly every day (either by subjective account or as observed by others)
(9) recurrent thoughts of death (not just fear of dying), recurrent suicidal ideation without a specific plan, or a suicide attempt or a specific plan for committing suicide
***If this is the issue, than you need to see a doctor or you won't be able to work the program they way you want. A pill is not the answer to everything...BUT - the program is not going to treat clinical depression either.
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
I catch myself planning getting a motel room and getting drunk.
That is what it sounds like to me also...mmmmm; planning to get what it is that you don't want to have. Sounds like the need of a 2nd step application in a meeting and alongside a sponsor. I remember being where you are at now and came to realize that the disease owned me even when I hated admitting it. I left a foreign country with a open warrant for my arrest which needs to be taken care of in a way that others would not be hurt by it. I gained the awareness and willingness to take care of it thru the filter of the 9th step...fear and self pity; guilt and shame do not reside with the fact that "I am responsible" and also drinking does not figure as a part of the solution. Go to the next meeting and listen deeply for the words in the closing..."Abandon - yourself to God as you understand God..." and then the rest of it. It's a do thing just talking about it doesn't work much. Keep coming back.
You know where a door is open to you and you don't have to go to Tennessee to find your solution...
I was hopful that we'd be able to "work" the third step together while you were here, not just read it or say it, but work it in a way that brings real, undeniable evidence that our will and our lives are better suited in His hands than our own. The reason Step Two says, "Came" to believe..., is because it is a evolving experience of spiritual development. What they wrote was in past tense because they too had their spiritual weaknesses, but when they finally wrote the steps out, they had come to believe. Step Three is where the process of developing true viable evidence, by witnesssing the miracle of our lives unfolding in His care begins... Step Three is the compass for the journey in front of us, as we come to believe.
Hi David The Lord said " My son, do not follow their path, take your feet and move away from them.....It's in Provebs. The enemy has a hold on you, and I rebuke that drinking spirit from you...that's whay they are called Spirits. As my fellow followers, read and pray love sam
It will take time. Stop romancing the drink unless you want to find yourself drunk. Self-pity is your enemy also. I understand the harsh emotions and mood swings. Early sobriety launched me into a depression also. DO NOT GIVE UP. I will pray for you also and hope you pray for yourself too.
