Hello currentstruggle,

All I can suggest to you is to keep trying until you find a way that works for you.

There are various options such as SMART, Allen Carrs Easy Way to Stop Drinking and many others.
Regardless of which method you choose, it will take acceptance that you cannot drink safely and a willingness to change. As you have experienced, alcoholism is progressive and it will get worse.

You are scared of losing everything and you have good reason to be scared. A drowning man will gladly accept a lifebelt and desperate alcoholics have accepted what AA has to offer. Many of the founding fathers of AA were atheists and the fellowship was structured to cater for all, believers and non-believes alike. However, you will never really discover what AA is about from meetings alone - the recovery message is in the Big Book (Alcoholics Anonymous) and you need the guidance of a sponsor to get the real benefit of it. You dont have to change your beliefs or embrace anyone elses god in order to recover in AA. Why not give it a try - you may be surprised by what you will gain.

Those are my thoughts and opinions. I once felt helpless and hopeless but now life is good.

Thank you for your response.
I've had sponsors before. It felt like I was such a burden to all of them. There was one I had that was very close with me, but I moved into a different state. I've worked up to Step 3. I can't make it past step 3.
I've never heard of SMART Recovery. People will toss the option here and there, but never really give me any details. Is that like AA for atheists?
Thanks again.

I followed a path similar to yours so I can relate. I was brought up in a home by alcoholic parents and like you suffered from neglect and abuse!

I struggled for years to find meaning in life and to find pleasure in the material things that life had to offer. Religion didn't do it for me, work, didn't do it for me, getting married didn't do it for me....during my free time, I traveled throughout this state and other states but I didn't really know what I was looking for. I always had this hollow spot in the pit of my stomach, an emptiness that just didn't go away, combined with feelings of loss and separation.

I was placed on antidepressant medication and the magic of those pills masked my deep, emotional, pain for a good long! My work was something I should have enjoyed, because I loved working with wood but yet I had all I could do to make it through the day. It was a very physically and mentally draining job building doors and windows for the rich and everything had to be perfect within 1/32 which is very difficult when you are working with an imperfect medium.

I thought I found my answer in narcotic pain killers! Not only did they take away my physical pain but emotional pain as well. I just wanted to hug everybody! I started taking 2 five miligram vicodin pills, twice a day. After 3 years, I was taking 50 miligrams, 3 times a day! It reached a point where I could not feel anymore and the pain that they control was nonexistant when I was suffering from dehydration, severe infection, and a few other things. Long story short, I almost died having spent three days in the hospital getting my blood washed out. I should have died but I am convinced there was some sort of Divine intervention at the last minite that saved my life.

It took a few more years before I was ready to quit. I had to lose my job, lose my wife and lose everything that meant anything to me. I was ready to find that better way and I found it in the 12 steps of AA

This was 8 years ago. Today, I continue to live my life by the 12 steps and I have never been happier!

God Bless!

Thank you for sharing your story. It meant a lot. I'm glad to hear you're doing well now. That gives me a sliver of hope.

I'm sorry you feel helpless. You arent. But in my experience I needed to actually *accept* the help. Help is a two way street. It can't be taken if it isnt received.
I drank alcoholically most my life from younger pre teen till 5 years ago. Did a ton of drugs; and had a wicked eating disorder for 15 yrs. My sister is dying from heroin abuse and its after effects; and I too was brought up in a dysfunctional home. Lots of sexual abuse going on that my parents didnt know about or chose to ignore.

Anyway I am jewish; and AA is clearly not:-) I'm not atheist but the language in the BB is christian. Didnt bother me. What I wanted was and IS sobriety; not religion. I did find a connection to spirituality but that came after sobering up.

If AA doesnt work; try something else. If you don't want any of it to work; it wont.

Hello currentstruggle,

You are right in saying that people toss out options without explaining more about them. SMART is sometimes mentioned here but I have rarely heard much about how it works so I can only go by what Google says and you can Google it for yourself.

You will never be a burden on a sponsor because you will be helping them as much as they help you. It is vital though to know what a sponsor is supposed to do and to have someone who is competent enough to do it. The job of a sponsor is to help you through the 12 Steps as they are laid out in the Big Book. If a sponsor does not know much about the Steps, she cannot pass it on to you or worse still, you may get wrong knowledge. Have you ever listened to a lady who is calm and serene and happy with her sobriety and who shares about the Steps? Did you ever think that you would like to have what she has? That is the type of person who is likely to be a good sponsor.

You are young and have your whole life to live and there are two very different paths ahead. One road leads to pain and struggle and maybe worse; the other leads to happiness, fulfilment and sobriety. All you have to do on the first path is to keep drinking and wait for horrible things to happen as alcoholism progresses. The second path is a bit more challenging and it requires some work from you. It involves bringing about a change in the way that you think so that no matter what happens, alcohol does not enter the equation. There are probably many ways that you can bring about that change but the only one that I know anything about is AA. That is not to say that AA is the only way or that you have to go to meetings. What I and other people here can do is to give you some pointers but ultimately, it is for you to decide.

In making your decision, the only thing I would urge you to do is to try and keep an open mind and to rule nothing out. You have seen from previous posts how the AA programme is spiritual and not religious. I believe that there is some sort of guiding force inside of each human being. I have no idea what that force is but some people call it a conscience. It guides us to make decisions - good decisions and bad ones. It could be the result of millions of years of evolution or it could be some sort of spiritual thing that we humans cannot understand or indeed something else entirely. The only thing I am certain about is that I dont understand what it is.

However, I do know that the actions that I take every day are guided by that inner thing that I dont really understand. It could tell me that I am entitled to take whatever I want, to go out and rob, steal and hurt and most people would say that doing things like that would be wrong. Alternatively, it could tell me to try and be helpful to other people and not to focus so much on my own selfish needs and some people would say that was good. A spiritual programme helps to fine tune that inner guiding force so that good comes out on top more often.

Do you want your life to be a constant struggle or would you rather have peace of mind? Are you to be angry with the world and the people in it or are you to be an oasis of calm? Dont let the language used in the Big Book put you off. You can grasp the idea and mould it into what suits your beliefs - millions of atheists have done it already.

Thank you both for your responses.
I struggled with anorexia/bulimia for 15 years too. So I can relate to that as well. I've relapsed with my bulimia as well. I used to binge/purge or restrict because I thought I was "fat." Now that I'm older...I don't care how big or small I am. I only do it because I literally get a high out of bingeing/purging.
I'm trying to connect with something "greater than I am"...but the concept is just so absurd for me. I'm not trying to be insulting, I'm just very left-brained and analytical. I'm trying to keep an open mind, but it's been difficult.
I'll start looking up SMART Recovery.

For what its worth, I can tell you that when I started trying to connect with something greater than I am, it drove me nuts. I read about it and listened to people talking about it and it had zero effect. Then I just copied what other people had been doing and suddenly it all made sense.

There are other approaches sometimes mentioned here but I cant recall what they are - you will see them in some old threads. Women in Recovery is one of them, I think. More Googling but keep checking in and posting here as DS can be a good support mechanism.

I didn't believe in anything and the sheer fear of being a listless piece of carbohydrate just waiting for nothingness made me want to drink and die. So first I had to stop the drinking and then figure out how to live happy without booze. That's the real trick to stay sober is to enjoy being sober. It can be done but you gotta work to attain happiness not find it a bottle.
Now, I believe in something, and it saved my life from a life of drinking
I believe something is out there, because I was hopeless and absolutely couldn't stop. Until I happened to walked into a hospital and saw ppl who were recovering from liver transplants. The fear in their eye made me desire to find a way out.
Sober IS good. Atheism is curable
1is2many

"Atheism is curable."
I feel that that is an insult to my beliefs. I understand that most recovering alcoholics are conservative Christians, but I am not. I'm not trying to go on the offense, but there is still some validity to my beliefs. Thanks.

I just want to add that there is a difference between spirituality and religion. You can become spiritual through religion but there are other ways. The 12 steps are one way.

There is a good book called "the 12 steps for everyone who really wants them". I read this book before I attended my first meeting having discovered it in the lounge of the hospital where I detoxed. It breaks down each of the steps in easy to understand language and I reached a point in the book where I began to see concrete changes in my life that was making life much easier for me to survive and all I had to do was stay sober! It's like my Higher Power was doing for me, what I could not do for myself and this concept was reinforced in my mind by the speakers I heard when I began attending meetings!

That is what worked for me but there are other paths down that road to recovery and you just need to find the one you feel is best suited to you, That's all.

You explained it very well. I did not feel that you were attacking my beliefs, so I respect what you're saying. I'm going to look into getting that book. I'm willing to keep an open mind spiritually. (As you've said...there is a difference.) Thank you.

Welcome!

Sorry you are struggling. I hope you find what works for you. Some things you might want to check out:

SMART Recovery -- http://www.smartrecovery.org

SMART uses Cognitive Based Therapy, which is an effective and proven approach to stopping addiction. There are meetings, all led by trained facilitators, but you might not have live meetings in your area. They also have online meetings and there are rehabs that use their approach iinstead of 12-steps approach.

Women For Sobriety -- http://www.womenforsobriety.org/beta2/
This is a very supportive group. You need to proactively reach out to them; they do not publish meetings online. They also have good online support.

Counseling -- if you can find the right counselor, this might be the best path for you. Individual counseling has the highest success rate over any program. You might want to look into Naltrexone as well, which blocks opioid receptors and makes drinking unappealing.

Atheism does not need to be "cured" and you can quit drinking without AA. AA was not a fit for me, and no explanation would have changed that. You CAN quit -- don't ever give up. You deserve better than a drunken life.

Glad you found us!

I used to not believe in anything but myself. I used to drink lots and drug lots. You said you don't know what to do and asked for thoughts / opinions.

Why do you think that it's so comforting to escape life? What's the reason? I was basically into whatever made me feel better or more so NOT feel.

I was scared of dying and scared of living. It was a bad place and I will say that you have helped me to remember how bad it was.

Opinions aside I hope you get some relief from somewhere, I continued to escape for 20 more years until I decided to get off that booze and drug fueled ride. It is possible

1is2

It's time for you to rise from these ashes. Just because we have come from an abusive past and have lived a life as a slave to alcohol doesn't mean that we have to keep repeating this scary chapter over and over again. if you continue down this path, you could die. I am so happy you found us here for support on DS. In addition to all of these programs, have you read any books on addiction? What healthy hobbies do you have? I didn't see you mention the book "Stop Drinking Now" by Allen Carr yet. It is a great book and will give you a different approach than AA and the 12 steps. i'd also recommend exercising for 1 hour and day and perhaps even trying to try out an easy yoga class. Sounds like you have had a lot of help so far and I'd continue that but maybe you need to start reading on your own and finding some way on your own to stay inspired. Keep us updated and keep coming back. Thanks for sharing. We have all felt helpless. Hang in there! Hugs