Just wanted to check in and say hello. I've been going to a lot of meetings lately and been almost overwhelmed by the amount of great stuff I've been hearing. During today's meeting, it really sunk in for me how much of this disease is accompanied by crushing loneliness and how awesome (blissful? amazing? surreal?) it can be to find yourself one day surrounded by a group of people who have been through the same crap that has tormented you throughout the course of your life. I feel like every meeting I hear at least one person name an experience or a struggle that makes me feel like they are telling chunks of my story. As someone who drank alcoholically for 12 years and felt completely alone in doing it, if I got *nothing* else out of AA, it would be the immense relief in knowing that I'm not the first or only person who has gone through this. And I certainly won't be the last. And there are many people serving as inspiration for pulling through and getting better. I feel perpetually blessed to have learned this at a time in my life when I had the opportunity to seek help and find it.
I'm admittedly in a little bit of a corny mood, but all of these thoughts are really shifting how I experience the world. When I was drinking, I hated people. My biggest excuse for drinking was that I thought all people were foul and insincere and hopeless and that humanity was swirling down a giant toilet. Ironically, I hated drunks like me most of all. Since finding AA and working the program, I feel like my life has literally been saved by people - by other drunks - and by God. The ideas and thoughts and stories that come out of the mouths of people in my home group (and here) constantly serve as proof to me that human beings can be absolutely fantastic. And most are.
A few years ago, you may have been able to convince me that one day you could get me sober. I never thought in a million years that I would grow to love and trust people as much as I do now.
Anyway, I've noticed there are a ton of newcomers on the board right now. I don't post a lot these days, but wanted to encourage everyone new and reading this to keep coming back. Like many people, I was deeply resistant at first and now find not only my sobriety, but also my humanity, restoring.
-A
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When every situation which life can offer is turned to the profit of spiritual growth, no situation can really be a bad one.-Paul Brunton
Just wanted to check in and say hello. I've been going to a lot of meetings lately and been almost overwhelmed by the amount of great stuff I've been hearing. During today's meeting, it really sunk in for me how much of this disease is accompanied by crushing loneliness and how awesome (blissful? amazing? surreal?) it can be to find yourself one day surrounded by a group of people who have been through the same crap that has tormented you throughout the course of your life. I feel like every meeting I hear at least one person name an experience or a struggle that makes me feel like they are telling chunks of my story. As someone who drank alcoholically for 12 years and felt completely alone in doing it, if I got *nothing* else out of AA, it would be the immense relief in knowing that I'm not the first or only person who has gone through this. And I certainly won't be the last. And there are many people serving as inspiration for pulling through and getting better. I feel perpetually blessed to have learned this at a time in my life when I had the opportunity to seek help and find it.
I'm admittedly in a little bit of a corny mood, but all of these thoughts are really shifting how I experience the world. When I was drinking, I hated people. My biggest excuse for drinking was that I thought all people were foul and insincere and hopeless and that humanity was swirling down a giant toilet. Ironically, I hated drunks like me most of all. Since finding AA and working the program, I feel like my life has literally been saved by people - by other drunks - and by God. The ideas and thoughts and stories that come out of the mouths of people in my home group (and here) constantly serve as proof to me that human beings can be absolutely fantastic. And most are.
A few years ago, you may have been able to convince me that one day you could get me sober. I never thought in a million years that I would grow to love and trust people as much as I do now.
Anyway, I've noticed there are a ton of newcomers on the board right now. I don't post a lot these days, but wanted to encourage everyone new and reading this to keep coming back. Like many people, I was deeply resistant at first and now find not only my sobriety, but also my humanity, restoring.
-A
:hug:
thank you for sharing!
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Worthy christians know all things our possible thru God.