Are you having a bad day?

Kate,

This is a very tough question and a lot of misunderstanding arises when we 12 steppers try to explain to newcomers what we mean when we say that we help and support each other. I say that because it's my understanding that all of our steps are about a lifelong process of ego deflation at depth, and the reason for that is because prior to getting involved in 12 step recovery, our lives were entirely devoted to self-deception-- in even greater depth. Our AA literature doesn't mince words on the subject, and a lot of people who don't understand alcoholics find it harsh and uncaring. But given the nature of our disease, is that really so?

The first step is an admission of absolute helplessness where our own power of choice is concerned, and the rest of them all stem from that premise, and are really nothing more than a lot of empty gesturing without it. Heck, I've prayed, made amends, confessed my faults, apologized and lent a sympathetic ear to others whilst drunk as a skunk, and none of it ever put a dent in my habit of doing the very same self-destructive thing the next day.

Meanwhile, most therapeutic approaches to other problems stress sympathy, developing assertiveness and confidence-building, and these also seem to have earned deserved popularity because they really do work in many instances. But as I suggested above, these are the last things this alcoholic needs if he hopes to keep the plug in the jug. The challenge, as I heard it read from "How It Works" in the Big Book (p.58) is, "If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any lengths to get it--then you are ready to take certain steps." In keeping with that, I feel the best I can offer in this forum is to tell part of my own personal story of what it was like, what happened and what it's like now.

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 radiating from the people at that meeting. But it quickly wore off as 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 then for a reason I simply didn't understand, a few minutes later I was reacting 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 and even kindly role models where I was coming from, yet at the same time they came across as aloof and 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 a state of spiritual bliss on the other side of that mysterious line in the sand. That, as I understood 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**king 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 of the same dismal quality as 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 support and encouragement that no individual or clique in any group could possibly, ever again, take away from me. This was support at a level which I had, until that moment, been constitutionally incapable of grasping or appreciating, and I've been both continuously sober and reasonably happy ever since that day.

i have to smile at you kate........i was here 2 days and was told i "HAVE NO CLUE".......as a matter of fact you suggested i get some pie.....LOL....not to worry i took no offense. the boot of life fits everyone......it just comes in different sizes.

peace, nods and whispers

You will have day's like that. Like you think everyone is against you. Sometimes things in our head, isn't what's really happening.My sponsor use to tell me over and over, it is non of you're business what people think about you! It works.Just be yourself is all y ou can be and don't allow other's to make you go.

Kate I do understand the feeling. it took me 4 months of hanging on for dear life to begin to understand what they were telling me in those meetings. Most newcomers feel that (why are they so aloof) feeling when they first comein. I had to, in the beginning, understand that I was saying goodbye to what I had considered to be my best friend (even tho' it was killing me). Then I had to understand that I was the one who was aloof. Tho I had things to say and sometimes they even made sense I never stuck around long enough to get feedback. Actually I am quite proud of you for making this attempt. Please know that on this road to recovery I will walk with you as much as I can. Please know too that I am one opinionated S.O.B. and if I don't agree or think someting can be added I am going to do so. Not out of spite but out of love... the same love they gave me when I first came in and couldn't find within myself FOR myself. I'm with ya kiddo (wether you like it or not lol).

Cliques really do not bother me. I am too busy working on myself

Some do well by surrounding themselves with like thinkers. I walk a different path.

One must give without expectations. I do not expect anyone here to love me, or accept me. I do what I do for the love of God. He rewards me with blessings beyond ones understanding.

If you carry the truth...most will reject you. Be prepared for it. No one likes to hear the truth.

Guru

ya' know, i felt the same way when i first got here. seemed like i rubbed people the wrong way, guess what, i got over it, and they have the option to do the same, they can either read what you have to offer or not. i asked questions, gave my expierence when i thought it would help. as long as you are not diliberately cruel and use offensive language, dont worry. each one of us are going to have differnet opions, answers, and out look on life. you dont need everyones approval to stay clean and sober, just the will to change and the heart to do so. i'm here for ya kate! BIG XXX

I'll tell you, Kate, I was VERY apprehensive when I first came to this particular group. For the simple reason that I am NOT an alcoholic. I cannot sit here and tell you that I have never touched alcohol because I have, in social settings and I can't even tell you the last time I had anything! What I am is a basically non-drinker who loves a recovering alcoholic. I came on here with fear and trembling because I wasn't too sure how I would be received. I wasn't sure if anyone here would care two bits for my thoughts, opinion, advice, or me for that matter. Imagine my surprise to find that the aforementioned IS cared for here and I am too. I have gained so much strength and encouragement from these wonderful people here that it really makes this journey seem not so lonely. You are one of the people who has had some great stuff to say (and a cute user name to boot too) and you have been very supportive. Some days you are going to feel like it's you against the world and that you're getting creamed but no one knows better than you what you have done and what you have accomplished. Celebrate and be proud of that. You are NOT alone, hon! You truly aren't!

keep in mind that we all get here with varying degrees of brain damage. lol! sometimes i'm certain i'm the worse of the lot but oftentimes i feel ive regain my sanity and then some. lol again! just be true to yourself and let the chips fall where they may. i didn't come here to meet potential lovers, great friends, or to avoid my real life (such as it is.) i came here to learn how to save my own life. as an added bonus i believe i've made a few friends though it has taken some bumpy road to get there.

Kate,

There's another and frankly very selfish reason that many of us with a lot of time get into these discussions. And that reason is that without the sort of support from others and the steps as our tools for coping with daily life, we're as close to that next drink as you are. We're here to save our own sanity at least as much as yours. I think a very common preconception among newcomers-- God knows, I sure had it-- is that we oldfarts are in the role of teachers or caregivers, and newcomers are our students or patients. So let me toss in another one of my stories here, but keep in mind that it's for the benefit of my sobriety at least as much as yours.

One day when I was about eight months sober and still very shaky, I was worried about my future, my stomach was in a knot and I just wanted to drink. I had gone to my sponsor the previous day and spelled out my problem and the two solutions which seemed most practical. I explained to him I was broke and on the horns of a dilemma. The job I'd been offered wouldn't start for several more weeks, I told him, and I didn't know how I was going to eat in the meantime. On the other hand, I could go to my father and brothers who would probably greet me with a bottle of Scotch.

He pretended to give this all some serious thought for a few moments and said, "I tell you what. Don't drink today, go to a meeting and ask for help."

I said, "I am asking you for help, slimeball. Tell me, which of these should I do?"

"And I'm telling you," he replied, "Don't drink today..." etc. I was thoroughly dissatisfied with that answer, yet I agreed that at least I didn't have to have a plan that day, and would do as he said.

The following morning I went to a meeting in another town. Out in the parking lot afterwards, another AA oldtimer, a huge, gruff and hairy gent with 20 years of sobriety, saw my discomfort and asked me what was wrong. I gave him the same spiel.

"So, what are you doing right now?" he asked.

"I'm looking for day work until the job comes through." I said.

"No no," he said. "What are you doing right now?"

"I'm going to lunch. Wanna come along?"

Then he grabbed my shoulders, literally shook me and roared "NO, goddammit! What are you doing RIGHT NOW?"

"Gee," I said, "I guess I'm standing here talking to you."

He smacked his forehead with the back of his hand. "Oy vey!" he says, "we finally have a basis for a conversation. Look, I don't know if you believe in God or not, and either way, I really don't want to hear about it. Do you know what a mosaic is?"

"Yes," I said, "it's a picture made up of hundreds of ceramic tiles."

"Good, very good. And in order to make a picture, some of those tiles have to be darker than others, right?"

"Of course," I replied.

"Well, your life is a mosaic, and in God's eyes the picture is beautiful. But right now you're standing so close to it that all you can see is one of those dark tiles."

For no logical reason I can explain, as he was talking the knot in my stomach started to unravel and I felt an overwhelming sense of peace. My brain was racing and saying, "This guy is patronizing me like a kindergartner, and I don't have to stand here and listen to this bullshit."

But the knot in my stomach continued to unravel, and I gradually began to feel a whole new sense of safety. That knot has never come back in almost 19 years and I haven't seriously wanted a drink since that moment. I also realized that I could come back to that way of seeing things any time I was willing to try. What shold we call that? But at no point, then or in hindsight, did I sense or perceive (nor did he say) that any of this had anything to do with living up to somebidy else's ideals or following their directions. It was about living in the now, and suddenly realizing beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was worth the effort and always will be.

not to sound bitchy, however it doesnt seem like u have been around that long, in the program we need to remember even though we arent drinking we r still the same person we were drinking, so if a person was an asshole before they probally still r even sober, i know that is true for me. i have good intentions, however not everyone is willing to hear what i have t say, and i have to some how accept that. when someone doesnt take my advice sure it pisses me off because let face it we all think we know best, however if we di we wouldnt be here. ive learned even if i dont like the person they can still teach me something, even if tis that i dont want to be like them, however i need everyone in some way and i cant do this alone. trust me when i say doing it alone leads to relaspe or sober misery

I used to care entirely too much what everyone else thought about me and thought I was being left out of everything. It was *just* my perception that was all messed up.

With you on that one QM..still struggle a bit

About 6 months ago I felt that way. I finally got some good sober time (thanks to rehab) and now I have so many things going on that this website isn't my life line.

I didn't get sober with this site as my only tool. I'm not saying you can't get sober with only DS. All I'm saying is get out there to meetings, reconnect with life and this place will be just what it is...a tool for sobriety. And you will be able to read and respond to what you want.

Keep up the good work of not picking up that first drink! Have a good day :-)