Getting Sober?

[admin]

Hi my name is Kathy and I am a sober member of AA for over 21 years now. When I sobered up there were no detoxs or treatment centers for women in those days, only detox for men wonting to get sober.

I remember my first AA meeting I went to after being 12 stepped, I was asked to fallow some one in my car to this AA club that had meetings. I remember some large signs hanging up top over the windows of the room were I sat, “step one, step two, step three, how it works.” I was asked many times before the meeting started, “if I were new and was this my first AA meeting.” lol …….
How did they know that I had not been to AA before? I was seated up front of the room and was brought a cup of coffee, and so there I sat scared, frightened, lonely, needy, feeling so very lost. God, if they only knew what kind of a person I was really like, would these people really wont me to stay for their meeting? ….. I was bankrupted in every aria of my being. I hated being me, and what I had become. I guess the big book says it all “an all time low.”

Well any way I stayed sober “dry” for four months and had to find an excuse to drink again. I didn’t know I didn’t need an excuse! So I drank, right away I was right back at the place in life were I left off. Setting at a bar one night after ordering my last drink, It was like I was setting back and watching myself setting there on the stool. I could see and hear, and no matter how much I had drank that night. I could not drink myself into that blackout, that num feeling I was reaching for. I saw myself sinking lower and lower as I sat there. “God, I was so empty inside!”

I went back to the AA club the next day, and started to get sober again. That was 3-10-82 I have not had to take a drink for 21 years. I am glad that there were old timers to help me with answers to my questions, hugged me when I cried, and held my hand along the way of this path I am walking on. I don’t understand treatment center talk some times, relapse, or slips. I no I have no more excuses, I drank cuz I wonted to drink, and I got sober by the grace of God.

I am so very glad that you “Tiger” have this column for all of us alkies that have had to go out there one more time and are seeking to find there way back to a sober way of life. Today I love AA and recovery, the people that I have met along the way, friends that I have, and today I like me, my cup runs over most of the time.

Thank you for letting me share a little bit of my story here on your column.
Love Kathy

[admin]

Hi Kathy,

I loved your post. How well I can still remember sitting in a bar thinking about those sober and happy alkies at the AA meetings I had attended.

I especially liked your reference to excuses. I used to produce a list of reasons which caused me to drink. My beloved Papa Frank, my sponsor, would say as those old-timers did in those days "reasons BS, all they are excuses to drink. When you find a reason for an alcoholic to drink I'll join you. A profound thought, eh?

I learned sobriety demands "unconditional surrender".

Hope you stop by often ...............Tiger

[majestyjo]

This is the first post made in this section by two people who are no longer with us.

I can identify with them, especially about the excuses. I didn't like beer, so I couldn't be an alcoholic. An alcoholic will drink anything.

My sponsor said to me, "A grateful alcoholic will never have a reason to pick up. He may find a lot of excuses, but will never have a reason."

He also said and I have shared this many times on the board, "If you have one hand in the Hand of your Higher Power and one hand in the hand of a still suffering alcoholic/addict (he said newcomer, I found out that you don't have to be new to be hurting), you won't have any hands left to pick up.