
Alcoholism Support Group
Alcoholism is the continued consumption of alcoholic beverages, even when it is negatively affecting your health, work, relationships and life. If you think alcohol is causing you to lose control, it's time to seek help. Our group is a safe place to vent, check in, get back up if you fall, and reach sobriety.

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...is what I heard our main share said last Monday.
It really struck a cord with me.
In the early days it is so easy to give in to racing thoughts and act impulsively.
The AA programme asks you to do a number of very simple things:
1) Commit to abstinence to solve the allergy problem.
2) Seek a power greater than you that will solve not only the utter inability to leave the drink alone (we pick up the first drink stone cold sober, repreatedly in many cases) - but also ALL our problems (of perception and thinking primarily).
3) It tells us where that power is to be found and how to clear the pathway to it - very simple process of house cleaning.
4) It then tells us to grow through work and self sacrifice for others and to constantly turn to that power for guidance and inspiration in all aspects of our lives.
Did you miss it? Are you in touch with that power? How complicated have you made the process?
Trust God, clean house, help others.
It really struck a cord with me.
In the early days it is so easy to give in to racing thoughts and act impulsively.
The AA programme asks you to do a number of very simple things:
1) Commit to abstinence to solve the allergy problem.
2) Seek a power greater than you that will solve not only the utter inability to leave the drink alone (we pick up the first drink stone cold sober, repreatedly in many cases) - but also ALL our problems (of perception and thinking primarily).
3) It tells us where that power is to be found and how to clear the pathway to it - very simple process of house cleaning.
4) It then tells us to grow through work and self sacrifice for others and to constantly turn to that power for guidance and inspiration in all aspects of our lives.
Did you miss it? Are you in touch with that power? How complicated have you made the process?
Trust God, clean house, help others.
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Thanks for taking the time to type it in!
It's really true, and I believe it.
I didn't wake up with a hangover today and I thank AA for that.
I need posts like this!
This is wherein lies the hope for all those who are struggling with 'other stuff' - it does take time but we can get and stay sober whilst we are doing it - that is my own experience! I may have been barking mad at times in my recovery but I was sober and that gave me a chance, without that I suspect I might not be here.
Once I started to follow the book and the suggestions I was given things started to become so much more simple. I find the longer I am sober, the simpler they seem to get for me.
Picking up on what rainyangel said I think it is important to distinguish between simple and easy.
The process as described by Huw is definitely a simple set of instructions. However that does not mean that they are necessarily easy or painless to complete.
I have found some of the work required during recovery painful and difficult. Working through some things that I wished I could leave well in the past was a necessary part of recovery but a painful one. Facing up to my own part in things has sometimes been painful. Work I have subsequently done in therapy has been very difficult at times.
When I refer to the program as simple I am contrasting it with it being complicated rather than saying that it is easy ie not sometimes painful and difficult.
What i can say though that working a program of recovery has been the easier, softer way for me to stay sober. Much easier, less painful and successful than trying using willpower. At least the pain I felt as a result of the program has been constructive and lead to better things as opposed to the pain I felt when drinking which was pointless, relentless and lead nowhere but down.
Non alcoholics think "just don't drink, it's as simple as that" and for them, it really rings true. They don't understand that it's not that easy when it's what you're used to and what has provided comfort in your time of need for so long.
It complicates the hell out of it to try to analyze WHY it's not that "simple". I think the whole thing boils down to acceptance & stop asking why and just recover. I don't need to know why, it is what it is...a weakness that needs to be overpowered.
Once I'd surrendered and said "okay, let's do the steps". I had no idea what lay ahead. I didn't look past to the next step. I just simply followed where those before me had been, and listened and acted. It was like doing a basic course, except the content was me, and as I completed each module, the better I got at understanding what I needed to do to stay sober.
I wrote, read what I wrote, and I talked about it with my sponsor/s. I have no doubt that if I did not actively do the steps, and just waited for them to come to me and for them to happen without action, then I would be drinking today, maybe even dead.
I don't always attend meetings, I'm a guest speaker at a rehab unit, and talk within the Armed Forces when I'm called on. I have the BB by my bed, and I read it when I see a post here that inspires me to do so. I do my internal housekeeping. I keep these things close to me, to teach, me, keep me safe and guide me to not drink again. CM xxx
"If God exists, I do not not believe that he requires me to belittle myself before him."
Please show me where God (if he exists) requires that action. I've never seen that in the Bible or the BB. I must be blind.