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for our newcomers-- let us speak of surrender, shall we?

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NMDemDist2 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-25-07 04:49 PM
Original message
for our newcomers-- let us speak of surrender, shall we?
The first half of the first step states "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol"

The admission of powerlessness is a difficult one. We try to convince ourselves that the next time it will be different. We make all kinds of excuses why we got drunk *again*

Drank on an empty stomach

Had a horrible day

Had some vague ache or pain

Were fighting a little flu/cold bug

Were tired/sad/mad/scared

We give a million reasons why drinking *that last time* went so wrong, and why the next drink won't hurt.

That first phrase is the beginning of smashing through those mental games we play to justify what went wrong. That phrase makes us look at what happens when we take that first drink. The first drink is never enough, we always need/want "just one more" until we end up in that horrible place one more time.

To quote the Big Book on this issue "We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics. This is the first step of recovery. The delusion that we are like other people, or presently will be, has to be smashed. (BB pg.30-emphasis added)

I didn't fully grasp that first phrase for several weeks until I started to actually see how badly I was addicted to booze. It took a couple weeks to go through the detox, convulsions and DTs and to have my mind finally start to clear the fog enough to see that 'normal' people don't have to go through those physical symptoms and mental agony to just not have a drink for a few days. It was frightening to see how sick I was and it drove home the fact that I was powerless. I knew that if I drank, I'd pay that physical and mental price.

It was a start.







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wildeyed Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-25-07 05:49 PM
Response to Original message
1. And then there were the geographic cures.....
If I could just get away from this destructive crowd, I could drink normally, or, hmmm, I work in a bar, no wonder I drink so much. If I just had a regular day job, I wouldn't get into so much trouble.

And then trying to do drugs/alcohol in various, more healthy combinations. That never seemed to work for long.

Then I tried to bargain with my disease. I would think, as long as this drinking thing doesn't get any worse, I can cope. As long as it doesn't Get. Any. Worse. And then it would get worse, something really humiliating and scary would happen. Again.

I accepted my powerlessness when I decided I would be better off dead than living the way I was. I tried to think about another 20 years of alcoholic insanity and knew I just couldn't do it. I had given up hope of fighting the disease on my own. I didn't really want to die. So I went to AA instead thinking, worth a shot, better than being dead or insane, but probably not much.

And that final surrender was such a release. It was finally saying, ok, I'm done, I'm not fighting this thing any more. I am just going to go to these meetings and try to do what I am told. No more bargaining or denial. Just surrender.
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NMDemDist2 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-25-07 05:54 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. OMG those geographics
Lord, if only you knew girl........

:hi:
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idgiehkt Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-26-07 12:31 AM
Response to Original message
3. well, you got me thinking
I didn't have reasons to drink, or excuses, I just did, daily, because that was the way I lived, it was part of my life and I didn't much think about it. What happened was I backed into a friend of mine one night when I was leaving a party at her house and pinned her against another car. Then maybe a year or so later I left the company Christmas party and was driving in a black out and came out of it staring a man who was braced against the front of my car trying to stop it. It was in the parking lot of a gas station and I almost ran over him. I don't remember hitting the brakes, I just remember coming out of the blackout staring in his eyes through the windshield and wondering why he had his hands on the hood of my car and why he looked so scared. I blacked back out and when I came to again I was on the floor of my bedroom, and I had the worst headache from drinking I ever had, and I just lay there on the floor until I went to sleep.


And then around that time my cousin Vivian, who lived on the other side of the state, went to the 7-11 with her family one day, and as she was leaning over to put her items she'd purchased in her car, a drunk driver veered off the highway into the 7/11parking lot and lost control of his car and hit her car from the other side. Vivian's body was knocked about 40 feet from the car and she died instantly. I find myself crying about this now and I haven't cried about it in years.

When I heard about her death I knew there was absolutely NO difference between me and the person that killed Vivian. None. And I knew that I'd had two very close calls (my friend I backed into was badly bruised but luckily no bones were broken), and the third time might be the charm. I don't feel like God will give me any more chances when it comes to drinking and driving, and I won't be lucky enough to be killed, probably. So that is how my surrender came about, my fear, as I heard someone say one, that I would "do something I wouldn't be able to sober up on." I feel so blessed right now to be sober.
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RaRa Donating Member (705 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-26-07 09:09 PM
Response to Original message
4. That step has been THE most important thing in keeping me sober
I was almost there when my counselor made me really realize it. Since I didn't have any detox issues (I felt great any day I didn't drink), I still thought of myself as different from the folks who drank more than I did. My counselor looked at me and asked me how my desire to drink was any different from the fellow who was sober 5 years and holding down a nice job but had been living on skid row before. The emphasis on need/desire to drink, rather than on anything else cinched it for me. I had been calm and in a decent mood until then and found the tears come pouring out of nowhere then. I honestly thought that everyone (except those really uptight weirdos) enjoyed a good buzz and I just lacked something to keep me from stopping. I now get it, that I'm wired differently, so to speak. I've always loved the buzz (if not the totally trashed feeling) and I made the stupid decisions to keep drinking (back in the days when I possibly could have stopped or slowed down) and consequently developed a full blown addiction.

I look at the concept of surrender as quite liberating. After all, before you really accept your powerlessness, you feel this huge internal struggle that it's simply will power and purely psychological whether or not you drink too much. By accepting that your body will always react in one way to the drink, you don't have to fight anymore. There IS no fight. (Well, maybe about taking the first, but that's my only choice. I have none after I have one.)
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SPKrazy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-28-07 09:56 PM
Response to Original message
5. I really never had a lot of excuses for getting drunk or drinking...
I just did it.

I knew pretty quickly when I tried to stop and couldn't that I had a problem...it still took a few years to surrender, but I knew the truth and my drinking was screwn after I went to my first meetings.

I don't question whether I can or can't drink today, I just know that I could if I chose to, but it would have terrible consequences...and I don't know that I could stop...

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Justpat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-31-07 08:27 AM
Response to Original message
6. Alcoholism whipped my ass.

The idea of giving up and surrendering to anybody or anything was not in my repertoire.
But by the time I got to AA, all the evidence was in and I was without any doubt an alcoholic.

I just didn't like the fact that recovery necessitated my associating with other people.
I thought I'd come the meetings, learn the tricks, then go home and be fine all by myself.
(I suffered from the tortured loner schtick as a drunk) But after a few months, I realized
that sobriety required me to surrender everything that fed my addiction and my lousy attitude
was a major thing I had to give up.

Sometimes now I look back and laugh my head off at my thought process early in recovery.
Here I was unemployable, homeless, crazy as a loon, but I thought I did not have to listen
to others who had managed to deal with their disease a day at a time. I thought anyone who
needed meetings and groups to get well was a loser. I laugh even typing this. Boy,
the mind of an alcoholic is the eighth wonder of the world.

Now I love meetings and am profoundly grateful for the opportunity to grow and change
every day of my life. How great is that?

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KitchenWitch Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-31-07 12:46 PM
Response to Original message
7. Right before I got sober, I was living in my car (for two months)
I was in Minnesota, and I sobered up on October 21, 1984. The fall of 1984 was a cold one, and funny me, I could not see that my alcoholism/drug addiction had been what led to my living in my car in the first place.

When my parents found me, they asked if I wanted to go to rehab, and quite honestly the only reason I said yes, was I wanted a warm place to sleep that I did not have to prostitute myself for.

I had a hard ass counselor who broke down my denial and self-pity in short order. I did spend 42 days in a 28 day program (denial ain't just a river in Egypt).

Thank HP that I had the counselor that I had. I do not think I would have gotten sober if I did not.
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