aa Spoken Here Community Group
Fellowship Where you can share your thoughts, feelings, stories and get support to gain and continue sobriety.
I love this part of the big book. It is reassuring to have my problem understood by others and to know there is a solution. I wanted to stop drinking more than I have ever wanted anything else and yet I kept on picking up the first drink. I kept making the choice not to and then doing it anyway. I was baffled just like this paragraph says........
"For those who are unable to drink moderately the question is how to stop altogether. We are assuming, of course, that the reader desires to stop. Whether such a person can quit on a non spiritual basis depends on the extent to which he has already lost the power to choose whether he will drink or not. Many of us felt that we had plenty of character. There was the tremendous urge to cease forever. Yet we found it impossible. This is the baffling feature of alcoholism as we know it - this utter inability to leave it alone, no matter how great the necessity or with." (BB pg 34)
"For those who are unable to drink moderately the question is how to stop altogether. We are assuming, of course, that the reader desires to stop. Whether such a person can quit on a non spiritual basis depends on the extent to which he has already lost the power to choose whether he will drink or not. Many of us felt that we had plenty of character. There was the tremendous urge to cease forever. Yet we found it impossible. This is the baffling feature of alcoholism as we know it - this utter inability to leave it alone, no matter how great the necessity or with." (BB pg 34)
When I started going to AA, I was amazed when listening to people's shares. I thought I was the only woman, mother, wife, sister on the face of the earth who drank like I did. I heard women who made me look like a teetotaler share and their eyes twinkled and they talked about their lives today. That's where I saw hope. In my desperation, I wanted what they had. Glad I kept going back.
"If you are as seriously alcoholic as we were, we believe there is no middle-of-the-road solution. W were in a position where life was becoming impossible, and if we had passed into the region from which there is no return through human aid, we had but two alternatives: One was to go on to the bitter end, blotting out the consciousness of our intolerable situation as best we could; and the other, to accept spiritual help. This we did because we honestly wanted to, and were willing to make the effort." BB p. 25-26
Effort. That's what it come down to. I'm with D... Glad I kept going back and put my all into it!!!! :-)
Billy
For years, crusty-old-timers tried to tell me my relapsing was caused by my not wanting sobriety more than the booze. Turns out desire had nothing to do with it. Only a Spiritual Awakening can keep me sober.