Well if you ever need to get anything off your chest just give me a holla I’m all ears and no judgement. 
Thank you.
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There must be a hotline or text line somewhere for this, like a suicide hotline.
I’ve never been to 12 Steps and this concept of not talking about cravings seems very odd. The most important thing to learn is how to handle cravings!
Smart Recovery has online meetings all times of day. Maybe check those out? They are very oriented to the practicalities, lots of tools etc.
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Hey One! So, I’m completely shocked about your AA or NA group frowning upon discussing actively and currently craving your DOC. Every meeting it is said to pick up the phone to someone in the group before you pick up. People in my group keep the ringers of their phones on at all hours for this reason. It makes absolutely no sense that discussing a craving you are having would be taboo. In a meeting or with a sponsor. Very odd and I’ve never heard of that experience before. As @Dolse71 said, feel free to come here if you can’t get that support at your local group. We are here.
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I am learning there is no consistency in 12-step recovery. Everyone seems to make up their own version. Group to group, individual to individual, it varied so much and online I find even more versions. I never heard that about picking up the phone. I did hear that we are powerless to help someone who has an urge to use.
I never socialized with people from meetings, so I would not have been able to contact them anyway. Maybe if I had, someone might have suggested that I call if I felt I would use. But I really only knew what I heard in meetings and from my sponsors. Maybe I should have been more social, but I was not.
Thank you all.
I am really surprised at the responses here. I thought I would hear a lot of 12-step folk telling me to suck it up, pray, and try to ride it through.
I am surprised how pro-talking everyone is.
I agree—that is the main reason I left 12-step recovery. But I just do not know how to talk with non-addicts about this. Actually, I don’t know how to talk to any non-professional about this. It is a lot to lay on anyone.
Or maybe I need to go back into therapy. Stopping therapy seems to be what raised these urges.
I think posting may not be great. I feel very angry now about my 12-step experience and also feel more on edge. I hope the urges do not get stronger and I still don’t know what to do if they do. After 20 years in 12-step programs and therapy, I don’t know how to stop myself.
We are powerless in active addiction…once we pick up,we wake the addiction and are powerless to stop.
We are powerless over people,places and things that’s true
BUT to HELP someone struggling is part of recovery…we are never powerless to HELP but we don’t control the other person, place or thing🙏.
Thank you. I did read the literature when I was in the program, and the principles were great. My main issue with them was that they were not helpful in a practical way. For example, the BB is very clear on how to do steps 4 to 12, but does not say much about how to do the first three–which is when you really need the guidance.
While I was in the program I relapsed a lot. But since leaving I have been able to stop. If you read the thread, I have a few years under my belt, but am troubled by urges, for the first time in a long time.
Back in the day, I did search the literature for some idea about how to deal with urges and there was not much advice. Pray and do the steps was all I ever found.There were a few nights where I decided to try to do a step, but ended up calling my dealer.
The principles of honestly, ongoing self-examination, and connection to something greater than oneself–which I believe is the point of the steps–are great. I try to live by them. I am grateful to have learned them from the program literature. But the way the program is practiced was less helpful, so I am not looking to go back.
.
I would agree with you, but I feel like we are in the minority.
I made the experience that not everyone can be supportive. Maybe they are overwhelmed or stuck in the imagination that when I talk about my problems or struggles with life I want them to solve them. I get more aware and conscious with whom I can talk openly and who I won’t show much of my inner parts. Boundaries. I am getting better with time.
This is true (at least for me) when I talk to addicts or non-addicts, equally.
What I noticed, still, no matter if I liked the meetings or not, never I went home having the urge to pick up. So this was always a good thing for me.
No.
I think it is wrong to require people to leave jobs, move to a new home, and/or write in detail about drug effects.
I have recently learned that not all sponsors require step actions–but I think NONE should.
Therapy did work.
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Just being in the room with people I might have used with if I had met them a year or two earlier under other circumstances was enough to trigger me/
I think the isolation I felt at meetings did not help. Not talking about current struggles, only made the urge to use stronger.
I don’t know about minority. I don’t put myself in a category 
. I just am.
When i was in therapy last summer i suddenly felt isolated. It started inside me, with my thoughts, assumptions, conclusions and subsequent actions. Leading myself to isolate more from the community.it happens here from time to time ,mostly it is inside me.
Why not try posting here?
Just hop on the check in thread, start a new topic, whatever… And open up with what you are struggling with. Everyone here gets it - that’s why we’re all here! It sounds like having someone you could be honest and open with (your therapist) has been helpful. So maybe more of that is what you need?
There are of course lots of people here who have got sober through AA, but also lots who haven’t.
@littlemisschatterbox mentioned SMART which is CBT based and sounds like a pretty practical approach. There are lots of other programmes too, see Resources for our recovery for info on these as well as other useful resources. Not everyone wants to be part of a formal recovery programme and that’s OK too!
One of the things I have found hugely helpful over the past few years is reading this forum, a lot. I have learned so much about myself by reading other people’s stories. It’s not necessarily always about sharing what’s going on with you - although I think that’s also important.
I have had 15 solid years and five more on and off ones in the program, so if I sound negative it comes from experience. The Twelve and Twelve is probably my favorite of the books, but it does not actually tell you what to do with the steps.
Honestly, you could help me if you could suggest a first step action that would not impact me financially. At my age, if I got a minimum wage job, I would probably never get anything better than that again.
I gave up on the steps because I could give up my job—nor could I come up with an alternative action that would show my sponsor that I did the first step.
The BB starts giving step actions at the first step…but where do you find them for the first three?
I do not know Back to Basics, but I know the 12 and 12 thoroughly.
Like I said before, if you read it, you will find that it does not actually suggest any step actions, or give instructions of any kind.
(But it lays out the philosophy of the program beautifully.)
But thank you. I will check out Back to Basics.