It says you want it, "but..." (reservations).

I attended marijuana anonymous online, then went to the convention, then realized I needed AA, too, to find likeminded people who wanted to be clean and sober, and I have not had a drink or drug since 4 years, a miracle, since I drank and smoked pot addictively for 20+ years.

Thanks that is wonderful :)
What made you stop though? what was the final straw for you? sorry if I am being too personal...no biggie if you dont want to go into it....
congrats on the 4 years :)

Hey Ashley, you say that things are good in your life but all the things you talk about are material, external things, what about internally, how you feel?

I ask because that is what it was about for me, not about what I had on the outside but how I felt on the inside. My life could be fine externally but it didnt make me happy. So my life was bad whatever was going on even if I had things that I thought should make me happy.

That is what got me into recovery, it was 2 things really, the fact that I felt so bad that not drinking became the thing I wanted in life above all else and the knowledge that i could not get sober on my own no matter how much I wanted it, I had to have help.

Like loved1 says - your but indicates reservations and I guess if your life is good why would you have the drive to get sober?

My drive came from the fact that I could not stand living with the way I felt a moment longer and I didnt really want to die, so I had to find a different way to live, without alcohol, and I was willing to do whatever it took to find that.

Pm me anytime if I can help.

Ashley you are so right when you say you have read our stories so I will not go into mine again. What I will share is my strength and hope...how I get my head to bed sober tonight :)

My journey truly began when I surrendered...when I realised this was a fight I was never gonna win - with acceptance that I am an alcoholic.

Acceptance that alcoholism is a progressive disease.

Acceptance that my life is unmanageable and that I am powerless over alcohol.

Acceptance that willpower never worked (and never will).

The preamble in AA states 'The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking' - do you have a desire or do you just think you should?

Just walk into a meeting today. What do you have to lose? That's what I did. If you are interested, do you need help finding one?

Ashley,

I can't honestly say that I "did" it, because the process involved some things that happened that no one could have predicted and which certainly aren't ever going to be cited as textbook examples for counselors or intervention crusaders to follow.

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 strangely 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 got to the rehab 14 months later, they used to have one meeting per 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 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 sparking a conversation, 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.

Here at last 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 too, at last, was a glimmer of hope I could surely trust, a bedrock of support that no individual or clique in any group could ever possibly take away from me, even if they wanted to.

Long story short...I too had said it MANY, MANY times that I needed to quit drinking and smoking pot. For YEARS...I would try and fail.

Then, I got a DUI, lost my drivers license, my car, my job and my apartment. I was court ordered to AA 1 X per week for 6 months. I have gone at least 4 X's a week for the past 14 months and have not had a drink since a day before my 1st meeting.

Don't wait to hit rock bottom...if you think you may have a problem, bring the bottom up to you and go to a meeting. Listen to the stories of how bad it could get and be thankful you don't have to go there.

Be well.

Ashley I'm sorry you're struggling so...you know how...you just forget as most of us do & did for a long long time, one day it clicks if you do it in time & you want to....some people run out of time...come on girl. I'm rootin for ya! :) You asked to hear it again..so here ya go.

http://www.dailystrength.org/c/Alcoholism/forum/6595723-again

>> I know I WANT to stop drinking, I really do....But things are okay in my life...

Has someone suggested you will finally quit drinking after your life becomes completely miserable?
If so, he or she does not understand chronic alcoholism and the real alcoholic.

>> I tell myself all the time "this is it, no more..."
>> Well soon enough I am back to drinking ...

You bet, and I was once just like that. I definitely wanted to quit for good, and I repeatedly decided to quit and I actually did seem to quit so many, many times ... but like you, I always ended up drinking again anyway.

Here is your and my common experience as also commonly shared in "Alcoholics Anonymous", the book:

"There was a 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 the wish." (page 34)

>> I just need some motivation....

People who do not understand the real alcoholic might lovingly attempt to offer you some motivation, but there is just not enough motivation available anywhere in the world to overcome the real alcoholic's inherent inability to stop drinking. Powerless is powerless, Ashley, and that is what we are.

>> Can you all please share with me how you did it????
>> ... maybe I will be able to relate and find a way ...

A way has already been found, and it begins with an admission of complete defeat.

i wish i had a story to give you.............................but i won't.... not because i am arrogant....i haven't climbed out of the hole.

i have found peace and i refuse to glorify my reasons. they contradict the beliefs.


BIG HUGS and whispers........my only advice is to find self.......the heart will fall in step.

Ashley-
After nine long years of being a chronic relapser I finally called it quits. No more conversations with myself that a couple wouldn't hurt. No more thoughtless jaunts to the store and getting beer. No more. I gave up and put it all in God's hands. No more me, me me. No more. I gave up and gave it to God and sat in on meetings and things changed. Things really, really changed. I'm just over 60 days and I am not on a pink cloud. I'm very conscious of my thoughts more than ever before.
I do dare say that my obesession has not existed since.
The difference for me this time is I gave up trying to win. Not only did I give up trying to win, I quit playing the game completely.
((hugs))

Ashley,
I didn't quit because I saw the light, I quit because I felt the heat. For me it took God, my higher power, to remove all obstacles standing in my way to sobriety. In one fell swoop a DUI accident took away my freedom, children, home, husband, & teaching credential. I wanted to quit for many years, but you see I still had all the above mentioned blessings, or excuses, why I couldn't possibly take the time out to get sober. So four months after an inpatient rehab, 2 months at a sober living house, one humbling year on my own, & almost ten years of staying close to the AA program, I have been granted the gift of sobriety, one day at a time. The program has allowed me to stay sober through the death of both parents & 4 mos. ago my husband was killed in a motorcycle accident. But I know NOTHING will be made better by drinking. I always keep in mind that I am one drink away from a drunk & my disease is fatal. I deserve to be happy, joyous, & free & so do you!
Keep coming back,
Amy

I had to make sobriety the number one priority in my life as I came to realize without it I wouldn't have anything else.
Going to meetings working the steps etc. became #! before family friends chores (they didn't get done when I was drinking anyway) The most important thing every day at first was when can I get to a meeting can I make time for two.
Listen with your ears and MIND open for similarities not differences. Follow the instructions of those that have sobriety time.
I'm here to tell you you don't have to live the way you have been living. I was told that 14.5 years ago and because I also listened to what else was said and suggested I have found it to be true.

hi ashley - today is 4 months clean and sober for me. and for years i was like you. quit. give in & drink. quit. give in & drink. and so on. i knew i had to quit drinking. but was afraid of all the unknowns. but then for some reason i still don't understand, i woke up on January 6, 2009 and said i'm an alcoholic, i need help, and i'm going to get it. i went to a doctor and got a prescription for antabuse so i COULDN'T drink, and then made an appointment to see a counselor to help me through the head things. some will say the antabuse is a cop out, and i'm not dealing with the issue. but what it did for me was buy me sober time. it let me stay sober long enough for my head to clear and get focused. it's just a tool. and i've not had a setback, or set foot in an AA meeting. there are many ways. but all that leads to this - i was finally able to quit when i stopped saying "i have to quit drinking", and said "i quit drinking". i embraced it. don't get me wrong, if you read my journal you will see it was a motherhumper of a ride. but worth it. i am truly happy i don't drink anymore. i didn't quit because "i had to" or "need to" or "want to". i quit. i'm here if you have questions. good luck, and stay strong. dan

You need to start living your life, because alcohol is a thief that steals your years away. When you drink in isolation, you think your having fun or that you are handling life, but the time slips away and it destroys your motivation to make positive changes. Before you know it, you are older and you wonder where the years went.....you want a second chance.

This is not a direct answer to your question, but go out and start joining groups of people.....make a connection. If you do this, your life will open up for you.