[mjv1208]

I'm struggling with staying sober. I've tried AA meetings and the steps and I'm at a point where I don't think this is a solution for me. I don't mean to offend any AA members and I know that people who stay sober using AA are often very defensive about it being the only way to stay sober. I think it's great if AA is working out well for someone. But, I'm wondering if anyone knows of any good alternatives to AA?

I struggle with a spiritual solution to a disease and spirituality is the basis of AA and the 12 steps. I've started reading some books on alternative approaches to AA and seen studies on the percentage of people who get sober on their own. A friend of mine is sober 11 months now but rarely ever goes to AA meetings anymore and never used a sponsor. I just talked to him tonight and he is doing great. He takes in a meeting when he needs it and just tries to get what he can out of it usually someone recalling the negatives of their drinking days. Both my brother and father got sober on their own. I wouldn't consider any of them to be the so called "dry drunk" because they all changed as people for the better after becoming sober.

Here is some history on my struggles to stay sober. This is kind of lenghty so feel free to stop reading here but I'm hoping if I elaborate more than my someone might have some good advice. Here it goes....I first tried to get sober in 2002 and I was sober for 7 1/2 months and was having not too hard a time staying sober when I relapsed for what I thought would be 1 night of drinking. Then staying sober became really hard for me. I had been going to AA but the spiritual part didn't make sense to me. But it helped me through the near death of my Mom at the time because I could go and vent and cry and just speak from my heart and it was a release of all that stress inside. 2003, 2004, and 2005 where basically years filled with "relapse cycles" anywhere from a few days to a few months and everything in between while I went on and off disability from a great career in computer programming. During those times out on disability I went to daytime outpatient group therapy after psych hospital stays. I struggled to get much out of AA during this time. I even went to a rehab in West Palm Beach, Florida for 30 days. In 2005, I had a run in with the law due to being drunk and then moved back with my parents. From that point on for the next two years - I had periods where I stayed sober for 6 months at a time then would relapse for one heavy day of drinking then go another 5 to 6 months before doing the same for a day. Then my Mom got sick and passed away in July 2007 and I started drinking a few times a week for 3 months. I felt terribly guilty (actually still do) because my Dad was fearing for my life and dealing with the passing of his wife of 45 years. It was terrible to put him through that. I went back to a more hard core no frills rehab late Nov 2007 and I was doing really good in it. Two weeks into rehab my Dad was killed in a car accident. All I wanted to do was complete rehab and go home to my Dad and make up for all I had put him through by living a sober life. The insurance offered to keep me in rehab for a total of 3 months since my Dad's unexpected death was a huge trigger considering how my Mom's passing set off my drinking again. I did really well in the 3 months of rehab and enjoyed the AA meetings there. I worked up til the 4th step but still struggled with the spirituality part. But I gave it my all and was working hard. I read 10 different books of AA literature in rehab. The standard Big Book and Step Book along with some halzedon 12 step books. After the 3 month rehab, I went to a recovery house for a few months. Not much recovery was going on in the house outside of not being allowed to drink or else be kicked out. I decided to move to Philadelphia to an apartment. But I had a fight with my sister less than a week before moving out. She brought up different things I did in the past from drinking and how it affected my parents and really laid into me about it. The fight started because I told her I was trying to assert myself and she didn't like that. Not everything she said was true but we both said nasty things to each other. She told me not to contact her anymore and that I couldn't see my nieces and nephew (that I was really close with). I already had horrible guilty issues with my past but hearing it from her just tore me up inside. I have OCD so I ended up obsessing for good parts of my days about everything she said and wrote to me. A week after moving I relapsed. Probably the worst thing was that I had a good time drinking again after getting past the initial guilt. I felt after relapsing that it didn't matter anymore if I was sober because I can't go back and make up the past to my parents. I wanted to stay sober after my Dad's passing unlike I did after my Mom's passing. But when I drank again (after another 7 1/2 months sober) I felt so horrible like my life was over and that I was a piece of ***** and a failure. It just felt like I blew my promise to my late Father and now it didn't matter anymore. Plus my sister basically disowned me before I relapsed and I just felt I had no family anymore. Actually I didn't. I met women at the bars when I relapsed and this just encouraged me to continue going out to the bars again. Drinking and chasing women became a distraction for me. This has gone on for months and I want to stop drinking and stay sober. In another hour it will be my birthday and I'd like to start a sober life and my birthday seems like a perfect day for a start. I was diagnosed with OCD, severe depression and anxiety years before I ever drank and was helped by psychotherpy and medicine so that is part of why I'm looking for a scientific solution. Any advice would be great just as long as it's not the line about no one ever failing that really tried before at AA. Thanks and thanks for reading this far.....

[ujaz]

I'd look at getting your OCD treated properly. It's like trying to fight with your hands tied behind your back to deal with giving up while the OCD is untreated. There are some good counselling services around also that can help. Working through the attitudes & problems that lead to your drinking is a must. AA's spiritual outlook can be anoying ( I find it a problem to ) but other than that it does have much helpful pointers to keeping yourself sober. So realisticly I'd say find a Psych to treat your OCD & depression, a terapist to work through your problems & hang in there. It took time to get as messed as you are & it'll take time to disentangel from the mess.

[splitimage]

I can really relate a lot to the constant relapses and struggling to stay sober. It's hard. I'm lucky I eventually got the help I need to stay sober. What was that help? Good psychiatric care.

I'm in AA and am trying to work the 12 steps so I'll admit my bias up front, but I recognize they're not for everyone and I know people who are in very successful recovery without AA. But I know it's not for everyone.

I went to two rehabs. One was at an internationally known, highly respected rehab facility. It was also strictly a 12 step based program. I had a horrible experience there, as I was dealing with other mental health issues at the time, and they were lousy, hell they'd barely admit to the existance of concurrent disorders. I relapased hard after getting out of there, and my drinking really spiralled out of control, landing me in the hospital.

I then went to a much less well known day treatment program in a local hospital. It saved my life. It was not based on the 12 steps - it took a combination biological, psycho / social model of addiction. It also had a concurrent disorders program. They were willing to work with me on my addiction and my mental health.

I believe you have to treat both concurrently to have any success.

That program wasn't enough, on it's own, I needed more serious psych help, so I went inpatient to a psych hospital for 7 weeks. That allowed me to stabalize my meds and with lots of group therapy get help for my depression, which by that point was psychotic. Without that treatment, there's no way I'd be sober today.

As someone else has already suggested seak treatment for your OCD and start therapy to deal with all of the emotions that you're no doubt carrying around from your parents's death and conflict with your sister. You need to work on healing yourself as well as staying sober.

I go to AA now, because it gives me a safe place to socialize and lots of support for staying sober. I still struggle a bit with the God concept, but I don't let it get in the way for me.

Another on-line resource that you might want to check out is smartrecovery.org. It's a site, much like PC, only dedicated to addictions recovery. It's very similar to CBT in it's orientation. I've used some of their materials and found them helpful.

Good luck. Getting and staying sober is really hard, but it's so worthwhile.

--splitimage

[Lenny]

There are as many ways to get sober as there are to get drunk mjv1208. Your pretty familiar with the getting drunk ways...as I am,,as all alcoholics are.

Say I wanted to go to California and I looked at pictures and maps and dreamed of the Pacific all day and all night...And did it the next day and the day after...

I talked to all kinds of folks asking what was the best route...which was easiest,,which was the most optimum...which way showed me more...Everyone had an opinion..

All of it was well intentioned...my dream and their opinions...some folks even shared in my fantasy in their private moments..smiling too of the deep dark blue of the biggest ocean in the world...

But is was all naught until I decided to go...to put the visions aside and step out and begin the journey....for real...no pretending..no imagining...just begin...to put one mile behind another and another....

What I am trying to say here..long winded for sure,,is that it really doesn't matter what you choose mjv...there are downsides to any route as there are positives. The problem is deciding to go...with the commitment and willingness to do whatever is necessasry to get there...

In my last days of self destruction,,if someone told me I had to feed alligators bare handed to stay away from a drink...I would have simply reached out for the food and asked which hand?

I wish you well sir and may you have the Happiest of Birthdays..with a forever present...

Lenny

[madisgram]

i've read the responses to your post and totally agree with all of them. i also had a really tough time getting sober...the first thing i would say to you is don't beat yourself up about your failures to stop drinking but look at what you have already done to help yourself through this process. there are many of us that don't get it the first, second, third, etc. time. the good news is that many of us did finally get it!!! it took me over 6 years to get it done. what was the key for me was first getting my bipolar stabilized and then focusing on the drinking part. my pdoc and T both had focused on drinking problems getting their degrees and this helped me immensely in both my last hospital stay (psych ward) and later in outside treatment. a 12 step recovery program also reinforced what i'd tried to do before in the same program. kudos for your having the desire to get well. i'll pray for you...i believe in the power of prayer cause it impacted me in trying to recover. you're on the road to recovery even tho you may not know it now. i know cause i could relate to your "story" and i've been sober for some time now...longer than my drinking history.

[nowheretorun]

ive tried the traditional treatments and learned quite a bit there... never sever connections to honest help tho... learn what you can from all sources, only the good stuff.... the good stuff is what keeps you healthy... design your own program and use all the help available... it can teach you to help others on their path too and in that way, we get to be ourselves and we learn... i'm praying and i'm convinced that with a healthy spirit, anyone can recover to a better state of mind.... as long as we have conscious thought, we have hope

[mjv1208]

thanks everyone! Great advice. I will write more later but I need this 5th post so i can go into recovery chat

[mjv1208]

ok just realized i need more than 5

[mjv1208]

Originally Posted by madisgram

i've read the responses to your post and totally agree with all of them. i also had a really tough time getting sober...the first thing i would say to you is don't beat yourself up about your failures to stop drinking but look at what you have already done to help yourself through this process. there are many of us that don't get it the first, second, third, etc. time. the good news is that many of us did finally get it!!! it took me over 6 years to get it done. what was the key for me was first getting my bipolar stabilized and then focusing on the drinking part. my pdoc and T both had focused on drinking problems getting their degrees and this helped me immensely in both my last hospital stay (psych ward) and later in outside treatment. a 12 step recovery program also reinforced what i'd tried to do before in the same program. kudos for your having the desire to get well. i'll pray for you...i believe in the power of prayer cause it impacted me in trying to recover. you're on the road to recovery even tho you may not know it now. i know cause i could relate to your "story" and i've been sober for some time now...longer than my drinking history.

Thanks so much. It's encouraging to know that it took someone else 6 years to get sober after many attempts. Actually I'm at that 6 year point now so maybe i can take off into sobriety from here on out. My confidence about my ability to get sober and stay sober is at an all time low after going through 3 months of inpatient rehab and getting to my high mark of 7 1/2 months sober twice now and still relapsing back into the abyss. I really felt that I could not take another failure but I'm still alive but hurt a lot by it. Just seems like all that hard work went to waste. I wish I could get back to that state of mind when i was sober and strong at staying sober. I guess I need to re-evaluate what was working for me and what was not.

[mjv1208]

Originally Posted by Lenny

There are as many ways to get sober as there are to get drunk mjv1208. Your pretty familiar with the getting drunk ways...as I am,,as all alcoholics are.

Say I wanted to go to California and I looked at pictures and maps and dreamed of the Pacific all day and all night...And did it the next day and the day after...

I talked to all kinds of folks asking what was the best route...which was easiest,,which was the most optimum...which way showed me more...Everyone had an opinion..

All of it was well intentioned...my dream and their opinions...some folks even shared in my fantasy in their private moments..smiling too of the deep dark blue of the biggest ocean in the world...

But is was all naught until I decided to go...to put the visions aside and step out and begin the journey....for real...no pretending..no imagining...just begin...to put one mile behind another and another....

What I am trying to say here..long winded for sure,,is that it really doesn't matter what you choose mjv...there are downsides to any route as there are positives. The problem is deciding to go...with the commitment and willingness to do whatever is necessasry to get there...

In my last days of self destruction,,if someone told me I had to feed alligators bare handed to stay away from a drink...I would have simply reached out for the food and asked which hand?

I wish you well sir and may you have the Happiest of Birthdays..with a forever present...

Lenny

Thanks. Your story gave me a new perspective on things. I'm worrying too much about what is the correct way to get sober when I need to just dive in and stick with what is working and use my persistance, commitment, and willingness to fulfill my dream of being sober for good. Your story helped give me a sort of paradigm shift. Stop waiting and start doing even if it is small steps. Just keep moving forward to my happy destination. Thanks again!

[mjv1208]

Originally Posted by splitimage

I can really relate a lot to the constant relapses and struggling to stay sober. It's hard. I'm lucky I eventually got the help I need to stay sober. What was that help? Good psychiatric care.

I'm in AA and am trying to work the 12 steps so I'll admit my bias up front, but I recognize they're not for everyone and I know people who are in very successful recovery without AA. But I know it's not for everyone.

I went to two rehabs. One was at an internationally known, highly respected rehab facility. It was also strictly a 12 step based program. I had a horrible experience there, as I was dealing with other mental health issues at the time, and they were lousy, hell they'd barely admit to the existance of concurrent disorders. I relapased hard after getting out of there, and my drinking really spiralled out of control, landing me in the hospital.

I then went to a much less well known day treatment program in a local hospital. It saved my life. It was not based on the 12 steps - it took a combination biological, psycho / social model of addiction. It also had a concurrent disorders program. They were willing to work with me on my addiction and my mental health.

I believe you have to treat both concurrently to have any success.

That program wasn't enough, on it's own, I needed more serious psych help, so I went inpatient to a psych hospital for 7 weeks. That allowed me to stabalize my meds and with lots of group therapy get help for my depression, which by that point was psychotic. Without that treatment, there's no way I'd be sober today.

As someone else has already suggested seak treatment for your OCD and start therapy to deal with all of the emotions that you're no doubt carrying around from your parents's death and conflict with your sister. You need to work on healing yourself as well as staying sober.

I go to AA now, because it gives me a safe place to socialize and lots of support for staying sober. I still struggle a bit with the God concept, but I don't let it get in the way for me.

Another on-line resource that you might want to check out is smartrecovery.org. It's a site, much like PC, only dedicated to addictions recovery. It's very similar to CBT in it's orientation. I've used some of their materials and found them helpful.

Good luck. Getting and staying sober is really hard, but it's so worthwhile.

--splitimage

Thanks. I guess it is ok to just go to AA to socialize soberly and use the support for staying sober? I came to be programmed to think that if I don't do the 12 steps and get spiritual that I am bound to relapse. I did have a therapist tell me once to just go to AA and use it as a support group and take what I need out of it and don't worry so much about the 12 steps if it was not for me. It seems my friend is doing this and it is working for him.

[mjv1208]

Originally Posted by nowheretorun

ive tried the traditional treatments and learned quite a bit there... never sever connections to honest help tho... learn what you can from all sources, only the good stuff.... the good stuff is what keeps you healthy... design your own program and use all the help available... it can teach you to help others on their path too and in that way, we get to be ourselves and we learn... i'm praying and i'm convinced that with a healthy spirit, anyone can recover to a better state of mind.... as long as we have conscious thought, we have hope

Thanks. I will take your advice to find and keep only the good stuff.

[mjv1208]

Originally Posted by ujaz

I'd look at getting your OCD treated properly. It's like trying to fight with your hands tied behind your back to deal with giving up while the OCD is untreated. There are some good counselling services around also that can help. Working through the attitudes & problems that lead to your drinking is a must. AA's spiritual outlook can be anoying ( I find it a problem to ) but other than that it does have much helpful pointers to keeping yourself sober. So realisticly I'd say find a Psych to treat your OCD & depression, a terapist to work through your problems & hang in there. It took time to get as messed as you are & it'll take time to disentangel from the mess.

Thanks. Right now I'm unemployed and without health insurance so I can't see a therapist but I can't wait to get back on my feet with a job/insurance and get back into therapy. It's a frustrating situation I'm in right now and my functioning is not the best with my depression, OCD, and anxiety going on with an uncertain future. I still have some meds left but will be running out soon.

[kim_johnson]

Rational Recovery (RR) is a CBT based alternative to spirituality based programs. There might be meetings or support groups / therapy available near you.

[mjv1208]

I think i hit enter by accident if not i'll just retype the whole post.

Today is the one year anniversary of my Dad's care accident and death. I can't sleep so I've been going thru some boxes that I didn't fully unpack after moving. Mostly sentimental stuff of/from my Parents. But I forced myself to do it because I think it is go for me to do especially today. I found the last birthday card that my Mom gave my Dad that he had saved. Late that night my Mom had to go to the hospital and she passed from an illness 2 months later where me and my Dad took 24/7 care of her at home. Also, I found the last birthday card that I gave my Dad that he saved. He wasn't or tried not to appear to be sentimental so it was surprising to me that he saved my card. Also, I found the last birthday card my Parents gave me which means alot being my birthday was just Monday. I've been crying really hard and heavy for awhile now, I have tears running on to my lips just typing this. Since I can't get up to the cemetary, I plan to go to the Catholic Church around the corner from me. I figure I can try to talk to my Parents there being they are buried in a Catholic cemetary. It's really hard and upsetting but I just feel the need to face all of this even with the ridiculous amount of crying involved. I need to handle my grief differently. Sorry for rambling but just felt the need to talk about it. Thanks for listening.

[nowheretorun]

((mjv))) let it out .. we are listening and we care.... hope is real, love is real, your feelings are real.........

[madisgram]

you stated you "need to handle your grief differently". losing your parents is a big loss no matter when it happens. i too lost my parents (when i was a young adult). i still miss them a lot. my father died in 1968 (age 45) and my mom in 1985 (age 60). i can still feel the loss but as time went by the searing pain left and scars started to heal somewhat. it's a big hole when we lose our parents so i can totally relate to your grief. crying is a healthy reaction to grief....it's like we're vomiting up our pain....sorry for the graphic description...i was encouraged to let it all out... and send you big hugs . you sound like a wonderful woman that is slowly healing from within. i won't forget you in my prayers...as i stated earlier.
as for aa and the steps....initially all you need to do perfectly is just not drink...the rest will follow. i was so "worried" i wasn't "getting it" so much it drove me to drink!! my sponsor told me to focus on that first step and that was all i needed to do at first. she was soooo right. the spiritual stuff and all the other steps fell into place when my soul was starting to heal from this devastating disease i had. i can already "see" a higher power working in your life. be gentle to yourself...you are a sick person trying to get well...it took us time to get sick and it will take time for the wellness to occur. so go easy on yourself cause my gut tells me you are on the way to good things...