Someone said in a meeting this hypothesis about surrender that made perfect sense to me at that time:

When there are 2 sides fighting, there's a battle raging. When one side throws in the towel, the battle's over. That's called surrender.

Of course, for the longest time, I had to run on self will until my only option was to drink or ask God for help. Gratefully, God never let me down, once I became willing to get still.

I felt such a huge relief at that point that I almost felt like I could collapse. I think I described it in one of my journals at that time as feeling as though I was on a battlefield, my troops were depleted and I was waving the white flag. Yep! I won!

Surrendering was alien to me. I always believed I needed to fight in life, fight everything, there was always a battle, and mostly it raged inside. I struggled with surrender, it was hard to say I cant do this on my own. I was always the strong one, and held onto the belief that I knew best. The first surrender was the alcohol, but I was still running on that self-will.

I needed to surrender it all, throw the hands up in the air, and say I cant do this alone anymore. And I did, to all the help I could find, and to a HP of my understanding. I learnt to embrace my alcoholism as one of the greatest lesson in my life.

When I first started in AA (10 years sober now), and people said to me, or shared during a meeting, "Surrender to Win", I think I thought, well there is some truth to brain damage from drinking!?! I was just ignorant of course and I had to have lots of repetition and explanation to understand what they meant. When one has, certainly in my case, been on the front foot in the battle for life since I was a little girl, surrendering sounded like a terrifying proposition. It sounded like letting go of my long-held survival techniques which of course I didn't know, were part of what was killing me.

So, as with "surrender to win", I have learnt new, more productive survival strategies - sustainable survival startegies and ones where a measure of peace may come. I will always remember many of those Old Timers, one woman in particular, who is now gone from Old Age, not the booze, who imparted this wisdom to me.

I must fess up that I still struggle with surrendering. I am Dual Diagnosis and suffer from severe, life threatening mental illnesses. The strategies I have used to get sober and stay sober from Day One in AA haven't worked for mental illness, as it's not just a matter of "get the right attitude and you will kill these demons", although some of my AA strategies help. This is a whole other ball game. But at least being sober means I am IN the game at all.

Wendy

I had surrendered to the idea that I was powerless over alcohol. It was my desperation that made that possible.

Like Coogee said, I had fought upstream all my life (and was pretty proud of that, lol). Fighting life was familiar to me. I knew nothing about surrendering without a fight. It always came as the result of......

I used to say "I come from the show me state" (I know, I also thought I was a scientific thinker, lol)

The bottle and the brawn God I was such such a chicken shit if i I only had better luck. What does luck have to do with it......The gift of Desperation any thoughts....Billy

How can I add anything to that statement?

The gift of desperation is what I owe my life to.

Yes, I agree with the Gift Of Desperation comments. I'd be dead long ago if I hadn't had such a Gift of Desperation.

I think for me, it was like sitting backwards in the saddle. Whooooaaaa! YOu want me to turn around? How dar you tell me what you want me to do! Then, I was so tired, so sick of "swimming upstream", I turned around. Lo and behold.... things were a lot more clear, lot more enjoyable, the horse and I were finally in rythym.

Go with the flow of life, don't fight it. Surrender means going with LIFE

KK, you just stated eloquently what one of the most important lessons I've learned so far. Keep It Simple means something to me today.

Well the disease is so damn strong you have to surrender yourself to a higher power and then you win. You have to tear down everything especially your ego and replace your new self with positive things. Everything about alcoholism is like being in the twilight zone and not being able to get out, until you find your hp.

Yes, KK, that reminds me of another saying referring to changing long held and long imprinting of thoughts and beliefs and that's "Turning around the Queen Mary:, ie turning around a massive ship which has been going in one directiion can't be done in a minute - it takes time, patience and effort. I love that saying, it helps me understand that I can't just change that long held thnking in a second, and that I am not a failure because of that. It takes the time and effort, and for us, seeking out people who really do have The Message of the Big Book and AA as written by the founders.

Wendy