Learned a long time ago I can't work harder than the "prospect". Great way to get burned out.

A friend of mine, a drug and alcohol counselor by profession, once attended a big regional conference of his colleagues in the field. The chairman, who was the director of a famous rehab in Massachusetts and a published author, opened the first session by asking the 350 attendees a question.

"How many of you really, truly believe that in the last few months you've really made a difference in someone's life?"

About 75 hands went up.

"OK," he said, "I'd like all of you who've raised your hands to get up and quietly file out of the auditorium, because nothing I have to say this morning is going to apply to you. Sobriety is a divine gift."

You are so right keith...you have to have faith and believe that it can be done, that you can do it or that you can turn it over....either way, you have to want it...sobrity....

and nemo, I dont get it? isnt it all about trying to help others? and the divine gift?

thats right you can make a difference, but some people need a little extra encouragement to win the day. we came into this program with no self esteem sometimes going the extra mile on our part will help another save their own life !!!!!

But you cant make'em not drink.

Ashley,

I got dragged to my first AA meeting on October 31, 1987 by some irate relatives who had just bailed me out of jail after I was arrested for drunk driving. For the first time in longer than I could remember, I felt a glimmer of hope. But it quickly wore off when it sunk in that it meant I was never, ever going to be able to get drunk again. Sure, I wanted a better life, but I literally couldn't imagine life without alcohol. Because in spite of the fact that I could see what it had done to my life, drinking was still self-preservation and whatever "I" was would be annihilated if I stopped. One minute I felt like I was home at last, and the next like a cornered animal under attack.

And so it went for another 14 months. Sure, I wanted what those people had, and went to maybe 20 or 30 meetings on my own initiative partly because I felt pressured by others and but also by my own conscience to do so. But there was a clear line in the sand and "those AA people" were a tribunal of mentally and morally superior folks on one side of that line-- saintly role models where I was coming from, yet they seemed coldly unsympathetic to my plight. On the other side of that line was despicable me, the spineless degenerate, alone in a world where nobody understood me, with a pint of Smirnoff 100 hidden in my parka so I could get plastered as I hitchhiked home along dark country roads, baffled, ashamed and despising myself, yet fortifying myself with deep, throat-burning belts from the bottle in order to face that next inevitable scolding to shape up. As far as I was concerned, these people just wanted company in their white-knuckled, puritanical misery, and I wasn't about to oblige them.

When I finally got to a rehab 14 months after my arrest for DUI, they used to have one meeting a day that was only for us inmates, with no staff allowed in the room. The format was that we read the page for the day out of the Hazelden daily meditation book (the AA version wasn't around then) which has more scripture quotes in it than the latest Papal Encyclical, and we were supposed to put on our little angel masks & halos for an hour and discuss those holy thoughts. Then, I supposed, some of that contagious angel-dust would waft across the room and we'd be uplifted and transported to some sort of spiritual bliss on the other side of that mysterious line in the sand. That, as I undersood it prior to that moment, was the meaning of the word "support."

So there we were, about 45 of us in this big dining hall. The chairperson, a relapser with about three weeks of sobriety, read the page of the day and then she said, "Well, I guess what we're supposed to be talking about today is gratitude." But instead, the reading and her remark were met with the longest, most profound moment of silence I've ever sat through in an AA meeting. You could've heard a mouse fart across the street.

Finally one guy in the back hollered out, "Sobriety sucks!!"

Another guy chimed right in, "Yeah, man, why me?"

A third added, "Yeah, man, all I want to do is get off this f&%$ing hill right now and get high."

I still wish I had an audio tape of the rest of it. As if on cue from a commanding and trusted voice, 45 sullen, reticent, slouching, chronically inferior ne'er-do-wells sprang to life. They were feeling exactly what I was feeling and their thoughts were my thoughts. There was no superior person in the room to say, "This is what you must feel, think, believe and do if you want to stay sober." It was just a bunch of hopeless alcoholics sharing from the gut. This time that line in the sand was suddenly wiped away by a huge wave of common suffering and I was really home for the first time in many, many years. Here at last was a glimmer of hope I could surely trust, a bedrock of compassionate support that no individual or clique in any group could possibly, ever again, take away from me.

I I understand Keith..but are you saying only come here if you are adamant to stop..

..What if you are here to ascertain if you really have a problem, or looking for fellow strugglars to start your journey ??..

I was one of the latter, and the fact it is 4.15 am here and I cannot sleep is testamant that I am taking this seriously No Booze = No Sleep in short term for me,,Not the first of many sleepless night btw

nemo, thank you, I always seem to really enjoy your stories...or your life experience....thanks for taking the time to share with me, us....
got another:)....jokin....I know there will be more to come when you feel the need....
again thanks nemo:)

People start in all differant ways. They come with all kinds of things in their head. Remember? All you can do is try your best. Whether people accept it is totally up to them. It all helps me to stay sober. Some things make me realize how grateful I am that I'm not where they are, other times I read things that I can take and use, or try to. All the best. James

Ashley,

My latest thought on all that is that nothing happened that morning that could possibly have restored my self-esteem. In fact, it was just the opposite, because I could suddenly see for the first time how my craving for alcohol and my appetite for esteem were two side of the same coin.

Many of us in AA call hitting bottom at that level of hopelessness "the gift of desperation." But I've not yet seen that expression used on this forum, so I hesitate to use it even now.

you know, Im not in AA right now but I really do like a lot of slogans:)
thanks nemo

actually it's labor day, so alot of people are going to be drinking and if people don't have a program in place they will drink again.

I know exactly what you are saying, keith. Another big thing that is different for me this time is that I am going forward with this sobriety with joy. Even when I was home detoxing. I am embrassing it all and paying very close attention to my thoughts.
Of course, since I have finally surrendered, it seems God is right behind me or in front of me and right on it.
Going in with a negative attitude really isn't going to get one very close to sobriety. Listen to this ol timer with 14 days. Actually, I am an ol timer and tired of it. Today I am grateful to be a newbee.

Well now, you can carry the message, but not the alcoholic. I think everyone should try working with someone who is unwilling just for the experience.Kind of heart breaking but you will learn a lot.

Bigbearsheart let me see if I can answer that question.

First up I got sober some time ago and I believe in AA with all my worth. I have seen too many miracles not to believe.

I will just make sure I understand the question, how I am interpreting the question is:
Do I believe I could remain sober if I lost everything I had, that I lost it through no fault of my own and that I had tried with everything I had not to lose it.

My simple answer to this question is yes I would stay sober.

Now for the reason why.

If I lost everything I had through no fault of my own then I am not a fault, therefore, no self recriminations. If I tried everything not to lose it but still lost it then I would accept that the things I was losing were not for me and that by trying to hold onto them I was trying to take back control, therefore, there were still lessons I needed to learn.

Finally and for me this is the most important part no matter what I lose in the world there is one thing that can not be taken from me unless I chose to and that is my HP and whilst I have my HP everything else is just trimmings.

My sobriety is not dependant on human things ie money, love, friendships, children, prestige etc etc my sobriety is dependant on my relationship with my HP and whilst I have that, I have my sobriety.

Wishing all well and hope this has answered your question Bigbearsheart.