[allautumn]

So I know I have to stop drinking. I have to stop now. It's six months from my last drink that I can go to the psychiatrist. Every drink I have puts me farther and farther from help. I'm struggling! I wish I was allergic to it or something. The stupid thing is, if I had meds RIGHT NOW I would not drink. But they won't give me meds, so...
This is really frustrating.
I told my self I wasn't going to drink Saturday night. I told my brother and the friends I was with I wasn't going to drink. I did pretty good for a couple hours. Then this cute girl kept offering me wine... I crumbled about the third time she asked. So, I thought, what's one glass of wine? I can say it never happened, no big deal. A half hour later I was doing shots with the host. Around five am he handed me the last of the bottle to polish off, and I did. I tried to deny it the next day. I lied and told my mom, when she came to visit me, that I'd stayed sober, even though my head was aching.
I know I can't keep doing this. But I really don't want to go to AA. I'm not a religious person, and the serenity prayer and the "Let go and let god" thing really puts me off. I'm Agnostic, I can't do that. Putting the ownership of my sobriety on an intangible supposedly superior being would be a cop out for me. I KNOW it works for some people, I've seen it. But where am I supposed to go? Where are the Agnostic AA meetings (AAA, lol)? I think I'm going to check it out anyway and see if I can hack it.
I hope to see more people in this forum in the future. It could be like our own AA! Minus the coffee, I guess.
Here's a joke. Hope you all think it's funny. If not, yell at me. The reason I post it is that I TOTALLY feel this way right now, and I have to laugh at my self!
AA on a field trip;
"A hundred bottles of beer on the wall, a hundred bottles of beer... have some coffee and try not to think about it, a hundred bottles of beer on the wall..."
Comedy is a coping strategy. So sue me.
I'm going for a ciagarette.

[partlycloudy]

Hello, allautumn. Congratulations on no drinking since Saturday! I'm giving aa another try even though I choke on the higher power stuff and giving over ownership of the disease to it/her/him. I'm not a religious person. I'm kinda sort of spiritual in that I believe in a connection between living things (like people and the earth we live on). But I'm going to the meetings anyway - going through the motions at this point. It's keeping me from getting drunk. So in that sense it works. I went through aa 4 years ago. Got sober, got a sponsor, made the coffee, stopped seeing friends who drank. I reached 9 months of sobriety, what a surprise. That's what they call a dry drunk. I'd rather be a dry drunk than be blacked out on martinis, tho.

I see a lot of problems with aa that I haven't reconciled myself with. For example, I haven't found a meeting amenable to acknowledging medical treatment for mental health problems, or therapy. I don't even bring up that I've got those "issues" because of the antagonism I've heard expressed.

So what I figure is that for now, I will take from the program what works for me now. For now I'll keep going to meetings to keep from drinking.

partlycloudy

[allautumn]

Sounds like a good idea. I hope I will be able to do the same!

When I went to AA, there were several ladies in the group with MH problems and all of them were on meds. I never heard a negative word about meds. If I did, I woulda pitched a fit, of course.

It was an Women Only group. I can't tolerate groups with men in them...sorry guys. The reason I stopped going to that group was the amazing pressure to talk publicly about my personal stuff. I just can't do that. First off, I don't do public speaking unless a team of highly paid professionals have dragged my arse to the mic. I REALLY hate it - had to do it for my last job, but truly hate it. And second, I'm a REALLY private person. I just don't spill my issues to strangers. I just can't do it.

These ladies were all pushing me to talk. THEY decided that the night I was to pick up my 3 month chip, I would finally talk. So, of course, I never showed up. I stayed sober for about 6 more months, but just never went back to AA!

I'd like to start a local group call AAR - AA Rejects. I'll bet we'd be swamped the first night. It would just be a place to go each night, talk if you want, listen if you want, your higher power can be a can of Cambells Tomato Soup and no one would give you that hairy eye ball ("oh...you're a ...um....Buddhist?").

Yeah, I'm still looking for the right place. But I KNOW it ain't about the place, or the other people, or the room, it's about me. I'm working it.

Thanks for reviving this forum.

emmy

[allautumn]

LOL! AAR... I am SO there!
So, where do we meet?
-
Looking forward to a sober weekend - hoping for the same for everyone!

I REALLY don't want to bash AA. It's helped tons and tons of people. Some of my favorite people have stayed sober through the help of AA and I'm really glad.

emmy

[allautumn]

I not trying to bash AA, don't get me wrong. I know it helps a lot of people. I'm just not sure if it will work for me because what I know about it doesn't jive with my personal beleifs. But, You never know 'till you try, right?

PC - How are you handling the higher power part? Have you figured out what to use? Is it something you feel you can share here? I had a friend who brought a picture of her daughter, and she used her. I thought that was sweet.

emmy

AA (funny initials, ehh?) - Are you going to do AA? Have you decided? I got as far as looking up the meetings online. Bleah. Then I looked up SOS (Secular Organizations for Sobriety http://www.cfiwest.org/sos/asp/find.asp) but they don't have meetings in my area. Then I took a nap.

emmy

[partlycloudy]

My higher power resides in the ground beneath my feet, When I am meditatiing sucessfully, I sit with my feet flat on the floor. I regulate and slow my breathing down in about 5 minutes. Then I send tendrils like a climbinh vine would. The tendrils come out of the bottom soles of my feet and into the ground, There is a globe of white, healing light at the center of the earth, and that's where my tendrils are heading, seeking towards the light an heat.
When the tendrils reach the white healing heat at the center of the world, they discover that it is pure energy. It pulsates with the rythym of your heart. The tendrils are firmly lodged into this center, and now they have the ability to draw the white healing energy back up through the earth, towards your body where you feet are planted on the ground. With every intake of breath, the tendrils pull up healing, warm energy into your body. If there is some part of you that is ailing, direct the healing light towards that part of you: the way your stomach knots when you're having a panic attack -- send the warming light to sooth your clenched muscles, undue the sailors' knots in your intestines.
Where is the next block? My heart is aching, so deep is my despair today. The healing light soars towards my heart where it saturates the muscle, lending it the strength and power it needs to push the despair right out. Sometimes I shake my hands as if they are dripping water, to less loose the toxins, the fear, the anger. I continue throughout my body, seeking out fears, anxieties, tears, sobs of panic... I push all these feelings out of the way with the white light, and upwards it travels until the top of my head is reached, and all the bad stuff gets a free ride back into earth, where it will be purified and become the pure white healing energy.
The is still plenty more energy coming up though the feet and the vines. Whatever is not needed goes right to the top of your head, cascading and spilling over like a fantastic light show. As the white light seeps into the ground, it takes with them the pains and resentments you had thrown off, and upon returning to the earth they too become the purew white healing energy. The body has been cleansed and relaxed. We are able to nuture the earth with what we are able to use and the released toxins are healed and rejoin the pure energy light.
I like this visualisation as it connects me directly with the earth, where we can draw our strength, and we able to give back to it.
This is my higher power, I have not named it yet, but it is on the earth, it tries to heal what humans have done to the earth, what humans have down to our bodies with all we've abused ourselves with.

So this is the higher power I have to give myself over to. It's a rather intimate process, and I do best at this exercise at the end of the day when I have collected all the days' toxins.

When I can get my brain slow enough to listen to wake I'm trying to make it do, it works. Sometimes my head is like a bad AM radio, stations coming and going and there's nothing you want to hear,

parlycloudy

[allautumn]

The 'bad am radio' sounds familiar, lol!
That sounds like an excellent visualization technique. I think a lot of people ignore the importance of rituals like that, or don't understand the power of them. If you beleive that you are letting things go through this, you do, it's that simple. It's like mind over matter, or rather, spirit over matter
I'm really glad you shared that with us, thank you!
Is this a technique your therapist suggested, or something that you found on your own?

[allautumn]

Emmy,
I'm checking out the Secular group now. That link didn't work for me for some reason. Here's one I found doing a search using the same words.
www.secularsobriety.org
Thanks!

[Myzen]

Hi partly cloudy,

That's one of the visualisations that we do in my Reiki group and it works for me. Doing it with others seems to bring more energy into the room, although I do meditate alone as well.

The 'bad A.M. radio' thing is familiar of course. It's useful to realise that the negative babble is only background mental noise, it's not the core of our being. I have used some Buddhist techniques to gain an understanding of this process.

Cheers, Myzen

[partlycloudy]

My therapist taught me the technique. It's much more powerful when there are a group of people doing it.

pc

[misty]

Way to go on staying sober!!!!!!!
Just for today!!!!!!
Love that statement, helps keep things simpel for me. I Just don't always remember it. LOL!!!
larks

[Genesis]

Just wanted to wish you LOTS of luck! I know beating an addiction is SO hard!!!

btw-Your avy scares me. LOL

[allautumn]

It's been two weeks now. I'm doing pretty good. I've been staying home a lot, and not hanging out with friends that drink. I think in the long run that will be the hardest thing to avoid. I can avoid it around my family, I've done that. I can react more positively to emotional triggers, that's something I haven't done as much... usually if I can't have one thing I'll find something else. But I think I can do it. But it's really hard for me to go to a party with friends, especially the people I used to drink with for days on end, and not have alcohol. I discovered that one coping strategy is to always have a drink of juice in my hand. Always have a full glass of juice. That way, I'm not tempted to put anything else in it. If the temptation gets to strong, I guess I'll just have to leave. I know I'd just get frustrated and cry if I left, because it's happened before. But at least I won't drink that day. It's not just the craving for alcohol though, it's social anxiety, too. When I drink, I play better pool, I tell funnier stories, I am more entertaining and have more fun, becuase I can relax. When I'm in a crowd of people I don't know, my hand will shake so bad I can barely get a drink to my mouth without spilling it. I'll stumble over my own feet and knock things over. I used to be absolutely unable to eat in front of people I didn't know, I'd literally choke on the food from nervousness. I get stomach upset because of nervousness. I used to have severe social anxiety, but I overcame that over a number of years mostly through reprogramming my self through visualization, and focusing on positive social experiences. I guess it never really goes away, I can just keep it under control most of the time. I have a lot more confidnce. But it's still hard to go to parties without the buffer of alcohol.
So I use alcohol for a number of reasons. Not drinking any more will mean major changes. But I know it's for the best in the end. In the last week, I have also quit smoking, and I ran out of sleeping pills so I figured this is as good a time as any to quit taking them, too. I wish I could take a week off right now!

[jinzing]

allautumn, i think we are the same person heh.... When you talk about having social anxiety and how you shake from nervousness.... even down to playin better pool and being more entertaining... that is me!!! It all started for me when I was playin on a pool leauge and would get so nervous i couldn't even see in front of me... i'd feel sick to my stomach just trying to talk to people.. so i'd go in early, have a few drinks and well, by the end of the night i'd be hammered.... so i decided to quit playin altogether... but then i found myself sittin at home drinkin... alone... well what's the point of that? there's no anxiety in sitting there watching tv... i guess it just got to where i didn't feel normal unless i had a few drinks in me... i'm still at that point actually.... but every day is a new day i guess

[downsolong]

Hi All,

As I have mentioned in reply to a previous post there are a growing number of alternatives to the AA/12-step approach to people's alcohol and psychoactive substance problems. Hopefully the following links to links work and will be found helpful.


http://www.sossobriety.org/fastindex.htm
http://alcoholism.about.com/od/non/
http://www.womenforsobriety.org/
http://www.secularsobriety.org/
http://www.cfiwest.org/sos/links.htm

If anyone has a good or bad experience with any of these groups I hope they will let people here know about it.

And if anyone runs across a non 12-step site/group that is devoted to the guidance and rehabilitation of the children now adult or younger of psychoactive substance/alcohol abusive parents I'd love to hear of them.


best wishs~Downsolong

[downsolong]

Hey jinzing,

good to see you again. I hope you're doing ok.

~Downsolong

[allautumn]

Well, today is the three week mark. Tonight, I'm going to the Navy Club to sing karaoke with my family and a few friends. this is going to be a REAL challenge. I'm already kind of shaky. I'm going to try to sing without having a drink. I'm going to be nervous, I'll probably shake and sound terrible. But I'm going to prove that I can do it, at least one song, without being drunk. I have already decided that if I get too uncomfortable or the urge to drink gets too strong, I will leave. After this, I am supposed to go to a christmas party at a friends house, with a bunch of the people I used to drink with. The same applies. I am going to bring a container of juice with me so that I am not without a drink. Again, if the urge to drink gets too strong, I will leave. I am determined to not be debilitated by this, but to also respect my own limits and not push my self too far.
Wish me luck guys, and I let you know how it goes.
Thanks again, Downsolong, for posting these links to alternative rehabilitation groups. I hope everyone can find a support group that they are comofortable with.
Later!

[allautumn]

Well... I chickened out. I ended up staying home with my room mate and watching movies. The evening didn't turn out quite like I'd hoped, but at least I didn't drink. I turned off my phone and vegged out in between doing laundry.
Ah, well. Who needs tests anyway?

[silver_queen]

It's cool autumn that you didn't drink! Well done!

I don't consider not drinking chickening out.......I consider it victory.

Good job! So what if you watched movies.....I'm jealous! My roomie is workaholic so any movie watching is me and my dog and she's not the best company for a good flick ya know?

Be proud you didn't drink. Getting laundry done is a bonus (says the gal who just finished hers after a long period of avoidance)

[partlycloudy]

I can't recall a "test" that I set up myself up for that I didn't cave on. Now I go forth with the best of hopes, as much trust as I can muster, and I keep those feet moving. No standing around or I get more nervous, licking my lips as glasses of wine come in and out of view.
I managed OK during my week's holiday, and surprised myself in doing so.

pc