Relieving the Mental Obsession

RA1986 · Member

Relieving the Mental Obsession

RA1986 · Member

Honestly, everything im doing - helping others, going to a couple meetings a day, a few studies, and fellowshipping. I just got a new job, and good things are happening. But every since 6 months hit, I have been struggling on and off. Some days I feel like im fighting a losing battle. I'm exhausted from fighting this war inside my mind. I have these spiritual experiences where my entire world seems to change and the urge leaves, but they last maybe a couple days. I'm fighting and fighting and I don't want to give up. I just want this mental obsession (if thats what it is) to go away. I also have an anxiety disorder, so that doesn't help at all.

Visionz · Senior Member

Tell us about your adventures standing at the door welcoming newcomers.

When is the last time you made coffee for a group?

Have you seen the lights come on in a sponsees eyes?

Are all of your amends worked on? Including financial amends?

Have you swept up and cleaned cigarette butts at a meeting?

Share some crazy stories from brand new guys when they were in the back seat of your car on the way to meetings.

Want some more?

RA1986 · Member

Tons of welcoming. Coffee every Friday night for the last 7 months but changing to a new group at the behest of my sponsor. My sponsee is getting ready to go into the fourth step as we speak. Still working on amends, and financial amends are only just beginning with the new job. Never swept or cleaned up the butts yet. Definitely shared some crazy stories. Yes, all this does help, but I am still not sure.

Tonight I did a little more work on my fourth and fifth steps. My sponsor did the fourth step inventory list on a worksheet that is different. I now realize how all my problems are of my own making, but I also need to go a little deeper into the fifth step as I am now seeing. I decided to write an alternate fourth step with my part in it and my fears and I have yet to admit these to my sponsor.

he says im done with my fourth and fifth steps, but I think there is more work to do so I am doing that. As of now, the mental obsession is gone. So, I don't know. my brain is just weird. What is your take on that?

MarcLacroix · Senior Member

Riding The Krachen

Bunchie · Veteran Member

Relieving the Mental Obsession

Bunchie · Veteran Member

Marc, I also have a boat load of rage, my father called me the angry one, but little did he know he created the anger , he drank to excess everyday, shamed our family a d I did not realise that was why I was in a shell, started drinking at 14 and never stopped avoided most social situations, had no confidence, I felt like a hermit at times. I avoided successful people for fear of ridicule, I am learning this was all due to being a child of a raging alcoholic., I still love my father, with all his warts but I believe he was a coward in confronting his alcoholism. The funny part is his parents never drank.

Bunchie · Veteran Member

I am not blaming my father for my drinking, I am solely responsible for my alcoholic life, I knew at an early age that children of Alcoholics , have a greater chance of becoming Alcoholics. I knew this and continued to drink. Hi think that's why I was a crazy binge drinking Alcoholic , I was lying to myself , feeling if I did not drink everyday I am not Alcoholic, but that s just pure denial. I know people who drink everyday who are not Alcoholic, they drink responsibly. I can not do that, one is the same as hundred to me, if I have one I will keep drinking until the cops or bartender throw my drunken carcass out.But I continued the lie, that I was a weekend warrior it an alcoholic, this is my brain filled with the poison telling me this. We have to fight this demon everyday , if I don't I will end up dead ravaged by alcohol and living a lie to die by the lie.

Visionz · Senior Member

If you think sobriety is fighting the urge to drink every....single.....day....I suggest doing what the big book says. That is the scariest thing I have heard in awhile.

RA1986 · Member

@ Vision

That is not my idea of sobriety at all. I've read the big book entirely. Perhaps below I may elaborate some more.

I actually talked to someone about it today. I now realize that there is a difference between an urge and a thought. What I thought I was having were the urges, when in actuality the thoughts coupled with anxiety may have been the disease trying to attack me - the baffling portion of it. Granted this is my first year in sobriety, it hasn't been peaches and roses. There have been struggles, but the Book has told me everything and I relate to it all.

I don't want to make it sound so bad and I apologize to anyone if I did. I have had incredible spiritual experiences and I now realize that my problems are of my own making. Everything I do, I do to myself. That said, the thoughts come and go, the anxiety comes and it goes. it usually stems from Fear. But there are days where the disease is overpowering.

I know I am not the same person as I was a year ago. I feel different, I see things differently, and I recently became aware of this sort of "third eye" that comes and goes, but it's not permanently there. Other than that, i'm trudging along and praying for relief from self and a completeness in the eyes of my creator.

-- Edited by RA1986 on Tuesday 7th of February 2017 12:41:18 PM

-- Edited by RA1986 on Tuesday 7th of February 2017 01:49:28 PM

RA1986 · Member

@ Marc.

That did happen to me at exactly six months. Old thoughts began to surface and I told my old sponsor. The fear I felt from the old thoughts scared the heck out of me. So much so that I got a new sponsor and I was working steps in desperation.

Bunchie · Veteran Member

Maybe I am doing something wrong, but early in sobriety I think it absolutely is fighting the urge to drink. Everyone is different in how they drank and how they strive to maintain sobriety. AA and the big book would not exist if staying sober was easy, I think from what I have learned is my brain in early recovery is going to test me , so right now in my early stage of recovery staying sober is fighting the urges brought on by 35 years of drinking ,to stay away from places and people who in my past were part of my drinking life.

Visionz · Senior Member

How long you drank isn't really an angle. Actually I find holes all over your post and going to go out on a limb here and say you most likely haven't had your last drink.

Keep in mind I have known people in aa who would call what I just said egotistical and judgemental but I also know folks who would say that person loved you enough to be up front with you.

I am finished here.

gcadena17 · Newbie

new here

gcadena17 · Newbie

looking for help/sponsor

Tanin · MIP Old Timer

Welcome to this forum, g17. There are many here who have been through the battles with alcohol. We found that we had to surrender in order to live free of the booze.

You can get help here. Tell us a little about your situation. What's going on?

Bunchie · Veteran Member

Visions, I wish I was in your AA group, I would not need a higher power , you would annoint yourself as it.

cksem2003 · Newbie

My experience through programming tells me that our bodies and minds are not used to being free from the things that we used to cope with. Therefore take away the alcohol and what do we have left? All the things we didnt cope with. These emotions and things have to be completely surfaced and dealt with sober and it is NOT easy I will tell you that. After all they were the things we were running from! Professional help is usually are greatest friend. Again, this has been my own experience as well as sharing and hearing from many others. Hope it can help someone!!

Bunchie · Veteran Member

Cksem2003,
Thank you your post does help, I am trying to cope with not seeing my friends who still drink some are functional Alcoholics and some are full blown, I love them dearly but I can not stop in bar to say hello at this point in my sobriety. They still call me and wish me well, but it's not the same. I have known them for 30-40 years and everything we did involved alcohol, camping, fishing, hiking, sporting events, etc.This is the part I'm having difficulty with. I think with time I will be able to go out with them and not drink but right now I am staying away. I have good friends in my AA group as well. They suggested to stay away from them and attend as many meetings as possible.

Afella · Veteran Member

Hi,

"A.A.'s Twelve steps are a group of principles, spiritual in nature, which, if practiced as a way of life, can expel the obsession to drink and enable the sufferer to become happily and usefully whole."

--Principles of the Program

Afella · Veteran Member

FATHER W.: Bill, could you explain what you mean by "mental obsession?" What is this?

Bill W.: Well, as I understand it, we are all born with a freedom of choice. The degree of this varies from person to person, and from area to area in our lives. In the case of neurotic people, our instincts take on certain patterns and directions, sometimes so compulsive they cannot be broken by any
ordinary effort of the will.

The alcoholics compulsion to drink is like that. As a smoker, for example, I have a deeply ingrained habit -- Im almost an addict. But I do not think this habit is an actual obsession. Doubtless it could be broken by an act of my own will. If badly enough hurt, I could in all probability give up tobacco. Should smoking repeatedly land me in Bellevue Hospital, I doubt if I would make the trip many times before quitting.

But with my alcoholism well that was something else again. No amount of desire to stop, no amount of punishment, could enable me to quit. What was once a habit of drinking became an obsession of drinking -- a genuine lunacy.

Afella · Veteran Member

Father Y.: Bill, you are, as it were, co-author of the Twelve Steps. We all realize that these steps are suggestions. Would you think it possible for any alcoholic to neglect any one of these Twelve Steps and still hope to maintain his sobriety.

Bill W.: Well, where the break-even or safety is varies a great deal. But it is hardly prudent for any of us to take many chances with this sort of neglect. Nevertheless, it is truly amazing on what little practice of the
Steps of AA some people stay sober. On the contrary, it is astonishing how difficult for certain others to remain dry even though they work diligently at the steps.

In this connection, there is an observation to be made about the several motivations we have respecting the practice of AAs Twelve Steps. At first we try the Steps, or at least some of them, because we absolutely must. It is a question of do or die. Then we observe AA principles because we begin to feel they ought to be observed because this is the right thing to do. We may still rebel, but we do try. Then there is a higher plateau which we sometimes touch. In a state of no resistance at all we practice AAs principle because we like to practice them, because we actually want to live by them all.

Of course, there is some virtue in following the AA program because we must. There is a lot more when, though in rebellion, we practice spiritual principles because they are right. When we are finally released from
rebellion and when we live by AA principles because we actually and continuously want to live that way, then I think we are the recipients of a great amount of grace indeed.

MicroMacro · Member

"But I just don't know if it's normal. "

It's normal.

Everyone has an opinion on how to get through cravings and anxiety. What worked for me is filling the urge to drink with something I love to do and with things I wanted to do. If the urge or compulsion isn't filled with something healthy, it's just going to sit there and scream.

AA works for some people - others need something else / something more. Do you know your heart? Because you heart knows you. It'll give you the direction you need if you'll give it a chance. It speaks quietly though - you have to learn to distinguish it from the rest of the committee in your head.

:)

Gita_B · Member

I am sad to hear people still struggle with an obsession but alcohol IS powerful, baffling and cunning. The alcoholic is Blind, they are like victims stuck in the Matrix, they cannot see their reality for what it really is.

I would never go back, never ever ever. My life as a practicing alcoholic SUCKED. I thought I was really "living", what a joke. That was almost 30 yrs ago. I was lucky enough to have a sponsor show me the AA promises and I am here today to testify that It Works. www.12step.org/references/commonly-used/the-promises/

The crux for me was Step 1, I have always been a believer just didn't realize AA applied to me? Figured I was too young? Went along for some meetings with my sponsor, thought " oh these people have some good ideas, too bad I'm not really an alcoholic" LOL went out and drank another three years LOL LOL LOL

After I "got" the program things happened I would have never dreamed of, not in my wildest dreams for what I wanted for myself!!

The Third Step is easiest for people who have nothing left to lose. I was lucky enough to be able to grasp Step 2 but this is a stumbling block. Corporate society, which reduces humans to the level of machines, has done it's best to discourage those old-fashioned notions of God and morality in favor of self-centredness which moves Product. It's all fine to use your group as your Higher Power but groups are composed of human beings and human beings err. AA, which based in part on the teachings of Emmet Fox, encourages us to pin our hopes to Higher Power that is Eternally Present, All-Powerful and Ever-Loving. At least, if given the opportunity to imagine a Higher Power of My Understanding, that is how I would imagine it.

Nature abhors a vacuum so just like MicroMacro says, you need to actively search out Things To Do. Ask "what is the Right Thing for me to do at this time?". Sometimes it is just a good time to do some inspirational reading, point being it is always available when you really really need it ;)

www.metaphysicspirit.com/books/The%20Sermon%20on%20the%20Mount.pdf