Monograph - 27
Post Chemical:
THE BEGINNING OF A SPIRITUAL WAKENING
By the end of my drinking, I thought I was definitely insane. I sure did a lot of crazy things when I was drunk. I landed myself in the hospital, rehabs, jails, and almost in a casket. I am one crazy guy. However, I later found that this was not the only kind of insanity that applied to alcoholism. The other part of the insanity I possessed was due to the fact that I continued to drink over and over again -- even after I had made up my mind for sure that I would never touch another drop. Looking back, I realized after all that alcohol had done to me; I always would pick up that first drink again. I believed the lie that the disease of alcoholism told me. I used to honestly believe one or two drinks would be 'OK this time'. I thought I could reward myself for a few days of sobriety with a drink. I would think things would be different this time, so I would have just a few drinks. Of course, it always triggered my unhealthy compulsion to drink more alcohol. Then I would get drunk all over again and not be able to quit. I used to swear off alcohol time after time again only to drink later on that month, that week, or even later that very day. I did this same thing over and over and over expecting a different result each time. This was the true underlying insanity.
I had more will power than most people I knew. I used to think there had to be a way I could moderate my drinking based on my own will power. It took a long time before I finally realized that this issue would take a Power greater than myself to correct it. There was a time when no human power could make me quit drinking unless I were to be locked up or tied down. Besides, if I was honest with myself, I really didn't want to drink moderately such as once or twice per month. I wanted to be drinking almost all the time and I simply was not happy unless I did. Even when I forced myself to keep the drinking limited to one night a week, I needed to drink that day and waited for it all week long. I felt a sense of emptiness without my alcohol if I quit for a few days. Something unfulfilled lay inside me. I drank alcohol to breathe life into me and give me vitality. Now I see how the drink was my higher power. One drink was too much and a million drinks was not enough. When I honestly realized all this, I also realized that I had to either quit drinking through the use of some other type of Power or continue to live miserably while always trying to drink less by using my own power. I knew for sure I would never be able to take enough alcohol into my body to be satisfied and also still maintain my physical and mental health.
The recovery group always suggests that newcomers get a 'sponsor' to help on a one-on-one level. They suggested I pick a sponsor that had something I wanted. Even though the lady that helped me before lived almost three hours from my home, I decided to continue to talk to her within the confines of a 'sponsorly' relationship. It was difficult for me to imagine asking anyone else to be my sponsor. She had years of enjoyment and enlightenment through being sober. She also seemed to have a genuine interest in not only me but people in general. We would talk on the phone, and I would visit on the weekends whenever I had the time. After meetings in my hometown, I would go home to write my sponsor emails. I think that helped save my life more than anything else. Needless to say, I am eternally grateful for the lady to who(m) I was originally nothing more than a stranger. I'm also overwhelmed with gratitude for her husband, his patience, and his understanding.
Abby's Sexual Health |
Section - 28
Letters to My New Found Mentor:
VERY EARLY SOBRIETY
[Sobriety Day # 3]
Dear Sponsor:
I have the worst attitude. After I took another nap at 6 PM, all I wanted to do was go get alcohol. I even was so miserable, I called [my best friend] a stubborn a** hole. I felt so bad about that.
I really had a mental drive to drink but just felt damned if I do and damned if I don't drink. Either way, I was screwed.
At 11 PM, I took three over-the-counter sleeping pills to try to get some sleep but they didn't work. I slept for hours and hours during the day and am still wide-awake at 2:48 AM (now). I just want to sleep all this away and forget it all.
Oh well... sometimes sobriety sucks. I have a major resentment that I can't drink on Friday or Saturday like all the other people my age. I hear people in school talk about their drinking plans and how much fun they had last weekend while drinking. I really want to drink once a week but know that it will mean drinking every day eventually.
This is an awful frustrating personal resentment. What should I do? I try praying and I guess that keeps me from going out and buying beer but it does not take away my urges. The urges during the week happen also but I just keep in mind that the urge will soon pass whether I drink or not. However, this does not happen on weekends. I am constantly bored and feel like I NEED alcohol to relax my mind for just one day a week. I am so pissed that I can't do that! What the hell is wrong with me?
[Sobriety Day # 20]
Dear Sponsor:
Here I am at 2:30 AM. I wasn't out drinking so don't worry. I have 20 days sober now. I was driving around by myself after the meeting that ended at 10 o'clock. It's kind of lonely out there. I did sort of feel like drinking today. As the weekend gets closer this usually happens. I told the people at the meeting all this but I ran out of there quickly once the meeting was over so I didn't get pounded with advice. My old track coach was the speaker tonight. He will have 20 years sober this August. He is an OK guy but says the F word more than he should. He never did that when he was helping coach track so it kind of disappoints me that he isn't more polite in the meetings.
I wish I could just take a weekend break from all this recovery and drink like the other college students do. I really need something to help me relax and enjoy myself. This sobriety is really nice and healthy but it isn't much fun. People at meetings seem more and more emotionally distressed as the weather gets warmer. Frequently people say how the nice weather makes them want to drink and I feel the same way. I would like to get some beer and spend the day drinking and skateboarding on a new parking lot down the street. After I have one year, can't I try to drink casually and socially without getting drunk and still continue to go to these recovery meetings?
What stopped me from drinking tonight is the fear that I will go back entirely and find even a lower bottom. I really don't want to dig any lower. I really don't want any more legal problems either. I really wish I could have one 40 ounce of beer though. My grandmother gave me a few dollars this weekend. This makes everything even harder because I know I can get alcohol anytime I want. All this really isn't much fun you know. I also can't get pot off of my mind even though I don't know where I can get it nowadays.
I am still in that calm-after-the-storm mood for most of the time. I don't feel like doing much and I sleep a lot during the day. I do not feel like I have to drink which I am very grateful for. I just really wish I could drink now. At least I have progressed from feeling a compulsion to drink to just wishing I could. I am falling behind in school as sobriety and recovery occupies most of my thinking time. Since I usually go to one or two meetings per day, my mind is solely on the topic of not drinking. I am already thinking constantly about what I am going to say when I have 90 days and have to tell my story in front of everyone at the recovery meeting clubhouse. I really want to do it but am nervous already and I only have three weeks sober. What an emotional roller-coaster within just this one letter, huh? All these thoughts are in my mind lately back and forth, up and down, all the time.
Adult Dating |
[Sobriety Day # 23]
Dear Sponsor:
I tried to go to a 12:30 meeting at the alcoholic recovery group on Saturday but there was nobody there. I said out loud to myself, "What kind of group is this?" They schedule meetings and nobody shows up sometimes? Well, it turned out that there is no meeting at 12:30 on Saturday. It is at 2:00 PM. However, I already missed the 2:00 PM meeting because I didn't think to look at the schedule until about 2:15. Since the place is about 12 minutes away from my house, I figured it was safe to say that I missed the meeting.
I guess I will just have to go at 6:00 or 8:30 tonight or maybe I will go to both of them. I don't know if two meetings that close together will be good and I am short on gas again so, I will just go to one.
I counted days and this is day 23. I think this is as sober as it gets. At least I feel physically healthy. I am very grateful for that.
I have a real problem with people. I just can't get along with them it seems. I mean, most people are nice to me and I am nice to them also. I just don't want to do the other stuff they do after the meetings like eating a greasy heart-attack-buffet at the local diner. I don't want to play volleyball with them or horseshoes either. I don't want to go to their sober dance that they are selling tickets to. I don't even want to hang around with them after the meetings, smoke cigarettes, or be lectured about stuff I already know. I am starting to become a real stick-in-the-mud (more than usual). I mean, I have been there for 23 days and have made 32 meetings. I know they know who I am because they always ask me to read out loud. Why are they treating me like it's my very first meeting? If I hang around for a few minutes after a meeting, I never get to say anything. I just have to sit and listen to a few brain dead idiots who are trying to tell me how I should be. This from some people who don't have much more sober time than me!
[Sobriety Day # 28]
Dear Trusted Friend:
I really am speechless now. My mind is just out there. My problem is my self-will again. I am bonded by my own self. I seem to come across as thinking I am superior to other people and thinking everything I say is right. You told me this before but in a nicer way. You told me about allowing people to be wrong. You also said that I am wrong and I have to realize that. I guess, in fact, that I am wrong.
By looking at this recovery program, particularly the part about living life on life's terms, I have come to realize today that I am much sicker than I originally thought.
I complain that I had mental problems before I ever got drunk such as anxiety, paranoia, depression, fear of people, and easily being agitated with people's imperfections. I was born this way or acquired these disorders in early childhood I think. I had an anti-social alcoholic personality long before I ever picked up a drink. Alcohol was only a catalyst in the whole scheme of this mess I am in. A very cunning, baffling, and powerful catalyst alcohol was.
Look up 'catalyst' in your dictionary. It is a very appropriate word for what I said, I think -- A word that was way back in my brain.
Monograph - 29
Deducing 'Will' and 'Life':
WASHING A DIRTY BRAIN
A lot of this sober business sounded like some kind of brainwashing to me. Was this alcohol recovery fellowship some kind of cult? It turned out that it's not a cult. It was strange that they didn't even charge anything for going to these meetings yet they were more beneficial than any therapy I had ever been to in my life. It was also amazing that I have the right to take my will back any time I want. If I decide that my life was better before I came in to this program, then I can forget everything those people said, walk right out the door, and never come back. Simply put, I found out that as far as they were concerned, I could go back to drinking any time I wanted to return to my old lifestyle of misery. However, I figured if I made it this far, I should be willing to give it a fair chance. (A few months long of a chance at least.) I don't think anybody ends up walking through the doors of a place for alcoholics to get sober by accident.
I noticed one thing turned off the newcomers more than any other. It was the mention of the word 'God'. Certain people reassured me that I was not expected to conform to any predetermined concept of God. They described their our own personal conceptions of God. They told me that G.O.D. could even stand for the group itself (Group Of Drunks) or simply Good Orderly Direction. They said there are even atheists that have gotten sober through this program. Keep in mind that I was not a very religious guy. I was a drunk-driving-skateboarder who basically lived out of cars in the past. I was not (and to many, I am still not) an upstanding citizen or a church-goer. I used to think churches were simple money-grubbing organizations but I've found out that many people find wonderful fellowships within churches. At one point I said, I would never go to church again. Now, I just say that I don't go for now but I'm not going to rule it out in the future
I had rejection from my peers in church as a young teenager based on their perception of the possibility of me having a different sexuality. I was a friend with a kid who acted different. He wasn't effeminate but he spoke like an arrogant aristocrat so people assumed he was gay. They thought I was gay because I was his only friend.
I thought if there was a God, He might not want to have anything to do with me. However, the people in recovery told me that I only had to be willing to believe in a power greater than myself -- not that I actually had to actually fully believe or trust that Power. I just had to be willing to believe. This is much different than having faith. We do not have faith until we've seen changes in our life because of our willingness to believe. I was so sick of drinking and it's effects that I was willing to do just about anything. I was willing to go to any length and if that meant swallowing my pride and turning over my self-will-run-riot, then so be it.
But what did the authors of this program truly mean when they said, "...turn our will and our life over to God, as we understood Him?" I struggled with understanding this concept for some time. This is where sponsors or other friends come in handy. For me, this means to become 'God conscious'. It means to constantly ask ourselves before making any decision -- "What would God want me to do?" Or, "What would God do if He were me?" I found I had to let the will of the Higher Power into my whole life not just my limited aspects regarding addiction. God doesn't want my alcohol and drugs -- God probably doesn't even drink! So, when it comes down to a decision to cheat or steal we are just as God conscious about it as if it was a decision to drink or stay sober. I have to let God's will in on every decision. This is much easier said than done. It's all a matter of progress not perfection. Moving in the right direction is what counts. The meaning of my 'will' is my ability to make a decision and the power to carry that out. Today, I find myself turning more and more of this 'will' over to the care of God because I think it enables me to free my mind from bothersome and anxious thoughts. Freedom through surrender in our personal lives is a fascinating concept.
I found I could get myself into quite a confusing quagmire by doing all this alone. I was very lucky to find a sponsor very soon after I had a desire to quit drinking. First, my sponsor had me make a list of everything I had ever done in my life for which I felt guilt. Then we examined the basic text of the program and read chapter five carefully. A simple instruction with an example tells how to map out resentments, fear, and sexual issues. This did not move me further from a drink in itself but prepared me for the future steps that would enable me to continue to live without the compulsion to drink. It was the rudimentary beginnings of the moral inventory I discuss in greater detail in monograph 32.
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