I read something a long time ago that had to do with nirvana. Not the band, the feeling. It said something along the lines that once a person realizes they are experiencing it, it vanishes. Maybe it's a good thing that you don't think you have the answers.

I think I know what you mean. Staying in the moment is important but hard for me to do. Sometimes just trying to relax and listen to all the sounds going on around me as if were music instead of just noise helps but that doesn't last long before my head churns back into business.

You're good at lending support and you're sober. That's what helps others and you. Helping others.

I know what you mean. I actually think it's OK to do regular "checks" to see where you are with each aspect of recovery and the program. If those thoughts come up though, maybe that's the time to discuss it with a sponsor or trusted, committed member and see how THEY see you are doing, or poke around and ask helpful questions - a reality check. Of course we can't depend on others to valide us all the time (doing that's one our problems of course).

I think the anxiety is natural too, especially if a person has busted in the past. It may be that the person becomes hypervigilant, which is terribly tiring and counter-productive.

So yes, I think it to try to bring things back into your head and focus, use prayer and meditatin to bring you back into yourself and also, as you said, "I can only do what I know I am supposed to do and hope I can handle any obsessions or cravings that come up". Just take the next directed step and try not to be in "analysis paralysis".

You and I have discussed somethings in the past. Instead of saying "i got it" I've explained that I know it's a lifetime maintenance program.

Don't overthink it just live it. The "what ifs" will overwhelm you with anxiety and it also the planting of "negative" seeds. If you feel the need to overthink then plant with the "I wills" if a "what if" comes about.

There is no way to know the obstacles that are going to come in your path, it's gonna happen, but there is a "know how" meaning, you know how to stay sober

IMO - it's not hard to live in the moment, because I know at any given second, death can happen - and it doesn't mean death by alcohol also, I also know that at any given second life can change with an accident or a mishap - and i will be happy to rejoice in the blessings i have on a daily and momentary basis. Gratitude!

Don't be so concerned that you "got this" quit worrying about the "what if's" and live in the "what is"

Peace!

If I ever got whatever it was, I'm sure my life would stand still. Little aha moments pop up, and the 'oh yeah' moments, but they pass and more come, and they pass and so on. Tara, the old cliche, the more I learn the more I find there is to learn is so true. I get that I want to live. I love where Jimmy said "sometimes trying to relax and listen to all the sounds going on around...".

Didn't come easy for me, but sometimes I just escape and do that. Whether it be at a cafe, or down the park, up the back of a stadium, or in my office window chair looking out over the City. It's not that I can't do it now, just that I need a reminder sometimes. I think I'm getting completely off track lol, but it's what came to mind when I read a couple of replies.

sounds like you've made some really good realisations. There's no cure, there's no 'got it now'. I have also had that one. I got away from AA once for four years, and didn't feel like drinking. I'm cured! Got that addiction thing sewn up!! then whammo, a powerful urge to drink. It's a long story, I eventually got drunk. Then, this time around, I had a surrender at one and half years sober. I was praying about my denial (about being an alcoholic). The denial was removed, and there was this surrender in me. I fully accepted my alcoholism, and was relieved of the obsession.
'NOW I've got it! ' i cried in my own mind. 'All I've got to do is go to AA for the rest of my life, and i'm HOME AND HOSED!!!'
Well, the reservations about being alcoholic came surging back a few years later, and I was craving to drink. This time, I didn't bust. But I've learnt that 'I've GOT IT' is a furfy. I've got a daily reprieve, is all. Sometimes, fear is a healthy response. After all, this disease is very powerful. Take care.

That's what I'm talking about Nellie.... Right now, I am fairly free from the obsession. Historically, I go from HALT to acting out to obsessing to craving to urge to white knuckles to relapse.

I got it AS LONG AS I stay away from the downward spiral by staying in the solution and taking action when I sense I am slipping. BUT, I know I can start slipping at any time and that momentum is hard to shift when it gets beyond a certain point.

It does help me to think of it as a daily reprieve, but one that I can have every day if I keep ahead of the demons.

I think this is what humility feels like, at least a little?

A good way to keep your sobriety. if you have a program that works. Do today what you did yesterday. Pick up the phone and call another alcoholic. Whatever you do Don't pick up that first drink. Think the drink through.Come on Tara don't stop before the miracle happens

I ain't stoppin, dude. Just saying I recognize that I need to continue working to continue receiving and to stay sober.

If I do what I did "yesterday" right now, I think I might be headed in a bad direction. I need to do a bit more than I did yesterday and the day before. I need the momentum to carry me AWAY from that first drink.

All good here. I am doing what I need to do today.

Today in our a.m. meeting with read from Daily Reflections for June 6th. It was all about making progress, and not perfection in efforts to allow our HP to remove defects of charector.
For me, as long as I feel I'm open to progress, then its OK. When i start to close down, or feel "i've got this" is when I'm in trouble or potentially in trouble.

So yep, I can relate:)

Yes it is humility to know you need to keep your life in order or this will overtake you. Tara says:

" BUT, I know I can start slipping at any time and that momentum is hard to shift when it gets beyond a certain point".

Yes-I get that. DO NOT let it get beyond that certain point. This at first at least, is going to take you a lot of diligent hard frickin work and focus. I think for some not so much-but for you? You gotta stay ON TOP of this 24/7-for now.

Don't let it overwhelm you though-I had to do that too at the beginning and now I have become quite good at spotting myself even headed in the wrong direction. Heck I can even tell when my brain is sniffing in the wrong direction. With that-I immediately have to take action-whether it be to readjust where I am, what I am doing, who I am with, what I am thinking, how I am structuring my day, and so on. Now it is like second nature-but it took me a lot of work to get into this way of avoiding that hole.

You, I suspect, can do this with a hell of a lot of work too. FOCUS!

I had to think about this one for awhile. And I don't know what you mean. What is there to get?

I am not going to drink and I do not drink. I have and have had lots of different thoughts and feelings about that. But other than that certainty in my commitment/decision to stay sober, I don't see what else there is to get.

ExJ... We had a convo awhile back. I can't recall exactly how it went but it was something like you explaining to me how you just got it "at your core" that you could not drink anymore or that you were done, non-drinker, not going to pick up no matter what.

I may have the words wrong but I remember you explaining to me how you got it your at core. That idea stuck with me. I think about it often. I have even meditated on it. I knew what you meant but I have never been able to say the same for myself. I have never felt "at my core" that I was done.

I think that this takes a certain amount of acceptance deep down. I have just as yet never achieved that. I can say that in "moments" I feel total acceptance but my head slips easily still.

It feels to me as though if I speak in those moments as if I am somehow beyond a slip, I am being arrogant or at best overconfident. I fear that I will get complacent or careless. In the past I have felt great one day and then relapsed the next. I have to just keep moving and staying in the solution, meaning working on getting my head to the right place as much as I can and hope it stays there more continuously than in the past.

I think many people talk about "losing the desire to drink" or being "relieved of the obsession" but that is not me yet. I think it is attainable but I have a ways to go. I am making progress. Until I get at least to that state of mind, I am in a precarious place.

The part about "I thought I had it many times before" was a reference to how those various ideas contribute to the concept of being "done" or at least done enough to give 100% to AA's program.

All this is hard to explain. I guess "I" know what I mean and wanted to throw it out there to see if anyone could relate.

I think you have the answers T - you said, "keep moving and staying in the solution". It says it all. That's the whole thing. See? Throw things out to other sober members and their responses will trigger the answers that are already in you.

Knowing that I was done drinking -- having that certainty in the decision to quit, was not the same as losing the desire or obsession. For me, losing the desire was gradual -- especially in the first six months. For a few days I wouldn't even think about it, then for whatever reason I would hit an evening where an ice cold beer sounded wonderful. Or a warm glass of vodka. That sounded good at times too. Not so much now.

It sounds like you are making good progress. Not acting on that desire when it comes around, and feeling at peace with that -- that's the important stuff.

You know, sometimes we do 'get it' because whatever it is speaks to us right where we are at that time, but as we grow in recovery things change and that 'got it' isn't there in the same way because we have moved on.
Every time I take a new sponsee through the Big Book, I find something new in it, even if I once thought I'd got it. The Big Book is like a huge prism, there are so many facets to recovery and to ourselves! Keep on growing!