Just wanted to say that yesterday I reached two years of sobriety. I am one grateful alcoholic, that's for sure! I could not have done it without Alcoholics Anonymous. When I came into the rooms, I was a mess! I was completely hopeless! I was pretty beaten up and had made such a mess of my life with my drinking, with legal and credit issues, relationship problems. My life had very little meaning to me and I even contemplated ending it all because all I wanted to do was drink from when I woke up until I went to sleep at night--every day. One day without drinking sounded like an eternity to me. I was not receptive to the shares of other members at first...my alcoholic mind was telling me that I had better things to do than sit in a place where other people were sharing how they had stayed sober. One of the ways my alcoholism almost succeeded in getting me to stop AA was to try and convince me that AA was a "cult", that people in the rooms were "brainwashed" and if I stayed I would be "brainwashed" just like them. I imagined people were staring at me, judging me, they didn't like me and that they were even laughing at me. I picked apart shares and thought these "holier than thou" people were fakes, phonies. I had lost all my faith, so this "God" stuff and "Higher Power" stuff turned me off at first.  My own insecurities and paranoia almost caused me to stop going to meetings and start drinking again. I kept coming back, though. I eventually did start listening enough to let some of what people were saying sink into my stubborn, alcohol damaged brain of mine. I began to listen enough to hear my own story in those of others. I felt like people in there were like me in so many ways. Eventually I started to feel like I belonged in AA. It just felt "right". And  I knew without a doubt that I was completely powerless over alcohol. I had tried to stop drinking before on my own--it didn't work. I had even tried AA before--I quit before I really tried it because of the emotions/stinking thinking I described above. Finally,  in what brain cells the alcohol had not killed off, I knew that I had to be willing to do "whatever it takes" to stay sober this time and I had to make sobriety my number one priority.   I kept going to meetings and did over the 90 meetings in 90 days. It took me a few months to find a sponsor and Home Group, but I did. I worked the Steps. I didn't want to do them--I just did them because that is what other sober people were telling me they had to do to stay sober. I started praying to this "Higher Power" that I really didn't believe in--I just did it because others who knew how to stay sober said that is what they were doing. Eventually, my faith in the God who I thought had forsaken me for so long came back.  I got active in service work and begin to feel like maybe my life wasn't a complete waste after all. I eventually became more content and happier than I have ever been in my life--even before my drinking days.

AA changed my life and without it in my life, I'd probably be dead. It is so great to be alive and now I have hope. I still have some rough days and because of what I have learned since being in AA, I have learned that my life is not going to be happy every minute of every day. Things are going to happen and I know how to handle my problems without picking up a drink. I feel more confident and secure now knowing for a fact that alcohol is not the answer to my problems like I thought it was for so long. So if you are a newcomer and you feel hopeless over alcohol--give AA a chance. It's a true miracle program!