I have now hit my 2weeks of being sober. I was watching t.v. with my 18yr. old son who has his own appartment. I don't get to see him all the time because of our work schedules, so he does not know that I am not drinking. I spent most of his years drinking and makeing bad choices. I told him today that I have not drank in 2weeks, and he made a chuckle and said ooooh 2weeks, what's wrong are you trying to avoid those demons. I was hurt by his comment, I have never done this, nor have I even tried to stop. I was hopeing for his support, but then I also had to remember that he has been around me drinking almost the majority of his 18 years, so I have to understand his hesitance. The changes I have been makeing have been very difficult at times. I feel like with the lack of alcohol my brain has 100 different things going through it at all times. I am trying to figure my life out and make things right that I know I have messed up many times before.
Give it time and I bet your son will see how positive of a change your making. Just think when its 2 months, 3 months etc... It didnt sound like he said a negative thing, and if I remember being 18 I didnt quite understand alcoholism fully at that age, hes probably too young to understand the kind of thing your dealing with/ how much you care. Just keep going to meetings and using the 12 steps, the program works best that way and if you attend regularly youll notice the way the program can help you...Im starting to go to more meetings than usual and Im noticing things a lot quicker....Im a lot happier after meetings, Im seeing my aunt and uncle for the first time in years, my spiritual health is better, among other things...dont give up.
Hi joanna, your doing great, try not to have any expectations of how your family is going to react, you just might be, as you said, disappointed. You are doing this for you, everything else will fall into place. And remember, your alcoholic mind is going to try to trick you into finding an "excuse" to drink. And also remember, 18 years old aren't generally well known for their sensitivity!! It's ok to feel how you feel, just please don't give up-your life is on the way to getting whole lot sweeter! Hang in there, we're glad your here! And congratulations on 2 weeks-that's huge! All my best, dolly
I remember taking a few jabs at my Mom when she was in early sobriety. I was 15 at the time and drinking/drugging just about daily. I don't recall being in denial about her problem, I knew that she was an alcoholic, and was pretty sure that I was too. I wasn't thinking (or hoping) that she would fail. I guess I was too busy thinking about myself.
Aloha Joanna...it's been a while since I had that last drink and I can still remember the comments. With program I learned to respond to "their" comments with honesty. "Yes...exactly...I'm trying to avoid the demons" and "thanks". It comes with practice and acceptance and the comments never seem to hurt again. Keep coming back ((((hugs))))
I can sympathize with you Joanna and your frustrations. I remember my familys reaction after telling them the good news. They're reply was: "whatever". I felt I was doing the right thing only to find out they didn't care anyway. What did matter was the reaction I got from my 10 year old daughter at the time. She said and I'm quoting here: That's great news Dad...Does that mean you love me again? I almost died when she said that. I felt so defeated, but luckily it was turned into joy when she presented me with my first medallion. That's when I knew everything was going to be okay.
Don't let this incident bother you Joanna, just shrug it off and continue the sobering up process, for now. Who knows what tomorrow will bring, but were sober today and for that be grateful? How your family reacts 1 year from now is still a mystery, so do the next right thing Joanna; remain sober and happy.
I'm around 17 months and I got a stinger the other day. A second hand message where someone had said they still don't trust me and expect me to fail. Ouch. But I thought about it, realised that I can't control their opinions and I hadn't really given them much in the previous 15 years to justify me demanding faith.
I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing. The rest of the world can cheer, boo or ignore me but I'm not stepping off this path. It's just too damn nice a path to let anyone else stop me enjoying it.
It takes time to build our sober identities and for others to recognize the change, and forget the past. That's another reason we must buy time being sober and "doing the next right thing".
This is why most folks relapse. The discomfort, the lack of support from family, the confusion in your head, withdrawal. None of this is going to get "fixed" overnight. You have to want this more than anything you have ever wanted in your life and then you have to place your faith in God (or whatever your HP is) and in the program of AA in order for it to work. Even then, all the damage caused by years of drinking will be fixed on your HP's time...not yours. You just do the work and leave the rest up to your HP. If you stay in the program and stay sober, I guarantee you will walk through the other side of any storm with your head held up high and with greater wisdom. If you drink and drop out of the program, you will just be running cicles in the rain.
Mark
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
Nelson (Martina?) I took it that this is one of many many reasons, and can be construed into many individual circumstances pertaining to relapse. You'll see that Mr. Pink Chip knows his stuff as you get to know him. The message I got from his reply was that no matter our circumstances, we must fight for our sobriety. Through every sting, slap in the face, step back, step forward, pat on the back, longed for hug, and cold shoulder we can't break through, we must choose to lean on our HP and remember our serenity prayer.
That's what I got from it anyway Mark ; )
Joanna, my children, if they knew enough, would hate me. They are too little to truly understand how terrible I was to them. When I first came to AA, it was my husband who was acting the way your son is acting. It hurt terribly. Let it be all the more reason to prove to them you can keep on doing it! You can! I have not done this program perfectly, but I'm waaaaaaaaaaay better off than I was at Christmas when I first stepped into AA. Over time, little things improve, and it will keep improving for you too if you give it time. I'll be thinking of you, and hoping you can make it to a meeting : ) Tasha
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Thanks for everything. Peace and Love on your journey.
The message I got from his reply was that no matter our circumstances, we must fight for our sobriety. Through every sting, slap in the face, step back, step forward, pat on the back, longed for hug, and cold shoulder we can't break through, we must choose to lean on our HP and remember our serenity prayer. ____________________________________________________
Yep, no matter what, we just don't drink. Keep coming back, it keeps getting better.
Yeah...I meant it as supportive not like "these things you are doing are going to make you relapse"...more like "these are hard things you are putting up with and this is why you gotta hang tough." I could see how it could be misread. Hope Joanna did not read it that way.
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
this is why most folks relapse? please qualify, not the most positive feedback. aren't there a lot of reasons & a huge percentage that relapse, 97% don't recover correct. Is it really due to those 4 factors?
I don't know where these dismal figures come from but they are not correct nor even statistically valid. If there were a new miracle drug that could cure the common cold in 75% of cases, then the researchers, to establish this claim would run a trial where out of every 100 who had a cold and who took the medicine, 75 recovered.
My experience is that of the real alcoholics who come into AA and really try, that is actually take the steps (medicine) and try to adopt these principles in their lives, and do it without waisting time, a very high percentage recover. Probably a similar to the recovery rate quoted in the foreword of the big book second edition, which is 50 - 75%.
"Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path" It's just that there are a lot more people with all kinds of problems that are not real alcoholics, circulating through AA, and then there are those who are real alcoholics but won't take the medicine. They cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple programme. They are not at fault, but neither are they AA's fault.
I would say to any real alcoholic, your chance of recovery is just as good today as it was in the beginning, if you take the medicine.
The trouble is that most people who walk in the door these days are not ready, haven't suffered enough, lost enough...
Sadly yep. 10 years before I walked in I wasn't ready. Five years before I walked in I wasn't ready. One year before I walked in I wasn't ready. One day before I walked in I wasn't ready.
I had to lose something I never wanted to lose (my wife) and be about to lose something I couldn't live without (my kids).
I don't regret the way it happened (no regrets - right?) because I just don't think without that shock I would have been fearless enough or wanted it enough for it to work.
I don't know if it's a local saying or an AA universal saying but one of the fellas in my group is fond of saying "If you haven't hurt enough to stop drinking maybe you need to go back out and hurt some more". Until the 27th of Oct 2010 I hadn't hurt enough.
But to each there own what "enough" is : ) Doesn't mean you have to lose people, your health, you house, your job... you can try and listen really really hard to the other people who have, that are there in hopes that they will save someone from such things. Not everyone HAS to lose ANYTHING! If you haven't lost much, I can say that it will be SUPER important to do TONS of meetings so you hear stories of people who you DO NOT want to be CONSTANTLY! And no matter how much you have lost, you will find people who have taken this disease farther than you all the time, and who will have gone through what you have too. You will, I promise.
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Thanks for everything. Peace and Love on your journey.
^^^^^^ this is the message we try to carry to the not so beat up newcomer. that they need not experience all of those "Yets", if they can have faith in the experience of others and what they did to get and stay sober. A lot can be saved from inevitable pain, suffering, and loss. This disease does kill people, but not before taking all that they have and all that they love.
Rock bottom is where you stop digging. I've done what I've done and can't change it so hopefully others can see that they don't have to dig as deep a hole as me. Maybe I can be a good example of what not to do.
Yes I could have been more thoughtful with my last comment. I get the point about being ready. I remember sitting in compulsory AA meetings and every word those wonderful men had to say just went straight over my head. You can only see what you can see when you can see it and you can only hear what you can hear when you can hear it. So I went and drank again, but a seed had been planted and I guess I was starting the real work on step 1. I sure wasn't ready but I was not an AA failure statistic because, whatever the reason, I never took the steps. I never tried what AA was offering and if I don't take the medicine I am hardly in a position to know whether it works or not. Later, when I had completed my work on step one, I was willing to take my medicine and, even though I made some collosal blunders in early recovery, I still recovered just as the Big book promised.
Mike, it seems like if you were compiling statistics on people who finished a marathon they had started, you'd only count those that made it half way first. Or, at least took all the right steps (practice/trained, hydrated, carb loaded, wore proper attire/shoes, had a coach... . I, like you, didn't "get it" the first time. I relapsed more than 20 times in two years. I, actually made the statistics worse than 1 in 20, because I failed, after coming back repeatedly. This is similar to the US marriage statistic, that 1 out 2 marriages fail. Does that mean that, if you get married, that there is a 50% chance your marriage will fail? (If you're an alcoholic or codependent the odds are steeper lol) No, because there are plenty of folks out there who have been married 3,4,5,6 times, bringing down the average of successful marriages.
Aw Dean, I was just comparing two statistics, those in the Big Book which are highly selective and analyse only those who made a serious attempt at the steps, and those dismal numbers plucked out of the air. When those stats were taken, the methods they used placed the sponsors in a good position to know, and the sample group was relatively small. The marathon analogy might work if you consider the overall group as all people who showed any interest in the marathon and took away entry forms. Among this group are those who changed thier mind and didn't enter, those who committed to finishing and went into training, and those who entered but didn't bother with training. At the end of the marathon, those that finished would be a small proportion of the whole group, but if you took out all those that didn't enter and all those that didn't train, the group that finished would bear a close resemblance to the one that trained. Probably some of those who didn't train will be more inclined to train next time if they really want to win and if they don't have a heart attack in the meantime. Using the medicine analogy, antibiotics are usually taken in a course. If you don't take them all they often won't work, that doesn't mean the drug is faulty, it just means it wasn't taken correctlty.
Interestingly our local Bridge programme claims a 2% success rate for patients staying sober two years. Maybe they tell their patients this to frighten them, who knows. But also (by observation) about 2% of Bridge patients continue in AA and stay sober. So you could draw the conclusion that the recovery rate for bridge patients who then continue in AA is 100%. One thing AA does not do is furnish motivation to quit drinking. My early contacts with AA were driven by persons other than me, I missed the point, wasn't interested, was only interested if certain conditions were met, still wanted to drink, which overall meant I failed to recognise the seriousness of my situation and so pushed it to the limit, beyond human aid. I did not "try" AA and therefore AA did not fail me. Then I came to AA with a new attitude that came from I know not where, and I really tried.
There is one thing I would like to correct, with your permission, and that is you did not fail after coming back repeatedly. In fact you succeeded after coming back repeatedly. You are a 100% success story, much to our benefit. :)
Good post Mike, we're really saying the same thing different ways. I don't believe that AA fails anyone, just as schools don't fail anyone, people fail to complete the work, and the consequences are there for them. For a long time, the only thing I did right was "keep coming back". lol The only reason that I mention the "dismal statistic" is to awaken people that this is a serious undertaking. It's not easy and one's focus must be sharp and concentrated on a single purpose. Speaking of focus, looks like our original poster came back 2 days ago (which was 2 after the initial post) and left again.
