AGHHHH let me off the roller coaster!! That's pretty much what it was like for me Anna. I wanted all the answers, I had to have them because I always had the answers. And newly sober was no different.

It wasn't until I surrended and made the choice to do everything I could. Stopped listening to the questions in my head and started listening to those around me. I'm truly grateful for the guidance from my sponsor who was patient, and drummed into me to 'keep it simple' and 'listen up'.

Working the 12 steps made me recognise those fears, confront them and work through them. Doing this, over time, I've learned there was no failure as long as we keep getting back up. If we do that, those failures become just mistakes we can learn from.

And I've learned it's not about the end result. Success is measured by the joy and love we have around us, the happiness in our lives, and the happiness we can bring others.

I can understand the weird feeling you get when you hear "fear of success"... what is that about? WHy would someone be scared of a good thing, right?

Think about it for a minute, what is scarier- being sucessful or staying the in the same familiar patterns of self sabotage? THey are so familiar, maybe a a little or a lot uncomfortable-but you know what you are dealing with. Failure is weirdly more comfortable perhaps for alkis especially-frustrating as hell, but comfortable.

Success is change Anna, change is scary. Change can feel like leaving home almost. And when we leave home there is no turning back, right? Our inner child will feel abandoned, oh no! Addictrion is this type of self sabotage-totally afraid to "leave home" ya know? It may be no fun-but it is familiar and not much is expected of us.

Time to fly, take a risk-a leap of faith and be what you know you can be.

I know you have a lot of success, but I truly don't think you are being all you can be, for sure.

I am doing this slowly, at age 40-and it is scary! I mean-I did stuff prior, lots of school and related work-but I always kind of stayed in my comfort zone-what I knew was not super challenging.

Time for us to fly the coop!

Olive, you're too deep for my simple mind girl. :)

If this is mediocrity, I'll take it! Laughing, smiling & being nice most days beats the hell outta growling, yelling and being a bitch to everyone I come in contact with. I wasn't a bitch ALL the time, but the majority of the time I was cause I felt like poop.

I was terrified that life would be boring and I swear on my life that I'm having more fun now than ever before. YOu're doin great lovebug, keep it up! :)

Back when I was sober for almost 10 years, I didn't do much for my recovery. Some meetings. Some steps. Some shit, but not much. I wasn't living the life I could have been living for sure because I was just too messed up still (some call it dry drunk, and that's what I called myself...oh, don't no one get pissed at me for saying that please). (o;

When I got back to my drinking career and then made the choice to quit again, I knew I wanted/needed things to be different because they had to be in order for me to live to the fullest.

I look inward, and that's good, but when I over do it, I get confused. So I'm learning that I if I stay here where I am today, and not jump too far ahead, I am much happier. I just live. Day to day. I get spaced out on shit too much if I don't.

So when folks say K.I.S.S. (keep it simple, sweety)(o;...that line alone helps me tremendously! I keep where I'm at. Not looking forward too much. Not looking back at the not so bad drunk days.

Glad2bee must have had an awesome sponsor, because I don't know many who can bring me back to the 'now' like she can. Getting that sponsor is so important. It can make the difference. It can help you stay in the now, and avoid all these pressures for answers we place on ourselves...when we are indeed not ready to have them revealed to us. I've found that by the time I have grown more, the questions I used to have just didn't even seem to matter. Either they were answered or it just didn't matter that much in the first place.

I'm a rambler. sorry. (o;

Anna, I've known people who don't consider themselves deserving of anything good. Sometimes it takes (what seems like) forever for these wonderful people to sit back and let good things come to them. And for those in a 12-step program, a thorough list of resentments may not cover it for them.

What may be needed for a person who feels this way about herself is patience, loving patience. As is sometimes said in the rooms "Let us love you until you can love yourself". And I'm just the man for the job!

i dont know if this has much to do with your topic but the one thing that stood out was the failure and success part, when i would get sober and was doing well, something was quite not right with me, i was doing well, had good friends around me , at college etc.. doing the things sober i always wanted to do , but for me i had this fear feeling inside that anytime soon it would all be taking away from me with a blink of a eye so what i would do is press the f it button as it was all i knew... i think i had a fear of becoming comfortable so the only thing was for me to do again was to get in that of feeling of feeling uncomfortable again it was my comfort blanket i would always slip back to. it was fear of success and a bit of failure too.. coz if i messed up it would be only a matter of time so if i did it then i would constantly be thinking i will fail.

what im doing now is seeing im doing ok and not pressin ths f it button but enjoying being sober and realizing the only person who will stop this from happening is myself, i believe there is not a wrod called failure the only time people fail is when they just give up.

i hope this makes sense to you again im sorry if this was off topic

It doesn't really matter exactly what it is, what it seems to be is confusing you. Likely just the ego at work.

Observe the thoughts and feelings (sounds somewhat euphoric, or, like an extreme sense of hope) and allow them to be.

Move your attention away from the thoughts and into the body. Become aware of the sensations that are present when this state of mind is at work.

Stay with the awareness of this state and accept them as the bodily sensations that they are at that moment.

Stay with this as long as possible. Eventually, like all other sensations, they will gradually dissolve. They may reappear again - just repeat this exercise.

Stop creating a story out of this sensation and realise that aspect of you that is able to sit and observe and stay present with these thoughts and sensations.

Generalize this scenario to all other difficult thoughts, feelings and sensations and will gradually free yourself from all difficulties of the mind.

Guaranteed.