Allan,
Welcome.
I to have been sober a few 24 hours myself. It's good to have you here.
I as well have managed to get myself strung out on almost every major class of drug that one can get strung out on.
I walked away from a heroin addiction, I walked away from Opium, I walked away from crystal meth, as well as codeine and other assorted downers.

The one drug I never walked away from was alcohol.
I never wanted to.
It did things FOR me that no other drug could or would do. It was my higher power. But sadly alcohol isn't a loving God.

I tell guys that alcohol can't do anything TO you unless it does something FOR you first.
If a few drinks turns this world from a lonely, hostile existence into a warm inviting place to live, you will go back to that place again. Who wouldn't? And in time, the naked reality of the world as it is becomes intolerable. We change our world with a few drinks, and then a few more. In time we come to absolutely depend on alcohol to simply exist. I couldn't imagine life without it. And after a few more years of black out drinking, and watching everything that I gave a damn about washing away in a river of alcohol, I couldn't imagine life with it either.

That was the jumping off point.

But God has a strange sense of humor.
God wrapped up the finest gift I could imagine in wrapping paper that looked like pure misery.

My grand sponsor used to tell me all the time that his alcoholism was his best asset. I thought he was crazy the first time he told me that. I know what he meant now. That crisis in my life was the turning point. Out of the crucible of active, painful, pitiful alcoholism was borne a new man. It is a gift. And I never fail to say thank you for it.

I did not know what I did not know. I wasn't at all sure that what those guys in the rooms were telling me would work in my life, but I was blessed with no more good ideas.

Not one of us got to the rooms of AA on a winning streak. Not one of us was walking lightly with the birds singing overhead, a warm breeze at out backs and a smooth road ahead. Stuff has got to get real bad before we cry uncle. You may find many kindred spirits around the rooms if you take the time to look.

If you can identify with anything what I have written, cut yourself some slack,

On the road to the good stuff,
Richard S.