Yes, this is my first post but I could really use someone to talk to tonight. It's been a really bad couple of weeks and I'm posting here so I think it goes without saying that I've got no where else to turn.
Welcome to MIP! It's a really warm and wonderful group here. Just share what's on your mind and you will get responses from the regulars as they pop in. :)
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I think there's an invisible principle of living...if we believe we're guided through every step of our lives, we are. Its a lovely sight, watching it work.
David, I would call your local intergroup. Of course we would like to hear more about your story if you want to write it. I can't guarantee there will be someone coming along to talk with over the phone or anything or to write back and forth, but that is what the AA intergroup hotline is for. I called it 3 times before I ever surrendered to the idea of just going to meetings. It helped me a lot. Look up AA intergroup for your area and call the hotline - Those folks are the best!
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
The story... where to start. 4 life time DUI's (2 back in the mid 90's, 1 in 2006 and another in 2010), after the last dui my wife pushed me into an in patient "detox" for 4 days, did 5 months of IOP; quite for 9 months, started back, back in IOP on my own doing in Sept. '10, quite until late Dec. '10, back in town full time, things turn south at the house, drinking again from late Dec '10 (quite for a few weeks but here I am again). I'm ready to go back on the road, drink less, less stress, less problems...
I've been to a couple of local AA meetings, got a home group, sponsor (which turned into a joke), been to several out of town meetings long term (which I wish I had some of their numbers) so here I am.
Hello post one, like me a new comer to the cyber/forum meetings. I am not sure how to describe it I guess its sober on line. Anyway I was up and awake all last night and I looking up all good AA stuff because I am also new to laptop life. :} Its all looking good...
I have always been told to not pick up that first drink and I won't get drunk. So that,s what I do a day at a time. But just doing that is not enough I have to stay close to AA folk too. And that means putting the foot work in and turning up at the meetings. This on line sharing will be for me all extra help and support. So its got to be good. Anything that helps me not drink is going to help me further along the road less travelled. And I want my future to be a sober life so I must do all I can to stay sober.
I had no purpose in life for a very long time. Today I want to live and I do not want to drink. I was a problem to myself and my family. Today my family have peace of mind because they know I am doing what I need to do and that is to make AA A BIG PART OF MY LIFE. And I do know that if I do make it a big part of my life today I am in with a fighting chance.
I heard it said at a meeting stick with the winners and they were the folk that keep going to meetings. So I went to as many as I could, every night I went because I wanted what the winners had :} I was also told or as is said it was suggested to me that if I wanted to stay sober I would do what was needed. If I had cancer and was told that I could live if I went to meetings for the rest of my life I would. go to them. Well yes I would because I wanted to live,but I wanted to learn how to live too because my life was a mess.
You must already be a very fortunate man because you must have meetings Nr you all the time. We just have 3 a week where I live now. But back home in England in my early days I went to 6-7 a week. As they say if I can do it so can you. Are you WILLING :} are you DETERMINED enough ? If so please take it all there is such a wonderful life you will have.
I could never drink less ! I am happy never to drink at all. :}
My name's Mike and I'm a drunk in Boston. I haven't been on this site for some time, but I checked in today and saw your post. you sound a lot like me a few years back (16 years actually). Try to get to as few meetings - it will surely change your life. And Steve's right - total abstinence is the key.
I was never able to just drink less - a Budweiser led to Jameson's led to cocaine led to unbelievably insane benders that kept going until the money ran out. Now? I'm sober and happy with a great job, two kids, a wife and a life. Try to do this for yourself. It's a great way of life.
One thing I want you and/or any other newcomer to know is that AA is very powerful and just because it has not "worked" yet for you, when the time is right and you are really really ready, it will work. I promise.
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
AA is a WE program, we cannot do this alone. by ourselves we end up drinking. the 12 steps and a sponsor help us deal with all our boxes, one day at a time. drinking only makes things worse or postpones the work. keep coming back, we are here to help, you are not alone. jj/sheila
p.s. in my experience, i drank too much to work on my "stuff" let alone think straight. for me i had to admit my life past and present was unmanageable. too many regrets to count, too many lies i had begun to believe. i had to believe a higher power of my choosing could/would help me if i was willing to believe and work the steps. my life is not perfect but it is so much better. it takes time and a desire to get healthy and for me that meant not drinking alcohol so i could be honest with myself and others and work the steps.
-- Edited by jj on Wednesday 18th of April 2012 10:47:33 PM
To be honest it's not issue if the "time is right" so to speak... Yes, it's time to quite the "Jack". I realize this is a problem but to be honest it's only part of the problem. I have quite drinking for extended periods but I didn't deal with the entire problem. I , like many on here deal with issues our own way. In the past I take issues and put them in boxes then put them on the shelf in my head. I've done this for 41 years. Now that I'm taking sobriety seriously I'm trying to deal with these boxes. A few night ago was my first session with a counselor, I'm taking it seriously and for a change actually was honest with everything. There are several "boxes" that I don't want to open but were. It's been 2 days since and it's still on my mind. Yes, I'm having a hard time opening these boxes. I'm reverting back to my old ways of dealing with thins. Does this make any sense?
Aloha DC and welcome to the board. Just a wild suggestion? leave the boxes on the shelf or toss them out but deal with one issue first and only for now...not drinking. I had issues...lots of them and the issues were my brain. My biggest issue was getting to know that I had a fatal disease that I had no power over and which was resulting in my life being soooo freaking unmanagable. I didn't even know it was alcoholism and I wasn't even convinced I drank too much and I thought that "Toxic Shock" events might be caused by some deficency or other and have nothing to do with alcohol because I had along with my family drank forever. Drinking was what we did...sometimes we got drunk...sometimes we got really drunk and more unmanagable and outside management had to be called and then I had to learn that I was alcoholic...a adult male with a compulsion for alcohol and an allergy to it. It, alcohol, was alway in my brain, eye sight, hearing, heart beat, liver, kidneys, bladder, hypothalmus, pituitary glands, testicles, anus...everything. I didn't know I was born alcoholic...predisposed to continue the drinking practices of my family before me on both sides of my life...I didn't know and didn't know that I didn't know. I didn't know even when I stopped drinking and things started changing for the better for me. They just did and I didn't put that together with not drinking. My family of origin would like me to continue to drink because I am now a bad statement for the family..."You're not an alcoholic"!! they have chanted but "just for me" I'm done. Just for today it's over...I am alcohol free, sober, clean, dry, clear headed, balanced, happy, joyus, free and an asset in my life and the life of my community; I am still alcoholic which is different than being "an" alcoholic. I have a life threatening disease. I also am tuberculic and a former practicing Catholic. If I normally move around my life and family and community as a sober member of AA and the Al-Anon Family Groups no one...no one at all...can tell I am alcoholic that my entire life is affected by the chemical alcohol. Today the only way a person can tell if I am alcoholic is to catch me attending the meetings of Alcoholics' Anonymous and then even then they would question it. I've passed up the death sentence (physical, mental, emotional and spiritual) for the opposite...as long as I don't take that first drink I am a chemical free alcoholic and grateful.
There is no law that says you have to drink...for any reason...unhappy past life...current troubles etc. Anyone who has told you (including your own head) that drinking is the solution is in the manure business cause that is just what it is...I bought it for years and it made me stink and almost took my life.
What I learned on my journey is that people don't drink because they have problems...they have problems because they drink. When I stopped drinking completely; like a lot of the fellowship, I got a life beyond my wildest dreams that I didn't know existed and I still stand around with a unexplained smile on my face much of time because of what I have found out in recovery. Even when the booze is telling me "have one (first and then another later)...only one" I know...I don't have to. Done.
I'll drop off with a bit that a friend/fellow gave to me one Sunday after a mass. He was there on special because HP decided that he had an approach to not drinking that I needed to have. He told me that he was invited to a family party and was anxious because his family still largely drinks without stop. He wanted to go to the party and see family he hadn't seen before but didn't want to be presented with the possibility of "that one" drink, so he thought on it and prayed on it and just as he got to the door of the party and the "usual" beer was pushed at him, without thinking he said..."No thanks I've had enough". When you start to practice sobriety, one day at a time without lapses and as suggested with complete abandonment, giving up all attempts to control your recovery and totally relying on your HP guidance that is some of the miracles which will be given to you without using your engineering smarts. HP does the engineering...you do the work.
I'm in support for your recovery. Keep coming back cause this does work when your work it.
I honestly wish that things where as simple as "to drink or or not". I drink for a multitude or reasons, mostly stress and avoidance of past issues. I quite and have dealt with some of the stress but not the past. Now that I've brought up some of the past I'm reverting to my past ways of dealing with things. No, I don't like it but it's me. I feel like I'm in a hurricane but sitting I move to the eye; everything is blowing around me but I'm calm with a few in me...
Yes, this is wrong. But at least I'm being honest... I feel like I'm loosing my mind with everything going on....
Instead of doing it your way ho2eng...pick something...one thing offered by a recovering person who has responded to your request for help and do that. Do what they do...not what you do. What you do doesn't work...you have expanded on that here. I was oppositional and defiant when I first got into recovery and the thought as I sat in the fellowship that helped me from the start was "If I do what they do I'll have different (not better but different) outcomes than the insanity I have right now. I'll loose the justification for suicide." Filter the shares here and pick out something that works for someone else.
