I would love to hear from you and how you are doing? I have under a year, too. Also what are you doing to stay sober each day?
I'll start with me...
I have been an alcoholic for over 30 years. My life became a real mess because of it. DUI, in and out of hospitals due to alcohol related injuries, wreaked my marriage, lost friends and family, ruined my credit, had no self worth left and suicidal. All of these things made me want to drink more and I was a around the clock drinker --starting in the early morning and not stopping until I passed out at night. I would choose booze over food, so skipped a lot of meals. Finally I realized that I had a choice to make. I could either die a drunk, as I certainly would have at the rate I was going, or decide to live again. There is an expression in AA--"I was sick and tired of being sick and tired."
I have almost 6 months of sobriety. I have been attending AA meetings everyday since my first day of sobriety and I have been coming to this board for a while. I visit here everyday--morning and at night before bedtime and have received much help and encouragement from others--who are like very good friends to me now, which I haven't had any of them for awhile. There are regulars here and it has been very comforting to me to read their posts. I also read AA/alcoholism related literature in books and on the internet. I have been trying to fill my mind with knowledge about my disease and how I can understand my illness, accept it, and not fool myself into thinking I can ever be able control my drinking. Besides the Big Book, my favorite AA book is Living Sober. I have just started reading poetry, (which I used to do years ago before my drinking got so bad). I do service work (make coffee, clean up, make goodies, etc) for several of the meetings I go to. It makes me feel like I am giving back to others who have helped me so much. I have a sponsor and am working the steps. I pray everyday to my HP and thank Him for keeping me sober the day before and keeping me sober today. I also have started praying for His guidance each day. (I was "guiding" myself for years, and found out that really sucked.) I also give thanks for the many blessings I have in life, which I was unable to see and appreciate when I was drinking.
I am very new to being sober. 19 days. I too go to a meeting every morning at 6:30am and some days I try to go to a meeting at night. I check this forum every day sometimes 3 or 4 times a day. I am reading the Big Book and trying to live a healthy life. It has been hard. I have had to attend a wedding, family dinners and a birthday party. It was difficult but I did not drink. I feel a determination to find a better way. I just hope I can continue to do it.
I'm getting support from my family but one feels it is all BS. Of course this is from the one person that drinks everyday. I think he is afraid of me being sober. I'm working on my God issues and opening my mind and heart to a new way of living even if that means I will have to leave some people behine someday.
You are doing so good by being sober for almost 6months. You give me hope.
Marie,
You are doing great yourself!!! 19 days!!!! It was extremely difficult for me to get up to that many days. There are a lot of folks that have trouble going without a drink for just one day. I am sure that some of them have read your posts and although they may not post, you have helped them know that it can be done. Truly amazing, too, that you have been able to attend those functions where there was drinking, and you maintained your sobriety. That shows just how very strong and determined you are. I doubt I could have done that and don't think I can be around active drinkers for a long time. Family support is great, but I would question the one(s) who don't support me and try hard not to pay any attention to anything or anybody that can get in the way of my sobriety--it is that important to me. It is your life after all and you have the right to do whatever it takes to design a better happier one for yourself.
Keep in touch and I hope you know that you give me hope, too.
Hi BTY, and all. It's so nice to hear about the successes of early sobriety! I am a couple of weeks shy of a year. For me, it's been all about working the steps, going to meetings, getting myself out of my comfort zone, reading the literature, asking for help, reaching out to others, learning from the fine folks on this board, and coming to believe in and trusting in my HP.
Hi BTY, and all. It's so nice to hear about the successes of early sobriety! I am a couple of weeks shy of a year. For me, it's been all about working the steps, going to meetings, getting myself out of my comfort zone, reading the literature, asking for help, reaching out to others, learning from the fine folks on this board, and coming to believe in and trusting in my HP.
Kind of hard to fail if you're doing that...Keep moving forward all!!...And I think we might need to have a little celebration here in a couple weeks RT....Congrats to all of you on your sober time. It works if you work it!
Philipld, So glad you are back. Sober is great, isn't it? I have heard others talk about having years and years of sobriety and hitting a rough patch along the way and getting sober again. That's great. I feel sad for the ones who don't come back.
RubyTues--that's wonderful that you are almost at a year! I need to start trying to get out of my comfort zone, too. Hopefully, that will come in time.
I have had 9 mths sober in the last ten , had a blip after six months .
Within two weeks of picking up again I had been arrested and thrown in a cell facing a charge for a crime that I couldn't really remember with any clarity.
Fortunately for me there was no further action taken due to lack of evidence and I was spared the shame of going to court and possibly prison.
It has taken me 30 years to finally have my convincer, yes 30 years, for this alcoholic to realise that the possibility of ever drinking alcohol socially or normally if you will is zero.
A.A has helped me realise this but of course it has to come from within.
I have to say that I am grateful to A.A and I realise that my blip means I have to start again, so in A.A terms, I am almost four months sober.
So to all who are under a year staying sober for today is what really matters.
One guy who has long term sobriety shared this at a meeting, When he was new to A.A he asked an old timer what it was like to be 20 years sober, the old timer turned the question on it's head and asked him what it was like to be 6 months sober , it feels pretty good he replied .
The old timer said, that is what it feels like to be twenty years sober.
I have to say that I am grateful to A.A and I realise that my blip means I have to start again, so in A.A terms, I am almost four months sober.
Let me ask you something....Something tells me I already know the answer to this. When you had your blip...You drank....Had you worked the steps?...Or had you even started the steps?....And what about now?....At four months are you working the program of recovery (the steps) right now? I'm just curious.
Yes I believe that I was working the steps to the best of my ability, I fell what can I say .
I have been trying to get a sponsor before I picked up and since but as I have stated somewhere else on this board it is not easy ,and I mean for anyone in our group, to get sponsored.
That said I have continued to get my head down get back on track and try to work the steps in the best way I can.
Sponsorless I feel it is fairly hard to work the whole program.
What I can work on my own though I put into practice , I am not mud slinging here in any way so hope my post doesn't come across that way.
Just to add finally that I realise that I had to have , at some point at least, stopped working the program in order to pick up the booze.
I had a guy once tell he'd been in and out of AA for 20 years because he had a fool for a sponsor...Himself. I don't recommend it. There has to be at least one oldtimer in your group you could ask to take you through the steps....Half measures don't get us half results...They get us nothing. I'd keep looking...In the meantime I'd suggest you STUDY The Doctor's Opinion and the first 103 pages of the book...Those are the clear cut directions you will be following. I can promise you one thing...If you do exactly what they laid out in that book...With the help of someone that's done it....It works.
Hi Insanicdrunk,
Congratulations on your 4 months of sobriety. From what I have heard, most of us alcoholics have those "blips" as you called them. Thank goodness a lot of us find our way back out of the insanity. You and I aren't too far apart in the number of years we have of drinking time. I've been in jail myself for a DUI. That was horrible and I thought for a few years there was nothing worse than having to go through that. I was wrong...I was at least safe from drinking the time I was in there. As soon as I got out, I was at home downing more of the crap. I didn't realize I had already been a prisoner to the alcohol for years. I now have freedom which I never thought I would have again. I don't know how many more years left of life on this earth. No one does. I don't know if I have beyond today. I do want whatever time I do have living it sober and being able to remember each day clearly rather than to wake up in a drunken stupor or hungover and feel shame, remorse, or worse, have no memory at all of what I said or did the day before.
Hope to keep seeing you on this board and hearing how you are doing.
(((((hugs)))))))
Stepchild please don't take this as offensive but do you attend my group?
One, I will not pick just any sponsor it will have to be someone whom I feel I could connect with.
My reasons , step four and five you have to trust someone with that kind of stuff.
I may even choose to remain sponsor less and seek out someone whom I really trust to go thorough the step.
Two, I will give you a personal example of how helpful the group can be only to demonstrate that finding a sponsor in such an environment is no easy task.
I currently do not have a car or a job , I do not expect to be taxied around by the way, but there are at least three member in my group who virtually pass my house to get to meetings and not one of them has offered me a lift to or from a meeting.
Now you might be saying , this guy must be a riot, let me tell you that I have friends who I left rehab with from the same area who left the group because of how it worked.
It has a hardcore ,a clique if you like who are in the inner fold , you break into that inner fold or you sink it's that simple.
-- Edited by Insanicdrunk on Sunday 10th of November 2013 05:36:03 AM
Insanicdrunk, I too waited a while before I found a sponsor for the same reasons you have waited. I had been advised by well-meaning members to get a sponsor right away. I started praying to my HP for someone to come into my life if it was meant for me to even have a sponsor at all, because I had reached the point where I thought I could work the steps by myself--just fine. Well, someone did appear and I couldn't be happier. It is very important to be able to trust your sponsor and connect with that person.
There are "cliques" everywhere and I just try to avoid them as I have never felt the need to be involved with groups of people who alienate others because they believe they are superior are better than others. It reminds me too much of high school days, and I didn't understand or care for it then either. We have those in meetings I attend and instead of being intimidated by those who are like that I try to tell myself that perhaps they still have some step work to do. I just try to be nice to everyone because it is easier for me to be that way instead of holding grudges. I am sorry that you had friends in rehab who left AA. That happens all the time and it is sad. It really is more about each of those individuals than other personalities in the group. They just weren't ready to quit drinking yet. I too have left AA in the past because of what "those people in AA" said or did "to me". I told myself this time when I first got sober that no matter what I thought anyone said or did to me that I will NOT leave AA this time. This is a life and death situation to me. I realized that there are always going to be people who I am going to think don't like me (and who don't), don't treat me like I think they should treat me, etc., and that happens everywhere, not just in AA. And they were reasons I gave myself to drink. And I certainly hope you don't take offense to this, insanicdrunk, (I am referring to just me as I can only take my own inventory).......I am learning that I just have to get over myself and my own insecurities in order to stay sober.
Another thing which took me awhile is that I easily got offended when people didn't come up to me, offer me rides (I too, don't drive) because I am the newcomer and I thought they "should" do these things. It has helped me to realize that I am responsible for myself. It is up to me to approach other members if I want to talk to them (not saying you have had this issue, as you didn't mention it)--or to ask or "put it out there" to members for a ride if I need one. I have heard shares from others with more sobriety, who remember all too well what it was like to be new in AA and they say they just wanted to be left alone at first and I realized that I was (and still am sometimes) the same way. I am beginning to open up more, approach members, and be more approachable by members.
You quoted, "It has a hardcore ,a clique if you like who are in the inner fold , you break into that inner fold or you sink it's that simple."
Just my opinion here about that..... if I sink, it is because I didn't learn how to swim.
-- Edited by betterthanyesterday52 on Sunday 10th of November 2013 08:25:54 AM
Good post and I take most of your points , will just clarify a few things if you don't mind.
The only reason I gave the lift example was to make a point .
I am not intimidated either, I am frustrated with the whole dynamic within the group , it is a small group so it is easily controlled by half a dozen like minded members.
That said I do not blame A.A for this, it is actually the opposite because I firmly believe that if true A.A ethics were being followed the problem would not exist.
Now I may be coming across as some kind of "moaning Minnie" venting his spleen at others because things aren't going his way but it is in fact because they are not going the A.A way that I have the problem .
One last example I will give is this , in relation to one particular friend who was in a rehab. facility with me and left to go home a week before I did.
As suggested by the rehab staff , many of whom were A.A or a derivative of, i.e N.A members, when he left he continued going to meetings and above all sought a full time sponsor.
When I arrived at the meeting on the day of my leaving rehab I met of with him .
The first thing he talked about was the fact that he had asked virtually everyone at the meeting if they would sponsor him, just as he had been advised to do .
They all declined ,now I am sure there were probably valid reasons for some of the declinations and I accept this but all of them.
I proceeded to do the same over a period of some months , working out who I though I may connect with, but was knocked back on four occasions for varying reasons, now I'm sure again that some could have been valid .
Some might say that in such a small group , probably a hardcore 15 members, I should not have tried to pick and choose but that is negated by the fact that my friend asked almost everyone apart from the females of course, with the same result.
He eventually left disillusioned with it all, was it an excuse, I don't know but I will say this, he was never given the opportunity to prove it either way.
That for me is the sad part.
I appreciate that all groups are autonomous and do not represent A.A as a whole, in fact I have been to some fantastic meetings elsewhere so A.A is not my target here, far from it.
I tend to treat others how I would expect to be treated, that is the way I work but I won't be anybodies fool either.
Respect is earned not automatically given .
-- Edited by Insanicdrunk on Sunday 10th of November 2013 11:02:56 AM
Sounds like a tough group you got there....You know there is a part in that book that really hit home for me...I'll share it with you...
Faced with alcoholic destruction, we soon became as open minded on spiritual matters as we had tried to be on other questions. In this respect alcohol was a great persuader. It finally beat us into a state of reasonableness. Sometimes this was a tedious process; we hope no one else will be prejudiced for as long as some of us were.
BB pg 48
Alcohol not only persuaded me....It kicked my ass and almost killed me. I was beaten into a state of reasonableness. I wanted what they had...The question for me was a simple one.....What length was I willing to go to to get it?....For me if the answer wasn't "any length"....I don't think I'd be here. I hope things work out for you.
Insanicdrunk,
Good Morning to You! Are there any other groups that you can attend? I am sorry that you have had a hard time finding a sponsor. Since there are not very many people in the meeting you go to, perhaps they have other sponsees and/or don't have the time to sponsor someone. You could search the internet and hopefully find other groups in your area or if you have a When and Where book (that is a small size booklet with meeting places/times as well as other AA information). In our meetings, they usually have a table with this as well as other AA literature on it. On the back of my When and Where book is the phone number of the main office of the Intergroup in my area and you may be able to call them and let them know you need rides to meetings. They usually have a list of names with people who are willing to do this. I too, don't drive right now and have had members offer me rides once they found out. I haven't had to take them up on it, but it is nice to know that they are willing to help me if needed. It helps them as well as others and is part of their service work in AA. You could also tell your intergroup you call that you are looking for a temporary sponsor, if you would like to.
There is also a great book Living Sober which has a section about finding a sponsor which you may find helpful. It sounds like you are really wanting to find someone to help you and I wouldn't give up doing that just because you haven't had luck doing so in your particular meeting.
Oh, I will tell you that I attend different meetings in the area and there are on the average of 40-75 people at each of these meetings. At the end of most of these, the Chair announces that if someone has worked the steps and is willing to sponsor someone to raise their hand. Most of the time, only two or three people raise their hand and sometimes no one has responded. A few times as many as a half dozen raise their hands but this has been rare. I am always surprised that there are not more people and it was difficult for me to find a sponsor at first because I wanted to hear women share a few times before I asked them if they could sponsor me, and when I did find a couple of different ones who I would have liked to have as sponsors, they were not available. This was very frustrating for me as I attend a lot of meetings. So I started adding to my prayers to my HP that if it was meant for me to have a sponsor to help me find one, and my prayers were answered.
I too try to treat others how I would like to be treated. As far as respect is concerned, I feel like I was very disrespected at times and was ready to drop out of AA again, as I had done in the past. I came to this board and got some great advice and also someone shared in a meeting something that helped me and that is that there are some in the "rooms" that don't care for them. They did drop out and it took them awhile to come back to AA. They said that they have reached the point where they don't care if everyone in the rooms doesn't care for them (very unlikely, but good point following.....) that they were coming to the meetings to work on their own sobriety and were not there to win any popularity contests. I am not sure by your postings if you are experiencing where you feel like you don't "fit in" but for me, I sure did, and still do at times. Whenever I have this thought and start to feel uncomfortable before, during or after meetings, I just try and remind myself that I need to "place principals before personalities" and that we are all sick in the rooms and we all have a common interest and that is in staying sober and I start to feel like I fit in just fine.
Thank you for wishing me well, and likewise to you! I am glad that you are not letting your group influence your desire to stay sober.
I had this sponsorship problem as well. Small towns suck. My situation worked itself out - I kept searching, this board saved my life. I was thinking of driving to a bigger city and finding a sponsor there that I could meet with just every other week or monthly or just work with over skype. I ended up finding a lady here but it is still a big problem here. On the flip side, because woman are more desperate here - I ended up sponsoring the day after I finished my steps at 6 month sober - and that has really helped me grow and stay on track. Probably more similar to the way things were way back when, and it still works just like it did when everyone had to be open to just working with anyone who was available, or be willing to drive long distances for meetings or to meet with other sober people - or write letters and work together by phone long distance. If you really want to live - you'll do anything - even this stuff. and if both parties where ever they are in the world have a Big book in hand - it can work. I now know this from experience, and it makes space and time (what year it is) irrelevant. We are kind of spoiled now compared to what dying alcoholics had to go through in the 30's and 40's. We think we are SUPPOSE to be able to be SO picky. Well, yes, that's all nice if it's an option - but it isn't always (like here) and it's better to just do it even if it's not to our personal liking than to die - IMO.
__________________
Thanks for everything. Peace and Love on your journey.
I had this sponsorship problem as well. Small towns suck. My situation worked itself out - I kept searching, this board saved my life. I was thinking of driving to a bigger city and finding a sponsor there that I could meet with just every other week or monthly or just work with over skype. I ended up finding a lady here but it is still a big problem here. On the flip side, because woman are more desperate here - I ended up sponsoring the day after I finished my steps at 6 month sober - and that has really helped me grow and stay on track. Probably more similar to the way things were way back when, and it still works just like it did when everyone had to be open to just working with anyone who was available, or be willing to drive long distances for meetings or to meet with other sober people - or write letters and work together by phone long distance. If you really want to live - you'll do anything - even this stuff. and if both parties where ever they are in the world have a Big book in hand - it can work. I now know this from experience, and it makes space and time (what year it is) irrelevant. We are kind of spoiled now compared to what dying alcoholics had to go through in the 30's and 40's. We think we are SUPPOSE to be able to be SO picky. Well, yes, that's all nice if it's an option - but it isn't always (like here) and it's better to just do it even if it's not to our personal liking than to die - IMO.
That is what "willing to go to any length" is all about. It's one thing to want or need this solution...It's another thing to work for it.
