Morning all, in my first couple days of sobriety, yesterday seemed easy but this morning, first thing on my mind was i wanted a drink, feeling better now and staying strong. Just been out for a walk with my dog and husband. Any other new comers out there?
Welcome. Get a copy of the Alcoholics Anonymous book and read through it, especially the medical doctor's opinion. Get to an AA meeting. That's were we get our strength from. Wishing you well and keep us posted on this board as to how you doing. There are many newcomers and old timers here.
Thankyou gonee for your kind words, already got the big book plus living sober book, at the moment i am taking it one hour at a time. Not sure if yourself or anyone else can help, but i live in the UK and am a WEB newbie. Looking for some online meetings to supplement my current regular face to face ones xx
Welcome Karen - keep us posted on your progress. A little something posted here every day for 90 days would be great! I did that, and just remember that no matter what, if you make it through this 24 hours sober (or not) keep posting. Never give up on you.
__________________
Thanks for everything. Peace and Love on your journey.
Welcome. It's awesome that you're here. I'm really happy for you that you made the decision to end the agony of the drinking cycle. 3 days is great, and everyday will get easier and better. Sometimes, it might seem overwhelming to think of your life without alcohol, so, just take it easy, and just think of TODAY without alcohol. After a while, the cravings, (if you even have any) will get further and further apart.
Keep reading those books. The Big Book really helped me realize a lot of things about alcoholism. It's great reading, and if you can get yourself to a meeting, you'll meet people just like yourself.
Thanx for that regarding AA meetings, but i also want some online ones, but me and my husband are struggling to find much information about them xx
I have not personally tried these, but I found some links you can check out:
http://stepchat.com/aa.htm
http://www.aaonline.net/
http://www.stayingcyber.org/
http://www.e-aa.org/
http://www.aa-alive.net/
http://www.onlinegroupaa.org/
The best type of 'AA via internet' I have experienced was by first going to several real face-to-face AA meetings and making connections with people there and trading emails, and THEN making use of those to communicate over the internet with people I had already met. Even if you are not able to get to physical face to face meetings every day due to something like living in some remote location, in my opinion it is very important to make every effort to do so in early sobriety and make those connections with sober people in your area.
Welcome, & good luck! Please post again and let us know how it's going.
Thaku Baba Louie and davep12and12, i have been to several face to face meetings, for the last 4months, but kept falling back to the demon drink, but i had a huge wake up call last weekend, ended up in hosp and nearly lost my job, but now i feel as though my faith is getting stronger and everyone is being extremely supportive, even in work now ive told them everything, and im not going to risk losing my daughter as i work in her school. Will keep posting and let you all know how i am doing, thanx again xx
Welcome. I know for myself, the first 6 years of my sobriety I went to a meeting every single day. I found time to drink every single day, so an hour for a meeting? That still left me with a ton of free time. It sounds like you didn't really attend many meetings the last 4 months, and kept relapsing (there's a correlation there I think). In my experience, nothing takes the place of face to face meetings and the fellowship you gain by attending the same meetings every week. I wouldn't have made it without those people, who like me showed up every day. Good luck.
Welcome to MIP Kaz, ... it's great you found us .... and it's a good feeling to know you're not going through this alone ... we've all been in your shoes ...
Something that helped me a lot was to keep some candy close by ... some good 'hard candy' will do ... when I got the urge to have a drink early in my sobriety, I ate a piece of candy ... and since alcohol is mostly sugar, the candy helps stop the cravings ...
Love you and God Bless, Pappy
-- Edited by Pythonpappy on Friday 11th of September 2015 09:58:53 PM
__________________
'Those who leave everything in God's hand will eventually see God's hand in everything.'
I'm back in and struggling, I like you went and got your hair done and walked your dog. I walk my dog, I use my vodka money to buy carnations (they are cheap, pretty and last a long time), do my nails, read my literature. My apartment is very clean! I am planning on going to my local Intergroup to put together AA packets for prisoners.
Keeping my mind and body active I find is helping.
Good luck! I'm right there with you!
Hello all, felt quite down today, but new i had to go to my meeting, which always make me feel better being with like minded people. Got home and my wonderful husband ran me a candlelit bath with relaxation music on, now feeling so much better and relaxed. Spoke to God in bath, and reflected on shares in meeting, so nice relaxing SOBER, day four nearly over with, nite nite all xx
The big book describes how to get well by taking certain steps in order to have a spiritual awakening. It doesn't specify a certain number of meetings to achieve the same result becaue the meetings are not the program. I see you have been struggling for several months and have probably been to a lot of meetings.
While some folks seem to be able to stay sober on meetings alone, nothing changed for me until I began working those steps and learning the principles I need to practice to have a happy recovered life.
Often, meetings alone can lead to what I call "saw tooth sobriety". That means life becomes a series of ups and downs and if you plotted them on a graph it would look like a saw blade. The high point, the best you are going to feel, is at the end of a meeting. Then its all down hill until we get to another meeting. If we are regular in our meetings, we get a regular saw blade, but folks sometimes get fed up with meetings, mainly because they are not getting what most people seem to be getting, so they stay away longer, and the downward slide gets bigger and eventually......
Sobriety based in spiritual experience through the steps makes meetings, in fact any effort helping others, extremely rewarding but our lives don't fall apart if we cant get to a meeting. We are not dependent on people or AA, we have a relationship with the God of our understanding that keeps us safe and protected 24/7.
Hey Kaz, .... Let's hope this "I had to go my meeting" feeling will turn to "Oh yeah, I get to go to a meeting" ... I know it's early, but our attitude toward recovery makes a world of difference ...
Do you have a sponsor??? ... we all do better when we have a sponsor to guide us through the BB ... AND to help us with working the steps ...
Good job so far ... just take it one day at a time ...
Love ya and God Bless, Pappy
__________________
'Those who leave everything in God's hand will eventually see God's hand in everything.'
Morning all. Had a great sleep and feeling ontop of the world, got a full day planned ahead, going seeing my daughters pony, then coming home making a sunday roast, and parent in laws coming for tea, SO SO great to get up without a fuzzy head and the sun is shining. A new day and new start...bring it on day five, feel like dancing today xx
Hi Kaz! I'm day 7 and feeling great too! As I type I am looking at a huge bouquet of carnations bought with
my vodka money, went to my favorite women's meeting and now I'm settled in for the evening.
Keep up the good work my sober sister and remember one day at a time!
:)
Great job Kaz and Photo ... ... ... yeah Photo, the Rehab I went to, had us do some math and figure the amount of money we spent on booze over the past ... I choked on the amount I had spent(thrown away) ... it was a sizable fortune ...
The AA family gave me my life back and I hope our family here will be welcome into your hearts for us to do the same for you guys ...
Love y'all and God Bless, Pappy
__________________
'Those who leave everything in God's hand will eventually see God's hand in everything.'
The money thing was really bad for me, cause I was a barfly. If all I ever did was buy a 24 case of beer everyday, or a 5th or liter of booze everyday, that would've been bad enough, but at the bars, I could drop $75 a night easy. So me, being the overindulgent freak that I am, would do both. Case of beer at home in the day, shots and mixed drinks at the bar at night. No wonder I'm broke now.
Feeling great this morning, bit tired but its Monday!!! Thanked my higher power for taking me to bed sober and waking up sober. This forum has helped no end, everyones advice and kind works, i cannot thank you all enough xx
Feeling extremely proud, just walked home from work with £10 in my pocket intending to buy an anniversairy card for my husband for tomorrow, but the demon VODKA came into my head, thoughts like 'i can just buy half a bottle and no-one will know', felt really scared to walk to card shop as several shops near by where i can buy drink, so as walking home i passed a fish and chip shop, so bought lunch for us both instead. Came home and told my husband, he said hes so proud of me. I'd rather be a fat sober than a skinny drunk. Tough day today, but now feeling better, xx
Great job of passing on that demon of 'craving the drink' ... as we always say, 'Just for Today, I will not Drink' ... I can at least make it one day ...
thanks for showing others it 'works' ...
Now, that craving will slowly go away the longer you work the program of AA and learn to live the principles of AA ... you will eventually come to see others drinking and not even give it a second thought ... cause we know we have an allergy that, once we take that first drink, kicks in a craving that we alcoholics simply cannot resist ... and then we drink til we are 'passed out' ...
Hang in there Kaz, it DOES get better ...
Love ya and God Bless, Pappy
__________________
'Those who leave everything in God's hand will eventually see God's hand in everything.'
Well done Karen. Just keep coming back. You just reminded me of my early days. The old timers just kept asking me to come back. It sounds too simple, but it meant giving up my old ways. I kept practicing the new habit of going to a meeting every day.
Kaz,
You are doing great! A suggestion would be to start doing service work....like going in before meetings and helping set up--coffee, chairs or cleaning up afterwards. That is what helped me earlier in sobriety and I have noticed that many of the folks who I have seen stay sober do the same. There are other things you can do to help. Just going to the meetings and others seeing you (newcomers especially, who have less time than you do...also oldtimers, too) is helping others.
Kaz and Photo. It is great you are both feeling great. This happens to a lot of people in early recovery. I think of it as a sample of God's grace, a taste of what sobriety can really be like. There is no better time to get the steps done, particularly if you like this feeling and want to keep it. Otherwise, as they say, it will pass.
Im going to a meeting tonight and asking someone to be my sponsor, hopefully she'll say yes, cause really want to get on to my steps, will let u know how i get on xx
Been to a fantastic meeting again tonight, shared and lots of other fab shares, asked someone to be my sponsor and she said YES, shes got others at min so will have to wait a few weeks, but so happy that i can start really getting into it and get working on my steps. Xx
This is great. It seems like you're excited and happy to start a new life without alcohol. It's SO much better, Kaz. I never thought in a million years I would be happy if I quit drinking, but I was SO wrong. The thing that helped me a lot was the thought process of "I'm not giving up something that I really enjoy". Because I didn't really enjoy it at all. Maybe when I was younger, but not anymore. Any enjoyment to be had from drinking is a very short-term, in the moment enjoyment, and towards the end, for me, even the short-term enjoyment was gone.
The fact that you seem happy about giving this shit up is a big advantage for you. If you approach quitting with a bummed out attitude, like you feel you're going to be missing something in your life, it makes it harder. The only thing you're giving up is misery.
Youre going to meet a lot of great people in AA. I'm really happy for you, Kaz. I don't know why, but I have a feeling this is gonna be a true success story.
That's great Kaz - plenty of time to get that big book read. I did the steps with a sponsor straight from the big book. It was a life changing experience for me. xxx Keep posting! (Maybe a new thread would be good lol)
__________________
Thanks for everything. Peace and Love on your journey.
