They told me when I got here, that I never had to drink again. That seemed overwhelming!!!! I remember at my first meeting, someone mentioned they had 22 days of sobriety. I was SHOCKED! She stayed sober for 22 days WHAT THE????? Then some others said they were sober years and decades and I just flat out did not believe them. I figured they were lying and there was NO WAY someone could go that long without a single drop of alcohol.
Then I relapsed after 40 days of white knuckling and doing very little that was suggested to me - about 1/2 actually.
Then I came back desperate, willing to try anything and with an open mind about all this blasted God talk. At the very least, I figured I would tolerate it instead of silently judge and get angry at every single person who said the word God. I would even go to meetings where they said the Lords prayer, and just ignore them and not say it.
Then I started having cravings AGAIN! Here the stuff nearly killed me and others and just about ruined my life... but I wanted MORE??????????
Someone said pray to have my cravings removed. At this point with a couple weeks or so of sobriety, I was at least in a position to know that if I didn't do what they said, I was going to drink again, and I knew that I just could not stop once I started. I didn't want to pass out drunk with my little kids in my care EVER AGAIN!
I had to try praying, and I did it every time I had a craving. I had no idea what or who I was praying to - it didn't matter. I was going to try anything at this point... even the stuff I really really didn't want to do.
Lo and behold - it did work, and that was over a year ago now.
I spent the weekend at the pbr brewery and it didn't even bother me a bit. I got to see what all the other people NOT on a mission to destroy every shred of dignity they've ever had do at a wedding. It was actually really fun and I enjoyed myself - I even danced and sang in front of everyone SOBER! I did the hokey pokey with the kids - and sipped on water when I got thirsty! I enjoyed breakfast at 8am the following morning with my family, instead of trying to peel myself off the hotel bed in time for check out... tossing everything together in a shuffle and driving home still half in the bag from the night before. My clothes were folded and I knew where my keys were : )
So I guess the point of my story is this: You don't ever have to drink again - but I found it was easier in the beginning to just not drink for the day. If you follow through with the instructions in the Big book - and do what the old timers do - you have an amazing recovery and life waiting ahead for you. It isn't always easy - and no one will promise that, but they will promise this:
If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through.
We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.
We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace.
No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.
That feeling of uselessness and self pity will disappear.
We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.
Self-seeking will slip away.
Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.
Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.
We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.
We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among ussometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them. 3rd ed. Big Book pg. 83 & 84
I don't know if anyone's ever kept a promise to me before - but AA did. They said these promises will ALWAYS materialize if I work for them... and they did.
-- Edited by justadrunk on Wednesday 26th of June 2013 09:00:11 AM
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Thanks for everything. Peace and Love on your journey.
The ninth step promises pretty closely reflect what alcohol used to do for me when it was still working. Amazing that I found in AA what I was looking for in the bottle. Try putting in front of each promise "when I had a few drinks"... fear of economic insecurity left me... I gain interest in my fellows (the drinks are on me!).
But I'm an equally big fan of the 10th step promises
"And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone - even alcohol. For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality - safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is our experience. That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition."
I like that position of neutrality. I heard a speaker put it in away that made sense to me. "Today I have about as much choice to drink as I used to have not to drink". Cancelled out, neutral. Choice isn't really a factor anymore than I would have the choice to fly or not. I can't fly. If you found me on a cliff top trying to exercise that choice, you would have to question my sanity. The problem has been removed, I don't have to exercise the power of choice that I have never had.
God bless, MikeH.
-- Edited by Fyne Spirit on Wednesday 26th of June 2013 08:43:36 PM
I've heard this kind of story over and over again in the rooms, and it's a testament to the power of the program. If we had to fear the presence of alcohol the rest of our lives, then AA would be useless - it would just be another version of white-knuckling.
Practicing the 12 Steps brings about a psychic change in which the obsession to drink is lifted. Alcohol becomes like anything else that we can choose to decline.
I hate okra. It's a slimy, disgusting vegetable. But every time I say that, somebody is sure to answer, "You just haven't had it prepared correctly." Well, I've had it prepared a dozen different ways, and I still think it's slimy and disgusting - like eating a bowl of snot. So whenever I see okra on the table, I politely decline. I have the choice to do that because I'm not obsessed with it.
Now, by way of my recovery in AA, alcohol has the same affect on me: if it's being served, I politely decline. Let someone else enjoy it, someone that can enjoy it in good health. I've been in dozens of social situations where alcohol was served, and I was completely unfazed.
Congratulations Tasha!
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The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour. ---William James
