I really thought I had control,....especially after doing AA

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

Several members told me I did not belong in AA. They enabled me to believe my addiction is simply no where near as bad as theirs. Therefore, I am not an alcoholic.

But,...alcohol serves all my needs to 'tolerate' people I love, to sleep (especially, to sleep), to 'calm' me as I juggle the needs I must serve for my husband and son and mother and brother and family, to help me ignore my own fears about health needs and financial needs should my husband get sick.

I've been to professionals who tell me, I have more control over my life than I believe,...who tell me I suffer anxiety disorder, NOT ADDICTION. Prescriptions have not addressed that disorder (but then, I am uninsured and, frankly, scared to even ask for medications for anxiety, just as doctors are scared to prescribe them).

Is there a place other than AA for abusers to go? I mean, I abuse alcohol to the point it impacts my own health and I know that,...but, I have become the SUPER reliable person for all others' lives.

Does that make sense?

[Tobin S.]

1. It seems to me

That if you are sitting in an AA meeting, no one should question your reasons to be there. You evidently think you have a problem and need some help. People should respect that. I'd try a different meeting. Where I live there are several meetings around the area.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

3. I live in a rural area,...and, initially went to the immediate vicinity,...

,...a "Baptist" church, serving AA where there is no "privacy",...unfortunately. So, I traveled 50 minutes away to a church allowing AA meetings. I faithfully attended for four months. I never felt like the members failed to respect my problems. However, their problems were just,...so devastating. I needed something they could not give me and they felt I really did not belong in their community (not in a bad way). I do not want to devolve to the point of their experiences.

[get the red out]

10. Have you checked out online meetings?

No one in AA has any business saying they cannot help someone with the desire to stop drinking. That is what a person has to have to be a member of AA, the desire to stop. I wish you could get to some different meetings, but know that geography plays a huge role in what meetings a person can attend. Online meetings exist, and that could be a starting point, to see how that feels and if you can get some positive input there. I am very fortunate to be able to pick from an assortment of meetings, all are not so lucky.

A person doesn't have to be completely devestated to suffer from alcoholism any more than a cancer patient has to be in the final stages of cancer to be said to have that disease. Early detection is a good thing! :D But with alcoholism no one can diagnose us but ourselves.

Best wishes!

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

2. I want to avoid getting worse. I ask for recommendations, please.

I can't keep living this way. I want to be able to sleep, soundly, without alcohol,...especially. I want to be able to cope with common life stresses, without alcohol. I cared for my Dad, until his last two breaths, without alcohol, last year; I had to do that.

I turn to alcohol to cope when,...I simply do not want to exert the energy necessary to persist through life.

[elleng]

4. Maybe some of the information here will help you.

Best of luck.

http://www.lakesidemilam.com/

[Citizen_Penn]

5. Yes, you make sense to me.

http://stepchat.com/alanon.htm

Online meetings for Al Anon can be found here.

Sometimes, those who are co-dependent use alcohol to kill the pain. We're part of a family disease, perhaps not addicted to alcohol. Doesn't mean we don't try to be alcoholics.

check it out - costs nothing but the time.

Good luck to you.

[Kajsa]

6. No one, and I mean

NO ONE has the right to tell you that you don't belong in AA!!

What kind of BS is that?

My sponsor would eat those people for breakfast.

As far as the "professionals" are concerned,
are any of them addicts/alcoholics?

Alcohol has impacted your life in a very bad way.

You want help- the only requirement for membership in AA is a desire to stop drinking!

Find online meetings as suggested here or hopefully new meetings not too far
from where you live that you feel comfortable with.

Good luck and please keep us posted.

:hug:

[Fire Walk With Me]

9. The first and second-to-last paragraphs of the Third Tradition are extremely important.

And extremely difficult to find in practice, at least in my area :(

[david13]

7. I've been sober for more than 24 years now, day and night, 24/7,

12 months out of each and every year. As of April.
There are many misconceptions about aa, even, or maybe mostly within aa. First, a lot of people don't know they are supposed to take their own inventory, not someone else's.
But I am like you, a high bottom alcoholic. (Or al-anon, if you want). I didn't have to go to prison, lose body parts in auto accidents, end up in a wheelchair from kidney disease, etc., like so many of the others.
Going to meetings enabled me to see where I would end up if I wanted to continue to drink.
So I didn't have to reach the wretched low bottom that others did.
Or die. Yet.
One misconception about aa, even from inside, is, what is aa? Oh, that's where they go to meetings all the time.
Oh, and they have coffee and cookies, or cakes.
No. Wrong. That is the doorway. You have to go inside and find 12 steps and 12 traditions, study them, work them, learn them backward and forward, and live them and incorporate them into your life.
You can do that in 4 months. It takes years.
But read the first page of the book. After you do that you ... recover ... we who have recoverd ... passed tense.
You are cured. But only for one day at a time.
You do not have to continue to go to endless meetings and listen to drunkalog after drunkalog. You already did that.
Now, some say, if you don't take your inventory, then they can take yours for you. Well, you should do it yourself.
But just casual conversation, I had the same. People would say oh, what are you doing here, etc., just conversation about me being a high bottom. I realized an opportunity to answer the question, I'm here to learn how to live sober. I did that. Today I do. Every day, one day at a time.
But it's the steps, not the meetings.
dc

[NMDemDist2]

8. "it's the steps not the meetings"

truer words were never spoken.

in my first year, I watched and listened in amazement as someone did Steps 1-4 in about two minutes, talked with me to check his thinking (step 5) realize what defect he was acting out (6-8) and then excuse himself to go make an amends.

the light bulb went off for me that day and my life has never been the same. It got better and better and even when the tough times hit (as they always do) I had tools to deal with the stress, anxiety and fear and didn't have to escape into a bottle. I put one foot in front of the other, did the next right thing (even when it was the hardest thing) and things got better again.

17 years later, life is better than I ever dreamed it could be and I live comfortably in my own skin most every day in every situation. and btw, I married that man and we're still best friends and true partners after 15 years of marriage.

it's the steps, not the meetings.

welcome to our little corner of DU david, yours is a welcome voice as we trudge the road.......

:hug: