A few years ago I told somebody in a meeting that I didn’t want to be brainwashed. But that person knew my story and said that I needed to be brainwashed but he Laughed when he said it. And I laughed back because I knew he was right. I didn’t need God or my God and I didn’t need Alcoholics Anonymous or everything else I’m doing until I was ready. Or may be enough things had to happen to me and my life … this was a good way of putting it. Thank you for your post
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I generally try to keep my message here focused on me, but lately I’ve seen so many people willing to just do the bare minimum and then seem genuinely shocked they keep relapsing.
I can certainly relate to the bare minimum part, I’ve been there and done that. When I relapsed after doing the bare minimum it was not some big surprise, it was rather expected.
What still confuses me is the acting surprised part. If your sobriety plan is coming here, word vomiting all over the daily check-in thread, then disappearing for a week of course you are going to keep drinking. Like you’re putting in 20 mins a week towards your sobriety, drinking really is the only option. If you’ve been reading this forum for years and haven’t absorbed one suggestion of course you’re going to keep drinking.
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This is a really good point. That variety - choosing new ways of exercising that healthy/grounded-living (sober) muscle - helps keep complacency at bay.
In a way it’s like this: when we think we’ve “got” it, like we’ve got a place we go, a set of people we see and call, a list of things we do - when we think we’ve got it - that’s when the snake strikes.
When we think we’ve “got” it is when we’ve lost it. It’s when we stop searching.
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So much gold in this post.
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Wow. Just wow. I’m glad I found this thread. In reading a lot of these comments I can hear my first sponsor pound my head into the sand with tough love and truths. I was the type of addict who needed that because my ego was massive. God, I miss that woman. Last time I saw her she was a slippery mess after 18 years sober. So in letting go she gave me the hardest truth. Never stop the recovery process. We don’t get cured. If you think so you have one foot out the door already.
Today I try hard to give love and kindness when offering suggestions. Many of us didn’t experience that in our active disease. However, I’m not one bit afraid to put the tough love and truth hammer down when it’s needed. Still, it can be done with love and kindness woven into the blunt truth. Some of us need that kick in the pants because it’s what we respond to best. I really, really enjoy reading Matt’s comments because his style is a lot like mine. Encouragement, love, support, hand in hand with no holds barred. That is what this thread is and I absolutely adore it.
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Correct. We never get cured. We can be in remission though, and unlike other diseases, we have 100% control over staying in remission. This is why I so strenuously object to the idea that “relapse is part of recovery”.
No, relapse is not part of recovery, any more than a cancer patient is in recovery when their cancer returns. Relapse is the end of remission. The “cancer” has returned, often times with a vengeance. The good news is we can put ourselves back in remission, if we really want to.
Relapse isn’t part of recovery. Sobriety is part of recovery…the most important part of recovery.
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I’ve never understood that saying. I know folk who never relapsed. I also know folk who did after years of recovery. Relapse isn’t part of recovery. It is a miss step of not keeping on your toes working your program to prevent it. At the same time there is no shame in falling as long as you don’t stay there. Get back up. Learn from it. Work even harder to prevent it happening again. Saying it is a part of recovery comes too damn close to implying permission to those of us who look for any and every loophole to use again. Nice to meet you, @Yoda-Stevie 
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I once clarified I wasn’t a “one-chip wonder” with my group. That I’d relapsed before finally getting into a recovery program.
Someone with more time said, correction: I was possibly a one chip wonder. I just hadn’t actually admitted I had a problem and surrendered till my last sober date.
Either way, I’m over the delusion I can have the ever-elusive “just one.”
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Has anybody ever thought what it would be like if everybody sat in an AA room was drunk?
Instead of love, compassion and empathy
It would be hate, violence and lust
Driving home from work yesterday got me thinking a little bit about support. I had a lot of support early on, and it was great, but I never expected that support to be there. I was grateful it was, but would not be resentful if it weren’t. My first attempt at getting sober I did the exact opposite. I expected all this support to be there, and when it didn’t go exactly as I planned it spiraled me (one of a few reasons) into a relapse.
What I know, through my own experience, is that I should not expect others to do for me what I will not do for myself. I do not expect my friends to not drink around me, though it is very nice that even now some of them still ask. If I am not comfortable being around them when they drink, I will not go. I do not expect people at meetings to reach out and check up on me. If I am struggling it is on me to reach out. I do not expect the sun to start setting in the east just because I don’t like driving home with glare in my face.
When I start expecting things of others I have already taken the first step towards a relapse. My alcoholic behavior is coming back because with expectations is the drunk-minded thought that if just everyone acted exactly as I wanted then my life would be so easy. Alcoholics love that shit. Well once things don’t go exactly as planned you can be damn sure that I’d be getting resentful. And we all know where that goes.
Alcoholism is a selfish disease. Creating expectations of others (especially around my sobriety) is just a continuation of that selfishness.
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How do we say it in AA? Expectations are premeditated relapses. Something like that.
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When I look back on all the conflicts in my life, there is only one thing they all have in common…
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Confusing “want to” with “have to” is pretty easy to do in early recovery.
What I’ve found throughout my sobriety is that there are very few “have to” events in my life. My wedding was a “have to”, but I was able to be selective about who was there. My funeral will be a “have to”. Other than that (and maybe some select work things) there is absolutely nothing I “have to” attend.
Things I think “have to” attend that are actually “want to” events:
Other peoples weddings.
Any birthday party including my own.
Funerals.
Concerts
Sporting events
Any other party
Bbq
Dates
Picnics
Baptisms
Vacations
Camping
Literally anything not listed above.
I always have a choice. By pretending I “have to” takes away ownership of my decision and is a built in excuse to relapse. It’s be easy to say oh I had no choice, but that’d be a lie.
In sobriety I have learned how to be responsible for my actions. I’ve also learned how to attend these events with no worry of the drink because of the work I’ve done.
But if I’m not feeling it, but still attend an event and drink, then it is 110% my fault. 100% for drinking and 10% for being dumb enough to attend
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Oh, man… Very true on several levels.
You could easily relate this to sobriety itself.
So often people think the motivation “have to” is the same as “want to”.
I have to get sober is a very different concept to
I want to get sober
They are equally affected by your concept of ownership and decision making control.
One gives it away, the other brings it back.
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Holidays
This was a big one for me. I missed Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years with my family and friends that first year. No big deal though, plenty more to enjoy going forward. The next year, everyone was genuinely happy to see me doing so well that they never even brought it up.
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Okay, but like orange sobet or strawberry sobet? Cuz I have to have ice cream.
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No matter how many time I’ve written sober on my phone it never picks it as the word i want using swipe text.
I have literally never used sorbet in a text. Ever. Until it chose just then to correct my swipe to that.
Classic gag, Google… But with all your smarts and machine learning please learn what the fuck i want to type from the literal thousands of other times i have typed it.
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This is why Terminator will never happen
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Well, if it does happen at least our machine overlords will serve us sorbet before terminating us.
A final meal, if you will
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I know there was something missing from the plot of that movie
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