Let's sound off and give newcomers some hope

[NMDemDist2]

post here how long you are clean/sober and how you did it, shall we?

the lurkers need to see that it *can* be done with joy and long term results eh?

AZDD6, checking in 15 years clean and sober in AA and grateful to be here

:hi:

[jschurchin]

1. I couldn't agree more

Hi my name is John and I am a grateful recovering addict. My clean date is January 14th 2000, so I guess thats 7 years and a couple months.

I got sober with the help of my fellow addicts in NA along with the wonderful people of AA. I stay this way with the joy and love of my higher power and being honest with the people I meet about my disease. Don't worry though, it's not contagious:rofl:. The disease that is, LOL.

I love you all,

Peace

[MediumBrownDog]

2. Thank you for this post.

I believe I am your latest newcomer and I feel like dogshit today. I want off of this toxic merry-go-round so badly. Today has to be my day. I cannot tolerate this any longer.

Despite asking for your help and all of your fantastic written efforts, I am not where I want to be. Or even close. I do not have sobriety. I have a nasty hangover and am looking at a bottle of white in my fridge with great longing. It's not even 8:00 a.m. in my time zone. That's just gross.

I hate myself and that just makes me want to drink more. Oh god.

MBD.

[wildeyed]

3. Oh jeez, MBD, take care of yourself.

I have been exactly where you are. I remember the hangovers and how gawdawful they were at the end. I remember the soul crushing guilt and shame. I remember secretively taking that morning belt. I even lied to myself and said I "forgot" that the glass was full of vodka from the night before and I thought I was drinking water. Right.... I was physically and spiritually sick, depressed and vaguely suicidal. And I was willing to do whatever it took to recover. It was either that or die.

And recover I did. I have now been sober now for 16 years. I got sober by going to AA meetings. I did not get sober at the first meeting I went to, or the second or third. But eventually, the program took hold and then I had 1 day, then 1 week, 1 year (god that was so exciting!) and eventually 16 years. And it is all good now.

All the promises of AA have come true for me (look in the AA book if you have managed to get a copy, if not, here is an online copy you can read http://www.alcoholics-anonymous.org/bigbookonline/en_tableofcnt.cfm).

• If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through.
• We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.
• We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
• We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace.
• No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.
• That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.
• We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.
• Self-seeking will slip away.
• Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.
• Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.
• We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.
• We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
• Are these extravagant promises? We think not.
• They are being fulfilled among us-sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly.
• They will always materialize if we work for them.

They have all materialized for me. I am not perfect and neither is my life, but it is so good. I have so much gratitude for what has happened in my life through AA. I have even come to be grateful for my affliction with the disease of alcoholism because I have gained so much spiritually that I wouldn't otherwise have through my recovery.

My advice to you is to try AA again. There are other programs out there, and people who have gotten sober in other ways, but AA has the most widespread success. The 12 steps really are a simple and effective path to recovery. Best of luck. :hug:

[Kajsa]

4. Thank you, Wildeyed, for posting

'The Promises".

They were read after every meeting I went to in Santa Barbara,CA,
where I sobered up.

I realized that I wanted to live more that I wanted to die drinking.
It was my dad, who was also in AA who helped me to realize it.

That was 25 years ago and I have since moved to Orange County, CA,
had a son in sobriety, gone through a divorce 1 year later and all the
other things life throws at us.
One thing I've learned is that nothing and I mean nothing
is worth taking a drink over. As one very wise old timer said to me,
" you'll just wake up with a hangover, the guilt and the problem will
still be there."

I wish all our newcomers a good journey on the " road to happy destiny".
It's not always sweat, tears and struggle. It's so nice to wake up, not
come to, see all the colors in nature, my drinking world was gray,
and not have that demoralization that comes with knowing that once
again, you screwed it up by drinking.

That's freedom!

May the HP I know bless you on your journey!

:grouphug:

[Kajsa]

10. MBD, I wanted to add one thing, but I don't

want to cut in front of Wildeyed and 'The Promises'.

Before I hit my birthday on November 27, 1981, I had gone
through the wringer, myself.

I did not stay sober after my first, second, third, or fourth meeting.

No, as Ms. Advanced Alcoholism here, I had gone through two hospital
programs,one women's 30 day rehab and close to two hundred meetings.
One hospital program was a 90 day stay at Camarillo State Mental Hospital
in CA! Yep, we alkis were housed right next to the criminally insane unit.
That was my Summer Camp in 1981.
( back then, poor people(me) were helped by state programs.)
( this program has since closed.)

And I still drank after that!

However, that was my personal Armageddon.
That was when I realized life was preferable to death by drinking.

So as you see, I was one of those who many thought was " hopeless".
I thought I was hopeless but something did not allow me to give up.

I now believe that "something" was my Higher Power.

:hug: :grouphug: I love all of you.

[SPKrazy]

5. SPK Checking In...

21 years and counting as another day goes by and I didn't drink and i didn't get high!

It can be done

one day at a time...and it will happen for you!

If it can happen for me...a person who has done everything the "wrong way", and still is here today to tell you I'm sober and clean, then you can do it too!

:crazy:

and while I'm crazy, I'm not insane although I was certain I would just lose it at many junctures along the way. One of those junctures has been my recent past... but I haven't had to drink or use thank God!

:grouphug:

[NMDemDist2]

6. ....

:hug:


That is all.......


:hug:

[SPKrazy]

7. ...

:hug:

that is all back

:hug:

[Justpat]

8. 26 years clean and sober.

Here's the cliff notes on my recovery:
too poor for rehab so I crawled in on my own. Probably best thing
that ever happened to me. No one to con, no one to feel sorry for me,
so for the first time in my life I did what I was told and went to
a meeting every day, got a sponsor (still have her) and started
working the steps.

Besides the alcoholism thing, I was one of the "sicker than others"
types. Mentally, I was certifiable. But I'll be damned if even
the craziness didn't get better over the years as I realized that the
steps are a psychiatric do it yourself kit. Now I'm sober and as
crazy as I wanna be.

Even after all these years, I still love the program. There is a great
spiritual logic to it.

I figure if a former certifiable bag lady can get sober and remain so
for all this time, it can work for you too.

A day at time miracles have happened in my life.

[NMDemDist2]

9. dang, I knew I liked you!

:pals:

hell, when I crawled into the rooms, I didn't even know there *were* 'spin drys'. It never occurred to me I could go to a hospital and get tea and sympathy

:rofl:

[Justpat]

11. I like you too -

I remember the time you tried to help me learn to cook.
It didn't take - but I have always appreciated the effort.

:pals:

[NMDemDist2]

12. ROFL

anytime you wanna give it another shot......

:hi:

[Kajsa]

13. Hi AZ Dem!

Are 'spin drys' to same as 72 hr. 'shake and bakes'?

I'm still trying to get this new recovery terminology down.

LOL! :hi:

[NMDemDist2]

14. LOL, no a spin dry is a 28 day treatment program

they spin you dry, give you an $8000 Big Book, a coffee mug and kick you back out into your life

:hi:

[Kajsa]

15. LOL! An $8,000. Big Book- that's about right!

Now I've got it-

Thankfully, us lower income drunks back in the early 80's
had state sponsored programs to help us recover.

They included detox, rehab ( anywhere from 28 days to two months)
with lots of physical labor( we almost earned our room and board).
group therapy and meetings every day,and re-entry programs the last week.

Now, I don't think that even exists now.;(

Rehab has become the refuge du-jour for celebrities in trouble, too.

-sigh-

Thank God for the program!!

:hi:

[KitchenWitch]

18. I own a $7500 Big Book

it should have been $5000 but I spent 42 days in a 28 day program.

:hi:

Needless to say, I was a little "resistant".

[LearnedHand]

16. 4 years today (3/19), and I couldn't IMAGINE life without drinking

...until I went to my first AA meeting. OMFG! The first thing I heard someone talk about at that meeting was the alcoholic way of thinking, and I suddenly realized that, in spite of all my scheming to drink in JUST such a way as to prove I was NOT an alcoholic, I was for SURE one of "them." That very first meeting, I realized that normies don't worry about when they can drink so they won't be an alcoholic. :rofl:

[KitchenWitch]

17. I am KitchenWitch and I am a grateful recoveroing alky/addict.

On October 20, 1984, I took my last drink/drug (yes I did both that night).

I am not perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, but I am improving, and will continue to do so as long as I stay clean and sober.

Since I have been in recovery, I have had cancer, radiation treatments, one abdominal surgery, one back surgery, two hip replacements, a nosejob and a cross country move. I have given birth to two wonderful children. I have loved, lost, and loved again. I have felt elation, and I have felt depression, but I have never felt the 'need' to take a drink/drug (although there have been times I have felt the 'want' to.)

It can be done.

[idgiehkt]

19. I have 5 years this time

I was 9 years and 8 months sober/clean when I took a couple of pills. Alot of stuff lead to that relapse but I fought tooth and nail for it to just be that one episode and it was. It truly is a one day at a time thing and today I don't want to be altered and the thought of it and what could happen really really scares me. I have been finding myself so grateful for my twelve step background lately...it seems so much of an understatement to talk about just 'clean time' when I think about what twelve groups gave to my life that I wouldn't have otherwise had. I feel like a guardian Angel lifted me up and put me in the rooms at the age of 23 and I gained so much from that.