I found stopping drinking to be an exhausting undertaking....I guess the body and mind misses what we've been pouring into it...I look at it like I had a lot of undoing to do. I also medically detoxed for the first five days...Anti siezure meds...And that wiped me out....I just slept. It gets better...We defog a little bit more each day. I don't think at one week you are going through anything abnormal.

As far as the 3rd step goes....I looked at it as a decision whether I'm going to start trusting God and continue on with the process of facing and ridding myself of what is blocking me from Him...Steps 4 - 9....Or not. I wanted what these people that had done it had...I just wanted to live a happy life without alcohol....I hadn't been able to do that before. I said the prayer in the book on my knees as my sponsor suggested I do.....And I started step 4. Now that I had decided to put my will and my life in God...As I understand Him's care....I prayed for help doing that step....Notice how many times in the directions for step four they say things like...We asked God...And refer to prayer. They mention things like this....

Perhaps there is a better way - we think so. For we are now on a different basis; the basis of trusting and relying upon God. We trust infinite God rather than our finite selves. We are in the world to play the role He assigns. Just to the extent that we do as we think He would have us, and humbly rely on Him, does He enable us to match calamity with serenity.

pg 68

I couldn't do this step without God's help....I wrote and I prayed....It's a beautiful step....It's where we find out what makes us tick.....Causes and conditions. Don't be afraid of it....Not with the help you have.

As far as nightmares go....I had them too...They get less frequent also....Time takes time.

My sponsor also was big on thoroughly following the path...The directions for when to start step four are here...

Though our decision was a vital and crucial step, it could have little permanent effect unless at once followed by a strenuous effort to face, and to be rid of, the things in ourselves which had been blocking us. Our liquor was but a symptom. So we had to get down to causes and conditions.

The decision they talk about is step 3...I don't recommend taking too much time on it...What they are talking about is the decision isn't going to keep you sober long without following it up with action...I've seen this proven enough times. Talk with your sponsor about it.

Aloha Liz...keep trudging, be afraid and do it anyway was what my sponsors encouraged me to do.  "Nightmares and drinking dreams don't kill you or get you drunk" and along with that the lessons on F.E.A.R.  My dreams were just dreams...metaphors and frightening for sure and still based upon False Evidence Appearing Real.  Yes my mind and emotions did record fearful events which I seemingly got past and then later when I was relaxed in sleep released them letting me have another look with different colors, different, people, different sounds and outcomes.  My last nightmare was about 10 years ago and it was very animated causing me to leap out of the bed and land on the floor and scaring my wife out of her wits.  My last drinking dream was a few years later after I had over 25 years of sobriety.  I was sure I had left the house and been out drinking and there I was standing over my wife in bed asking "Did I leave the house"? several times.  "No" she said "come back to bed" and that was that.  My last flirtation with alcohol was only about 3 years ago and I knew it for what it was; the disease causing me to remember and reconsider maybe just "one" or at least save the cut glass bottle as a souvinere(?).  The disease is cunning powerful and baffling and will always work on those parts of me which caused me to say yes to it.  In the last 35 years I've only had to deal with drinking in my sub-conscious and with time it gets more remote.

My inventory on my emotional self revealed that fear was my greatest emotional character defect and so I learned to expect it until I could replace it with its opposite.  My Higher Power removed it from me and I was able to move into and thru the program much more easily. My sponsors all kept me moving forward even when fear, anxiety and reluctance wanted to have me procrastinate.  "Be afraid...do it anyway" was what I was taught and now that is habitual as my drinking was. Sobriety for me in simple terms has been learning alternative behaviors looking for alternative consequences.  Sobriety isn't only about not drinking.  

The 4th step for me was an unanticipated journey starting off with the best I can being just touching the surface.  I knew about it some as I was raised Catholic and confession and penance was part of life however learning the requirements of "searching, fearless and moral"  required repitition over time and on my last 4th step I looked for the tap root of all of my character defects with my HP and sponsor; that deep root that the mass of my defects were connect to and feed off of.

Fear can present itself as PTSD also which for me isn't so much my subconscious acting out and my consciousness entertaining insanity.  It is still not a justification to drink or consume mind/mood altering chemicals unless those are prescribed to improve my sobriety...my balance of mind, body, spirit and emotions.

Try incorporating the Let go and Let God, Easy Does it, Don't React and such slogans into your daily program...not just thinking it and doing it...practice, practice, practice.  From personal experiences that works.  Of course ongoing conversations with your Higher Power...and your sponsorship and group.   You are not alone in the least.   Keep coming back.   (((hugs)))  

Hi Liz, You're getting some very good feedback from Stepchild and all the others who have posted and are helping you a great deal.  Just reaching out and asking for help is a step forward for you.  You shared that you're kind of scared to begin Step Four.  That's perfectly normal for us alcoholics.  As you already know, Step Four is looking at the truth about ourselves.  That fear you're feeling is your disease lying to you, trying to convince you that the truth will hurt you and destroy you.  The opposite is actually true.  Our disease destroys.  The truth gives new life.  Much like me "back in the day", you probably think that if you look too closely at yourself, you'll find out that you're completely bad.  We alcoholics normally think that way, but it's not true.  Please let me share a true life story with you about something that actually happened to me that changed everything for me regarding Step Four.  I'll try to give you the "condensed-version" to keep it short and simple.  I call it The Weed Patch Story.  I share it with all my sponsorees when they're at Step Four.

Some 25 years ago when I was getting newly sober, my wife and I had moved to a small acreage that had a huge ugly thick patch of weeds just beyond the back yard.  Beyond the weed patch, there was a nice grassy horse pasture.  The pasture looked great but the weed patch was definitely an eyesore.  The weeds and thistles were as high as my shoulders in most places.  After we got settled in and had everything arranged nicely in the house, I decided that it was finally time to figure out what we should do about the nasty patch of weeds.  I thought about setting it on fire and burning it all down.  I thought about hiring someone to mow it all down.  I thought about getting somebody to come in with a bulldozer.  I wasn't sure how to approach it, but I knew I had to get rid of it somehow because it was so nasty looking.

One sunny Saturday morning my wife and I were outside together and we were discussing what to do with the darned thing.  Then my wife said she wanted to walk back into the pasture on the other side of the weed patch and explore it.  Well, the only way to get to the pasture was to walk directly through the weed patch.  So, we decided to try it.  We proceeded carefully, pushing our way through the tall thick weeds -- with me leading the way.  It was slow-going because I had to push tall weeds from side-to-side as we walked through.  It was like a jungle.  Suddenly, my wife said she stepped on something and wanted to see what it was.  She bent down to find it and came up with a cucumber in her hand.  Then, I stepped on another cucumber, and another, and another.  I pushed forward and stumbled over two small anemic looking pumpkins.  As I held them up to show them to her, she showed me a handful of squash she'd found.  While I was digging around in the weeds, I found a row of carrots.  Totally amazed, I turned to her and said, "What in the heck are these vegetables doing in a weed patch??"  Grinning at me, my wife said, "You silly boy.  Mike...don't you get it?  This is no weed patch!  It's a garden!  Let's start pulling weeds!"  So, we did start pulling weeds.  I pulled them up and she carried them away and piled them up.  I handed her more and more vegetables, and she filled buckets and boxes with them.  It was a sorting-process -- weeds over there, and vegetables over here.  It was a lot of work, and it took all weekend, but the more weeds we pulled, the more vegetables we found in very straight carefully-planted rows.  As we worked on it, my mind gradually changed from thinking of this piece of land as an ugly weed patch, to thinking of it as a beautiful garden.  And, when we got finished....that's exactly what we saw -- a beautiful carefully-planted garden.  The vegetables we found were not thriving too well because the weeds had blocked out the sunshine from them.  Some of them were small and pale but, they were still living.  We definitely made use of them at the table.  We couldn't believe what we discovered about that weed patch that we were going to destroy.

Some time later, I found myself sitting with my sponsor as he was explaining Step Four to me from the Big Book.  As we read the book and talked, I suddenly remembered that previous experience with the weed patch/garden.  It came to my mind in a flash of reality.  And, I could hear my wife's words:  "Mike....this is no weed patch....it's a garden!"  That's when I realized that I had to change my thinking about myself.  I had only thought of myself as an ugly useless "weed patch" that needs to be destroyed.  But, I discovered in Step Four that I was never a "weed patch".  I was actually a carefully-planted "garden" that had just become over-grown with weeds, that's all.  My "weeds" (my character defects) had been blocking out God's Grace all along.  Underneath all the chaos and disorder of those weeds (character defects), there was perfect order inside me.  All I had to do was....start pulling "weeds" to reveal it.  And, once I did, I found something beautiful and useful that had just been hidden....but, it was always there all along.

Liz, once you start "pulling weeds" in Step Four, you're not going to find how ugly you are....you're going to find how beautiful you are.  You're not a "weed patch".  You're a "carefully-planted garden".  The truth you will find is not the ugly truth...it's the beautiful truth.  Thanks for letting me share this experience with you.  Blessings, Mike D.

I did my second 4th step with my sponsor when I lived just behind the Bank on Shaw between First and Fresno Streets.  My sponsor called me to find out if I was done and I told him "I think so".  We were doing the old model "split page" 4th...good of me on the left and worse of me on the right and he asked me, "how many things have you listed on the left side"? and I told him 8 and when he asked me about the right side list I told him "over 12" and his response was "Don't turn it in, I don't want to see it" which confused me and so I asked him why.  He replied "because there is no such thing as more bad in a person than there is good".  The first requirement listed is "searching" and so I went back to work on my second 4th step.  Don't ask about my first one...my sponsor fire me for dishonesty.  Wishing you good stuff.   ((((hugs))))