I have relapsed so many times out of fear and anxiety from going to meetings and dealing with people face to face. I've always had bad social anxiety but it got even worse with using/drinking. I started going to this one meeting every week, but I know that's not enough and I'm very uncomfortable speaking in front of people. So thank you for this board
Back in the day AA carried the message through the mail, even using carrier pigeons to fly out to ships for AA "Loners" who couldn't go to meetings. You know, tho, you can always just sit and listen at meetings--there's a guy who comes to a meeting I go to who hasn't said two words in two years. Doesn't even say Hi, I'm Joe and I'll pass---nothing. And he's always greeted and welcomed and nobody gets in his face. And he's sober. I love online sites like this, also.
Sounds alot like my experience. I sat in the corner, shaking and sweating, hoping that the chair person wouldn't call on me, on and off for 2 years. Bizzaro, it's crucial to get beyond 90 days. Things change in hurry after that. We find that what troubles us the most is what we really need to work on. I forced myself to share, sit up front, get to meetings early (and stay late), introduce myself to people, ask for help, let them get to know me, and most importantly, get to meetings every day, for the first 90 days. "Meeting makers Make it!" Welcome to the board. I hope that you'll stick around and let us get to know you.
-- Edited by StPeteDean on Saturday 28th of April 2012 05:27:48 AM
Yes Saturdays (and Fridays, and Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays etc...;)) are a huge challenge for us. After my meeting tonight I walked around downtown for a while, passing so many bars with drunken people outside. And you know what, at first I automatically thought, "Ooh, a beer would be nice.". But then I caught myself thinking about how much better it felt to wake up and remember the night before, to not have a headache, and mostly for my heart to be beating at a normal pace and to feel calm. And then I was amazed that I could think that - just a few weeks ago that first thought about the beer would have led to drinking... And it would likely have been more than 1 beer.
Stick around and you will be amazed at the changes you'll notice in yourself when you're not drinking.
__________________
The Golden Rule: Treat yourself the way you treat others.
Hi Bizarro. Happy to meet you and get to know you, I too am happy to have found this board, I am not sure how :} Sometimes I just Google anything AA. Always for inspiration and to learn. I have no idea as yet how to go onto the meetings on here,I tried once. Maybe some day so, for now I am happy to post and read.
I have been keeping a look out for the members who are new around to AA on here in the hope that they will get my message from my share. '' Keep coming back'' I am very pleased to be reading that they are going to meetings and posting on here too. :} Well done,they know who they are :} Another day. Every moment changes. AA is altered attitudes, a new way of thinking. Working the steps. Today I bring the steps into my every day. They are given as a tool to depend on and I do.
Its a very brave thing to do for everyone walk into the rooms of AA not knowing anyone. I went to AA and heard people sharing about new found friends. So I shared that I needed friends to help me and after the meeting some came over to me with numbers and we began to talk. Its the another hard thing to do too ask for friends.I wanted the promises on page 83. Big Book so very much. A new freedom, A new happiness.
Have you other meetings that you can go to also. Try out loads more. I know someone who is happy to just listen and learn,but after the meetings he finds things to help with when the room needs to get tidied up,things put away and the kitchen sorted. All things like this help others to see you are trying. Look for someone new around who might also be feeling the same way as you. Look for someone who you like to listen to when they share and maybe introduce yourself and just say a little thank you for their share today. All these little things help me settle in so to speak. So today when I hear something at a meeting I related to. I thank them. I always try also to thank the main share,sometimes they seem bust talking but I wait a little while and have always managed to thank them. I have to remember too that its always hard to share even old timers get the gitters and feels anxious. I do these things today because I know they are good for me.
Once i just introduced myself and said I was happy to be there and then asked if anyone was going for coffee after the meeting as I was going alone and would be glad of the company. Meeting pass the message in a powerful way but there is also laughter in the rooms too. We can smile and laugh at the things we did :} Some even announce how many days they are sober. I if I do not feel like a share always say I am grateful for the meeting and thank everyone for being there for me today.
*~*~*~*~*^As Bill Sees It^*~*~*~*~* Prelude to the Program
Few people will sincerely try to practice the A.A. program unless they have "hit bottom," for practicing A.A.'s Steps means the adoption of attitudes and actions that almost no alcoholic who is still drinking can dream of taking. The average alcoholic, self-centered in the extreme, doesn't care for this prospect--unless he has to do these things in order to stay alive himself.
Yes I do AA to the best of my ability today and I push myself a little too. I need to because I know I need other like minded people to talk with and I can not do it by cyber space alone.
Thank you for your post today and yes keep doing both it's is all good stuff. It gets into your heart :}
The first thing we have learned about alcoholism is that it is one of the oldest problems in Man's history. Only recently have we begun to benefit from new approaches to the problem. Doctors today, for example, know a great deal more about alcoholism than their predecessors knew only two generations ago. They are beginning to define the problem and study it in detail.
While there is no formal "A.A. definition" of alcoholism, the majority of our members agree that, for most of us, it could be described as a physical compulsion, coupled with a mental obsession. What we mean is that we had a distinct physical desire to consume alcohol beyond our capacity to control it, in defiance of all rules of common sense. We not only had an abnormal craving for alcohol but we frequently yielded to it at the worst possible times. We did not know when (or how) to stop drinking. Often we did not seem to have sense enough to know when not to begin.
As alcoholics, we have learned the hard way that willpower alone, however strong in other respects, was not enough to keep us sober. We have tried going on the wagon for specific periods. We have taken solemn pledges. We have switched brands and beverages. We have tried drinking at only certain hours. But none of our plans worked. We always wound up, sooner or later, getting drunk when we not only wanted to stay sober and had every rational incentive to do so.
We have gone through stages of dark despair when we were sure that something was wrong with us mentally. We came to hate ourselves for wasting the talents with which we were endowed and for the trouble we were causing our families and others. Frequently, we indulged in self-pity and proclaimed that nothing could ever help us. We can smile at those recollections now but at the time they were grim, unpleasant experiences.
Today we are willing to accept the idea that, as far as we are concerned, alcoholism is an illness; a progressive illness that can never be "cured" but which, like some other illnesses, can be arrested. We agree that there is nothing shameful about having an illness, provided we face the problem honestly and try to do something about it. We are perfectly willing to admit that we are allergic to alcohol and that it is simply common sense to stay away from the source of the allergy.
We understand now, that once a person has crossed the invisible line from heavy drinking to compulsive alcoholic drinking, they will always remain alcoholic. So far as we know, there can never be any turning back to "normal" social drinking. "Once an alcoholic - always an alcoholic" is a simple fact we have to live with.
We have also learned that there are few alternatives for the alcoholic. If they continue to drink, their problem will become progressively worse. They seems assuredly on the path to the gutter, to hospitals, to jails or other institutions, or to an early grave. The only alternative is to stop drinking completely and to abstain from even the smallest quantity of alcohol in any form. If they are willing to follow this course, and to take advantage of the help available to them, a whole new life can open up for the alcoholic.
Thinking of you tonight and hope you pop back. :} And get to more meetings too. :}
