A New Life

soberdrunk · MIP Old Timer

A New Life

Jo · Veteran Member

Justin,

I smile ear to ear when reading your post. I know for me that there is rarely a day in over a year that I have not been gratful for this new life. It saved me from being the walking dead. My heart swells that you too can relate to how good some days can be. And that even in the bad ones we can make it through those, even if it is a moment at a time.

I so enjoy sharing. Even with the crap that I have come to heal, when I look back at my behavior even a short few months ago and I am fortunate enough to recognize growth, I beam with self-love. Yes I use the word love. For I lived many years with nothing but hate for myself. I was in treatment and trauma recovery for 13 weeks last year. That time was a gift that I shall cherish forever. It helped me change my life. I chose to keep up with meetings to keep the growth and reminders stable in my new life. My life changes one day at a time. Thank you so much for sharing your growth and serene moments.

With hugs/Jo-Anne

jonibaloni · MIP Old Timer

It is indeed marvelous to watch you grow and blossom, Justin!! Isn't it great to see our fellows come up out of the grave and start to really live!!!??? You have a lot of humility and I admire that. It is something I am back to square 1 trying to work on and I know it is the key to my continued recovery.

We had a meeting at my sponsor's home tonight. It was all of us women, 'sisters' in sobriey. Some of us have been in the 'family for years, and some a short time. We are all so close. I never thought I could be close to women like I am now. I learned a few things tonight too.

I learned to use the acronym -'ism' to mean Internal Spiritual Malady. That when we put the drink down, we are treating 10% of the problem. Like an iceberg, 90% of the problem ids still under the surface. The Titantic was not sunk by the top of the oceberg, but by the huge crags and hunks of ice underneath the surface. I really identified with this analogy tonight.

I also learned that I need to keep working. My first initial excitement about sobriety was merely 'inspiration'. Inspiration was not enought o change me, because I still lacked the 'equipment for the real business of living'. We are working on Emotional Sobriety, which was actually a deeper look at sobriety that Bill W. took after many years sober, and wrote about extensively. A good emotional sobriety website is www.stepnahead.com

so glad to be brother and sister in sobriety with so many fine people, both face to face and here in our cyber family.

There are no strangers here... only friends we haven't met.

Take care!!

Joni

Rjs · Veteran Member

Perseption. That outta be the word for the day. I remember in the month or so after ceasing to drink, how, without that obsession burning in my mind, I began to see around me. Like a baby.
An old lady at the cash register in wally world stands out in memory. My still fevered brain could hardly handle these things. The look on her face. Concern? Anguish? She had her bag of stuff, this old woman, and it was something brutal. It was like seing straight into her soul. Just like me. But wait a moment, no one could be like me, have seen half the things i've seen, known half the things i've known..... But it was there, in her face. This old huntched over lady, counting out change with her jaw set, staring the end of her grain of sand's worth of a moment on earth in the face, and a thousand stories with bad endings sumerized in that gloomy old face. I just stared and shuddered, must have had an awfull look on my face.. That was a moment out of many. I didnt go any where unless I had to. Felt like going backwards through every acid trip I've ever been on. I was sure three months sober, I was worse off than a week sober. I was waking up. Yep. 'It' was there, everywhere, now. I saw more and more clearly. Other people were real. They had the same crap. The same problems. Stuff was going on in there lives. Stuff that was as important to them as my concerns were to me. I described it blubbering in a meeting once, I remember my future sponsor mumbling to himself, 'and their eyes where opened.' That stuck in my mind and played over and over, sinking in a little deeper all the time.
My self-centered universe shattering around me. It was the end. And it was. I had a point to this, but my brains shutting down for the evening.
Heheh- got a line on a couple of church pews today. That's right. These court appointees come in against there will and hopefully have a few seeds planted. They hide against the wall sitting on the ol' torn up possum-and drunk piss stained couches (they fall through the ceiling. Possums, that is,.....)
We've batted around the off-hand idea of replacing them with good ol wooden church pews from time to time. Mak'em sit up straight and listen. Today, passing by my bosses church, they are tearing a section down, and have a new section put up. Out in front were a few beat up ol church pews. Heheh. Cant wait for tommorrow.
Goodnight all.

P.S. Still praying for you Lisa, your wrestling with something you wont whoop on your own. The more you fight, the more it tangles you. I'm sure you understand, but no one can do this for you. But I am sure beyond any shadow of a doubt that God can and will do what we cant, if we ask earnestly.
I remember being at my ropes end, time after time after time, how some little something always pulled me back from the abyss. I choose to believe it was other folk's prayers.

-- Edited by Rjs at 00:16, 2006-08-08

Quetzal · MIP Old Timer

Hi Justin,

That was a super post. Thanks so much for that.

I, too, have been granted a new life through AA. I look back to the point in November of last year when I truly didn't want to live any more. I wouldn't take my own life, but I just couldn't face another day. I was at the point of not being able to live with alcohol and not being able to see a future without it. I was so desperate. I didn't know it was possible to be that desperate.

My favourite saying at the time was "Life's a bitch and then you die". I would look for all the bad things in my life (and I could really pick and choose at that time!) and drink on them. I couldn't think beyond getting my next drink.

I loved what you said about attitude and it being 10% what happens and 90% reactions. I'll really remember that today.

Today, I have so much gratitude for having been shown a new way of life - a way of life that I never knew existed. I have so many wonderful friends in AA and my life couldn't be more different now.

Take care,

Carol

Phil · MIP Old Timer

Good morning..good morning..good morning..and good morning...

Will someone tell me what day this is....zzzzzzzzz

And have the best one yu can eh...

Toni Baloney · Senior Member

Hi Justin,

And so good to hear you in that place of good positive change. When we stop drinking for good, that is the only thing that we Prayer for 24/7, little do we know that everything, no exceptions, as to how we live, think and feel, will also need to be changed, and it does get revealing in the working of those 12 Steps.

The act of "Trusting God, Cleaning House, and Helping Another" will ensure that all those changes for the better, take place.

You are such an example, of the "How to" of this Program.

Hugs, Toni