Oh boy

Bella123 · Newbie

Oh boy

SoberSteve · MIP Old Timer

Get to a meeting tonight instead! :)

Bella123 · Newbie

That so much easier said than done. I appreciate your comment. The hump I need to get over is the fact I'm a police officer and local elected official. I'm aware I'm no better than anyone else, but I have very limited meetings in my area, and last time I went I saw 2 people I arrested. They never came back and I felt uncomfortable. I know this is an issue I need to get over. Just not easy

StPeteDean · MIP Old Timer

Hello Bella, welcome to the board. It's pretty active and you'll fit in just fine here. Lots of sober folks, and like myself, a good share of "re-treds" or returning members. I took me quite a few times to get it, albeit in first two years a few moons ago. No doubt you're in a tough position but not unworkable. It's very possible to have a sponsor and work a program, outside outside of meetings , when necessary. It helps to have a group of folks that you can talk to regularly, that would be us.

Pull up a chair, you're amongst family here.

Dean

Bella123 · Newbie

Thanks Dean. Im struggling with this crap. I'm scared to death to live normally. I will have to face reality on a few things.

StPeteDean · MIP Old Timer

Bella, somewhere in here, someone has has the same experience and out lived it. Then it became a recovery asset, via "their story". We're all wired pretty much the same. The stuff we worry about usually pans out into "not such a big deal".

vixen · MIP Old Timer

Hi Bella. :) It's not something you just have to get over and certainly not alone. Alcoholism is an illness and AA knows how to treat that illness. Coming here is a great start as there are great supportive folks here who understand. I'd also suggest reading the Big Book which helped me understand I what alcoholism is and showed me the steps to recovery, which is a life long adventure. If you had told me a year ago I would be this happy, grateful sober woman I would not have believed it. This program really does work, if you work it.

All the very best to you and keep coming back!

Rob84 · MIP Old Timer

Bella123 wrote:
I hate myself every morning and ask myself and god why do I do this everyday. Been through the program before with 8 and 2 years sober. I'm so sick of this, but scared to face reality. In a loveless marriage and this is what makes me feel good. I know to some this is crazy situation, but to those of you who have been there understand. Please shoot some wisdom my way.

Bella, Welcome to the MIP forum!

Most of us have been through the cycle like you. The fear to face the facts is tough. We can't stand who we have become and is sucks to be alone with ourselves, so we drink.

As soon as we start doing a few positive things to turn our lives around the spirtual experience begins and the sickness and insanity ends.

I know there is more than a few meetings in Chi-town. Look for some closed meetings, they tend to be smaller and more private.

You still have a job and not in trouble so things are not that bad.

From pg 68 AA Big Book

we think fear ought to be classed with stealing. It seems to cause more trouble.

We reviewed our fears thoroughly. We put them on paper, even though we had no resentment in connection with them. We asked ourselves why we had them. Wasn't it because self-reliance failed us

Jerry F · MIP Old Timer

Aloha Bella...Congradulations on the courage and honesty...Yeah we're cyber and we're real...Some of us know what your shoes feel like.

When you mentioned 10 beers and feeling good I could never get those two together. Feeling good for me didn't happen until I was solidly sober and came to understand that happiness was an inside job. Getting drunk and experiencing the consequences never left me feeling good...it did leave me anxious for the next drink. Alcoholism is a set up...I drink...have trouble...have trouble finding the next drink and then have trouble why I keep doing it and won't stop. My sponsor convinced me not that I couldn't stop just that I wouldn't stop. I had excuses for my drinking and in recovery came to admit that actually none of them were really valid. I remember the night coming to understand and admit that there was no law that said I had to...go figure; I was delusional about that for sooooo long. By the time I was ready to get sober, I was ready. It was what I wanted and I went after it (serenity and sobriety) like I practiced the "ism". It didn't matter to me who knew or what they thought; family friends all the others...I was done and done I stayed. I gave up my drinking associates including my then alcoholic wife and sat and listened to what the fellowship was saying about their experiences and while I had trouble understanding at first because I was measuring the differences twix how they did it and I did it my sponsor clued me into the similarities (sounds like you get this part) and as my head started to nod up and down I then wanted what "they" had. At first I wasn't very keen at all about AA and AAers and then I found out later I had a God that wanted me dry and sane.

Your marriage might surely be suffering because of the drinking also rather than the other way around. No reason in the world to not come back in and repractice what you've learned before. Alcoholism isn't a moral issue as was already said and it's thousands of years older than Christ himself.

Welcome home...Keep coming back and work this thing with us.

((((hugs)))) smile

StPeteDean · MIP Old Timer

Bella, found something that might help. In bigger cities there are some special closed meetings for LEOs. Doctors also have them. Here's some info for those meetings in your area (hope this works).

http://www.policesuicideprevention.com/lawenforcementalcoholicsanonymous/

Phone number for closed meetings for police only

Chicago, Illinois (South Side)

Contact: (312) 743-0378

Officers and family members may call.

Here's some reading material, that they suggested, for folks in your profession dealing with alcoholism http://www.policesuicideprevention.com/id43.html

http://badgeoflife.com/

-- Edited by StPeteDean on Friday 30th of December 2011 06:46:58 AM

SeekingSerenity · Veteran Member

Welcome Bella :)
I hope you are able to get some comfort and information from the posts above. You mention in your second post that this is an issue you must get over, sadly this is not an "issue" and that is what keeps so many people stuck. It is a disease, a disease that can have fatal consequences.

Jacq · Member

Take control of your life. Counseling? Marriage therapy? Make yourself happy. Easier said than done. I'm trying to do the same thing. Your not alone in this one, although I love my husband deeply, I've hurt him terribly. We are working on it. I really believe that change cannot occur unless you work on the issues in life. Life becomes such a tangled web that we can't see straight. You can quit drinking but you have to sort out the reason why you chose to drink otherwise the behavior will keep happening. I'm writing my dissertation on Positive Behavior Interventions. Think I, many of us, should take a cue from this. Positive Behavior. Jacq

Bob K · Senior Member

In my home group we have a police officer and a county prosecuter, and both are accepted into our meetings. Once inside the room they are considered alcoholics just like the rest of us. The 12th tradition says principles before personalitiies. All they need is the desire to stop drinking if some have a grudge or resentment that is just one more thing they need to work through with the steps and their sponsor. If you want something bad enough you'll find a way if you don't you'll find and excuse. If you truly want to get sober you will find a way if want to drink that's your business if you want to stop that's our business. If you choose to quit meetings and drink again I'm sure your misery will be freely refunded.

-- Edited by Bob K on Friday 30th of December 2011 07:13:54 AM

Bella123 · Newbie

Good morning all. I'm truly grateful for all the responses and hope to continue. There have been three times I thought I was done drinking. Three times I disappointed myself and others. Three times had the feeling of spirituality and lost it. I once thought back in the day, I would not be "ok" until my father passed away. I went and talked to a priest and for the grace of god rectified that feeling and was living on cloud nine sober. My point is I now have a 52 year old sister with a terminal illness with death anyday. I have my fathers ashes and my sister will be cremated. My mom who have much resentment towards says she wants to bury my fathers ashes with my sister. I'm opposed to this. Not sure I should be or just my way of not letting go of my father. This is the first time I have expressed this feeling. Thank you all.

pinkchip · MIP Old Timer

A loveless and toxic relationship was the chief reason for me staying drunk as long as I did. It almost killed me and my partner. Far better to stop living in suspended reality. There is a short period of intense pain when you make a big change. I made several at once which included starting in sobriety, leaving that relationship, and moving into my own place alone, all at the same time. It was well worth it and set me up to live a day at a time with an enjoyable life that is far better than I imagined.

I have a much healthier relationship, better job, healthier body....This is all in 3 years. So you could do nothing and be in a worse spot in 3 years. Or just do the next right thing and be far better off in a few years (or less). You know that sobriety is no insurance against suffering, but you don't have to be alone any more and you do NOT have to be immobilized with fear and needing to numb yourself to survive.

You know all this and I'm guessing you need us to remind you cuz you have the same built-in forgetter that we all tend to have

In support,

Mark

pinkchip · MIP Old Timer

Also Bella, once you get back in the program, it will improve your ablility to deal with ALL of your stressors. The ashes and your relationship with your mom are things in your past stopping you from being there for your sister today while she is ill. Your drinking also does that. You know from working the program that none of those issues over the ashes and your mom and such really matter cuz they are in the past and they are resentments too. Brush off your AA tools and start using them. Loveless marriages and deaths of family are horrible, but they are no reason to self sabotage and destroy whatever good things your HP might want you to experience today.

None of this would be easy even with a strong program of sobriety in place - But I guarantee it would not be as hard as you are making it now.

"We intuitively were able to understand situations which used to baffle us." - Sound familiar?

Mark

carlasober · Senior Member

Welcome Keep Coming Back!

SeekingSerenity · Veteran Member

One of the things I noticed in this post is how each persons reality is different as to what problems are.

One of the things that happened to me in my years of drinking is that sanity stopped dictating what were issues/problems/crisis/emotional upsets etc etc. The insanity of the disease began to tell my brain what was real and not real. Long ago I knew I over-reacted to the wrong things and at some point, if I really cared enough, I started to ask people if the "problem" was as bad as I thought. Now of course WHO I asked depended on the answer I wanted. If I wanted a reality check I asked a sober, spiritual person ( I still did know a couple, who actually spoke to me) and if I wanted to continue in the self misery and justify another drunk, I asked another drunk.

It is funny how the longer I stay in, not just sobriety but in actively working a spiritual program, the more confidence I have that the "problems" I face are not only based in reality, but that most of them have a solution.

When I am bewildered with a situation I now ask my sponsor. That is not always what I want to do either. I sometimes do not like her way of leading me to the course of action that needs to be taken. But I always follow it. She has 25 years of what I want.

I am a long way from totally trusting my feelings but one day at a time I am starting to feel more confident that when I am in turmoil if I follow the directions I have been given, the turmoil will not last long.

TwelveSteps · Senior Member

Dean has some great advice. I'm in a profession (law) that has a backwards "moral character" qualification to remain licensed, so seeking help for depression or other mental health issues can result in problems with the Bar (unbelievable, I know). As a group we have such a high substance abuse rate that the Bar association in my state has a special division designed to help people on an anonymous basis. Being reminded that plenty of other people in my profession were dealing with similar problems really helped me get over that hump and fight the fear that admitting I had a problem could destroy my career. Good luck and congratulations on trying to get on the right path.

GG