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Is It Step 1?


Posts: 302
Joined: May 23, 2009


Posted: April 14, 2015, 7:55 PM
I am drinking and I don't know why. Not exactly. When we have our house mtg tonight I will be drunk and everyone will know and I will probably be put on the street and yet knowing this I alied to the liquor store and am in my room drinking. Had 6 months two days ago, again. I have intimate knowledge of my past and of the AA big book and I understand it all, I think. I had this justified feeling before the first drink and instead of relief upon drinking I feel this horrible clarity, a clarity I cannot see or feel unless I'm drunk. I do not understand- am I constitutionally incapable??? Am I just a louse? Am I a bad person? I knw this will crush the sober living manager because we have become really close friends and the little bugger is ten years younger than me and has three years sober. He's a miracle. Where am I failing?


Posts: 302
Joined: May 23, 2009


Posted: April 14, 2015, 8:15 PM
Also- how should I handle tonight? I'm honestly asking.


Posts: 4174
Joined: July 18, 2006


Posted: April 15, 2015, 8:44 AM
It's a spiritual program, Adam. You refuse to surrendered your will and life over to the care of God; you refuse to work the steps; you still haven't found humility (humiliation's far easier to accept, isn't it?).

Selfishness, self-centeredness and fear is what I see. Until I fully conceded that I was going to have to take responsibility for me and ask God's forgiveness for trying to destroy His gift, I was doomed to the insanity of doing the same thing expecting something else.

Perhaps you're comfortable expecting others to take charge of your condition. Maybe you are constitutionally incapable. I believe it's something much simpler...

What are you afraid of?

Edit: This is exactly why I say, "Don't Celebrate!" after making a milestone. The sense of accomplishment, euphoria, congratulatory relationships? For an alcoholic the extreme emotional high can be as devastating as the lows.

This post has been edited by skg on April 15, 2015, 9:21 AM

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Faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservation.


Posts: 6374
Joined: January 5, 2008


Posted: April 15, 2015, 11:24 AM
Am I just a louse? Am I a bad person?

No Dods you are not a louse neither are you a bad person. I or no one else know why you keep relapsing,only you know that and somewhere deep inside you if you could admit it to yourself you know the reason why you keep going back out. There are multiple choice answers as to which one it could be for you but the bottom line in my opinon is if you want to drink MORE than you want to be sober then you will continue to relapse. You could have reached out , you didn't have to drink. you could have talked to someone.. you know all the things to do but you chose not to do them. you remind me of my friend L...as her mom says I guess she didnt want it bad enough..( it meaning sobriety.) maybe her reasons for continued relapsing were the same as yours who knows we will never know tho because she is no longer here to tell us. I care about ,you you know that and will always be your friend..It saddens me each time to see you do this to yourself over and over again. I still pray for you every night and will continue to keep you in my prayers.

This post has been edited by pirate on April 15, 2015, 11:33 AM

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Thank God for what you have. Trust God for what you need


Posts: 176
Joined: August 24, 2014


Posted: April 15, 2015, 12:57 PM
Hey...

You don't need to know why....millions of others r like u and i.

You are on the right track....all you need to do is let go . ..it is difficult...but you need to let go....
Do you honestly want sobriety more than booze?that is the question.....

Are you going to as many meetings as you need?
Do you have a sponsor?
Do you practice recovery every day?
we, addicts need to do all those....you need to be honest....

Tell us what happened....tell us more about your thoughts...

we are all here to help....do not wait till something dreadful happens....we want ti know what you are feeling....if expressing it is difficult at meetings...

write it here....loads of guidance available....

gather yourself up ....you can do it... you deserve it...you deserve a better life....you are worth it....
it is a tough road and you will need to face ur inner demons , but it is doable and miracles can happen...

you stay here and post and we will try ....






Posts: 4174
Joined: July 18, 2006


Posted: April 15, 2015, 1:37 PM
Dug this up...
QUOTE
Disagreeable or unexpected problems are not the only ones that call for self-control.  We must be quite as careful when we begin to achieve some measure of importance and material success.  For no people have ever loved personal triumphs more than we have loved them;  we drank of success as of a wine which could never fail to make us feel elated.  When temporary good fortune came our way, we indulged ourselves
in fantasies of still greater victories over people and circumstances.  Thus blinded by prideful self-confidence, we were apt to play the big shot.  Of course, people turned away from us, bored or hurt.

Now that we're in A.A. and sober, and winning back the esteem of our friends and business associates, we find that we still need to exercise special vigilance.  As an insurance against "big-shot-ism" we can often check ourselves by remembering that we are today sober only by the grace of God and that any success we may be having is far more God's success than ours.

Finally, we begin to see that all people, including ourselves, are to some extent emotionally ill as well as frequently wrong, and then we approach true tolerance and see what real love for our fellows actually means.  It will become more and more evident as we go forward that it is pointless to become angry, or to get hurt by people who, like us, are suffering from the pains of growing up.”  Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Step 10


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Faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservation.


Posts: 9248
Joined: December 1, 2005


Posted: April 17, 2015, 12:11 PM
You're drinking because you're an alcoholic. You went & sought relief and it came in the form of a bottle (alcohol), I seek relief in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and find it in God today.

And, yes, A, you could very well be one of the statistics, most alcoholics fall into the category. One of the things I say often to the women I sponsor is staying sober is NOT our normal, staying sober goes against everything within me. I don't want to be uncomfortable, I don't want to deal with feelings, with life, with responsibilities, with challenges, with anything, I just want to be whatever it is at any given moment. So, staying sober takes work, and for a sick one like me, it takes A LOT of work, still. But I'm still willing to do that work and by the Grace of God, I haven't had to seek the relief from the bottle, God fills me and he does that through the Steps, the peeps, and the program.

Don't let your f*cked up, delusional thinking convince you that you're different or unique. THAT will kill you.

Keep coming back.

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Happiness is not in the bottom of a pill bottle. It's inside you.


Posts: 1906
Joined: October 23, 2011


Posted: April 17, 2015, 1:16 PM
Hello Dods !!

You've read it.. You know it ..... You've memorized it ! Now it's time to DO IT .

It's time to get out the text for HOW IT WORKS and really read it. Study it. Internalize it.
http://www.aa.org/assets/en_US/p-10..._howitworks.pdf

The treatment is right in front of you.
You just have to get your head/heart/body & soul together and show up for the meeting.

I had to come to the point where I took the booze, drugs and gun off the table.
They were no longer an option.
Then throw myself into AA as best I could and kept surrendering.

I wish you the best, kid.

Bob

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Serenity Prayer
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.


Free copy of AA's Big Book on-line: http://www.aa.org/pages/en_US/alcoh...olics-anonymous

Free copy of NA's Big Book on-line:
Copy & Paste coastalcarolinaarea.org/literature/books/b_t.pdf


AA's HOW IT WORKS:
Copy & paste www.aa.org/assets/en_US/p-10_howitworks.pdf


NA's HOW IT WORKS:
http://www.na.org/admin/include/spa...0it%20Works.pdf


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--- driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity.

---there are those too who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest.

... I need AA more than it needs me.

--- I fight recovery tooth and nail....
I'm not used to being sane, it just doesn't seem natural.


...... According to the great spiritual teachers, ignorance does not result from what we don’t know; ignorance results from what we think we do know.

---Some think that 2+2=5 and believe it.
Some know that 2+2=4 and can't stand it.


--- I didn't have a very happy childhood
but I sure am having a long one !


---Dry since 1989
working daily on getting/staying SOBER.


---If you want to drink, that's your business
...If you want to quit, that's AA's business.


... Tell me, I'll forget;
... Show me, I'll remember;
... Engage me, I'll understand.


---Most problems are psychological.
Most solutions are spiritual .


"If we try to change our ego with the help of our ego, we only have a better-disguised ego."
--Richard Rohr


WWBWD (What Would Bill W. Do)


Posts: 302
Joined: May 23, 2009


Posted: April 19, 2015, 3:13 AM
I walked into a bar yesterday thinking- ok, I've just relapsed and got kicked out of my soberliving house, but I've got $60 and so I might as well just sit down have a few beers and collect my thoughts. Six hours later I emerge from a blackout in another city and have no idea how I got there or where I was. I am so sick of being this way. I actually do want to be sober. I go back and forth between killing myself and seeking sobriety in the reality that is left behind from my alcoholism. I feel like I would rather die than get drunk. Been praying today and tonight for grace and courage. I have a new respect for the term "obsession" as it pertains to drinking. It is not merely a nagging thought or a preoccupation- it is a hopeless and indefatigable drive to destroy myself.

Anyway, just wanted to check in and share where I'm at.


Posts: 6374
Joined: January 5, 2008


Posted: April 19, 2015, 4:45 AM
A . how about if you try walking into a church? nothing else seems to have worked , what have you got to lose?

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Thank God for what you have. Trust God for what you need


Posts: 302
Joined: May 23, 2009


Posted: April 19, 2015, 12:10 PM
I am going to try that.


Posts: 4174
Joined: July 18, 2006


Posted: April 19, 2015, 5:58 PM
find a Salvation Army shelter next to an alano club and be honest with them for a change... See what happens... Stay in and around the alano club every waking moment. All your best ideas have put you where you are--why not surrender? What have you got to lose?

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Faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservation.


Posts: 9248
Joined: December 1, 2005


Posted: April 22, 2015, 3:23 PM
Gosh, I came to read some posts & then post on the Gratitude thread as I just read about a man in Phoenix who took his 2 yr old to the liquor store, bought a bottle of Gin, drove home and proceeded to pass out in the house, leaving the 2yr old locked in the hot car and the police say there are signs where that little one attempted to try and get out but died due to the heat. He was arrested on a couple of felonies but nothing, no time will ever erase what he was responsible for and it all started with the first drink.

And this I read after driving to work this morning, hearing one of our freeways was closed due to a head on collision at 2:30am last night, driver drove 5 miles the wrong way on an Interstate, crashing head on into a truck, killing her and the 3 men in the other truck. My daughter lives very close to where this occurred and she's due in 3 weeks to give birth. I had to stop and take a moment and thank God that she didn't happen to be on the Interstate heading to the hospital to give birth.

Alcoholism KILLS so many innocent people. There, but for the grace of God, go I in those stories I read this morning. It just curls my stomach at times at all of the senselessness of it and then, on the flip side, I get how powerful it can be at times. I AM responsible today to treat my alcoholism as the deadly disease that it is, and most of my disease today centers in my f*cked up, delusional thinking that convinced myself that I wasn't hurting anyone but myself.

Today, I am responsible for my sobriety and not picking up the first drink. I don't want to hurt others anymore, and I sure don't want to kill an innocent child so no matter how uncomfortable I may be, or how bad I may perceive a situation, the only thing a drink would do is amplify that pain and make it worse.

I pray for your family, Adam. Watching and waiting for your child to die from drugs & alcohol is a heartbreaker for sure. My son is currently roaming the streets of San Antonio and I am absolutely powerless to change him, just as everyone here is absolutely powerless to change you. It has to start within.

Thank you, God for my sobriety, my freedom and joy.

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Happiness is not in the bottom of a pill bottle. It's inside you.


Posts: 4174
Joined: July 18, 2006


Posted: April 23, 2015, 8:51 AM
Where's the "LIKE" toggle? ^^

Thanks, Stacey. It probably won't affect Adam. I was so selfish and self-centered in those days that I WOULDN'T take responsibility for myself--it was the world that was effed up and I was smarter than everyone else. Just like Adam (as you may remember...).

It takes humility and some stones to get sober, but in my experience it took dropping the gunny-sack full of my own s*** and asking for help.





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Faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservation.


Posts: 302
Joined: May 23, 2009


Posted: April 24, 2015, 9:03 PM
Indeed I am selfish and self-centered, and full of fear. Doing my best today.


Posts: 4174
Joined: July 18, 2006


Posted: April 25, 2015, 9:59 AM
Have you considered that maybe, possibly, you're best isn't working? All of my great ideas and plans got me loaded. When I can into AA I was out of ideas and had been given the Gift Of Desperation--I was willing to do whatever those buttheads said because they were staying sober and I had been unable to muster even 24 hours without a drink.

For me, it was the last house on the block, and I was beaten. No pride, no shame, no more ideas, no hope. NO HOPE!! It's a desperately lonely blackness. Terror, bewilderment, desperation, despair? I don't ever want to be there again.

Go to AA and confess your complete truth. God will do the rest if you'll surrender you wonderfully magical life you've been living for a new start. And take suggestions and drop the intellectual BS to become teachable.

Or you can go on doing what you've been doing expecting different results. Still...

This post has been edited by skg on April 25, 2015, 10:00 AM

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Faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservation.


Posts: 9248
Joined: December 1, 2005


Posted: April 27, 2015, 3:53 PM
You know, Dods, I'm agreeing with SKG on this one. My very best got me drunk every time. Willpower is not sufficient enough to quit drinking for the alcoholic of my type (and you are my type), I had to have that complete psychic change that the Big book talks about and I received it once I quit thinking and starting doing, once I put aside all my ideas & old thinking and worked the Steps (all 12 of them and in order) with a sponsor.

Surrender, my friend, walk into the rooms and work THE program, not your program and you may find some hope to replace that fear and impending doom.

Keep coming back, Adam.

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Happiness is not in the bottom of a pill bottle. It's inside you.
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