Hello everyone, I just want to do this post, I am six months sober, its funny when I started this journey in soberity I thought it would be an impossible feat. However it was amazing, it brought me closer myself and others. I can't even imagine the old me anymore, its just a story from my past now, I no longer have any sort of thoughts of drinking, and usually it doesn't even cross my mind.
The real help I got was not from AA itself but from my girlfriend, mind you this board helped me alot as well. She basically gave me the choice of her or the booze, I think with out me wanting to be with her so badly it wouldn't have ever worked for me. Its gotten our relationship so much stronger.
The power of love can be amazing ... Congrats on 6 months ...and congrats on the proposal ... Hey, you didn't say if she accepted or not ... what's the deal ???
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'Those who leave everything in God's hand will eventually see God's hand in everything.'
Congrats M & M! Six months is huge. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. I learned that desire didn't have to be mine. The desires of others got me here. I did learn that the desire to stay here had to be mine. Learned that the hard way. The desire switched after The Promises started to materialize and my life changed. Today, I'm grateful to those who got me here and to God and The Fellowship for keeping me here.
The real help I got was not from AA itself but from my girlfriend,
Congrats to you mandm....But in all fairness to AA....You never went to a meeting or read the big book right?....Not like you gave it a fair shot....Let's just say you're doing it for the girl...I tried that and it didn't work....No human power could solve my problem.....That includes the ex wife. I wish you the best....Just don't want to send the wrong message to the shaking terrified alcoholic logging on here for the first time. I'm happy for you!
Just thinking about Stepchild's caution for the benefit of the new member, in the process of qualifying ourselves (diagnosing) as alcoholics, the Big Book presents a description of another type of drinker. One that does not need a spiritual awakening to recover. Many of these come to AA and find ultimately that they don't need it or the steps.
"Then we have a certain type of hard drinker. He may have the habit badly enough to gradually impair him physically and mentally. It may cause him to die a few years before his time. If a sufficiently strong reason - ill health, falling in love, change of environment, or the warning of a doctor - becomes operative, this man can also stop or moderate, although he may find it difficult and troublesome and may even need medical attention."
Congrats on your proposal and the 6 months, which, I guess, is your personal achievement. Well done.
I like the warnings. As a hard core alcoholic, I could have used this thread to convince myself of another drunk or 3 easily. Eventually though - alcohol does the talking for itself and beats me to a bloody enough pulp/humiliation/jail/institution/horror etc, that I come back in shaking and terrified just because I am what I am. If I'm going to be here in God's time on His watch, I'll be here. It was how it was meant to be for me. Obviously I needed the extra convincing because I did come in to AA and then drink again for a bit until I finally got beaten down enough to do anything hard core alcoholics did to stay sitting in that room sober day after day, week after week - year after year. I was more than willing to pay 200 dollars a week in babysitters, drive 100's of miles per week, overlook this kind of thread, 13th steppers, gossiping, mean catty clicky woman, crazy ramblers, the stinky guy, grubby cold rooms, snow and blizzards, crying kids at my feet screaming mama don't go to another meeting, my perception that people were giving me dirty looks, the guy who stole 20 dollars from my purse... and all the rest of the crap that turned out to be AMAZING growth opportunities!!! At some point - the only thing that matters is what's in that big book, being at a meeting and seeking a spiritual solution no matter what - or die an alcoholic death. I was at that jumping off place. Nothing would stop me once I saw there was hope for real alcoholics like me. Because of that - I get to focus on the good that is AA and not the inevitable bad that is part of living on Earth. That is a miracle.
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Thanks for everything. Peace and Love on your journey.
Murray, is this the same girl you were posting about here in the beginning of your journey? I do trust HP knows what's best for you both and not me. All the best to you.
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Thanks for everything. Peace and Love on your journey.
Mandm...just from me, If alcoholism is a life threatening disease which can never be cured and only arrested by total abstinence how can you be so sure beyond this minute of your sobriety? Why is your girl friend being so responsible for your recovery from your addiction? What have you found out in 6 months about alcoholism which other of more time haven't? What does your girl friend know about the disease she is hooking up with? Does she know how to get in touch with and ask for help from others such as the Al-Anon Family Groups; those who have been affected by some one elses drinking and using? Our disease isn't only "our" disease...we do not live in a vaccuum and there is no insulation from the disease which carries a guarantee. Are you afraid of her having others she can rely on for help should the disease raise its ugly head higher? Just a note...in the last month or so the disease has taken back out 3 men in my life who had long terms of being dry. One with 20 years...family is destroyed. A year or so...family is destroyed; these two were family members and a close friend in AA who's family I've known for much of my life; 3 years 4 months, relapsed and got it all back in so much a shorter time than he did the time before. His mother is in Al-Anon and has more of a chance than he does for today.
Just a short note of something we heard at a convention where the speaker was the mother of an alcoholic. She told the crowd she never heard her son ever say "I owe my sobriety to my mother" because of course no one can be responsible for that other than the alcoholic themselves and their desire to get and stay sober. If you don't get and stay sober who's to blame? If you do get and stay sober who gets to own it? Who does the work.
I've been around for 35 years and am a double...a member of both programs. I never got my alcoholic/addict clean and sober and I never stopped drinking because of or for her...it was an agreement between HP and myself alone.
Let her attend 30 Al-Anon open meetings without you so that she can listen to others who have been or are married to alcoholics and addicts and what they use to be like, what they found out and how it is for them today. Don't interfere in the 30 days...don't ask questions or try to find out what she is hearing...for that 30 days you attend AA...daily and listen with an open mind and after that see how things fit. Marriage isn't a recovery suggestion...in fact it is the opposite.
This is just from me and my time in my own recovery and my time as a alcoholism/substance abuse behavioral health counselor...family, marriage, adult, adolescent, relationship; inpatient and out. Keep coming back.
I originally entered AA because it was that or divorce, and I was so very angry. I stayed because I wanted to be sober for myself, work the steps and do the program of AA. Take away the booze and not go to meetings and work the program, that's a dry drunk, and I've never seen it work long term for anyone in the 7 years I've been in the halls. Good luck, maybe you've found a better softer way.
The desire switched after The Promises started to materialize and my life changed. Today, I'm grateful to those who got me here and to God and The Fellowship for keeping me here.