Dragging my butt to the AA meeting

[change]

Every single part of my body is shaking its the end of day two here for me and I am nervous and sick to my stomach but am about to get out of my car and walk through the door of my first meeting. Seriously if feels worse than my first ever speech in school. I can do this!!! I am doing this!!!

[Niagara]

You can! That door will weigh an absolute ton. Deep breath, you can do it

Let us know how you got on

Best wishes

[positrac]

So how did it go? I guess you might think we are pretty messed up huh? hard not to compare out that you might not of done that yet? I hope you'll keep going back and try to look at the reason you are at the meeting and less of why you aren't like any of them yet.

All is required is a desire to stop drinking.

[change]

It was difficult but I am glad I did it, I will def attend again my brain was raceing with withdrawal so it was good to listen and I felt a bit calmer there. I did find it scary hearing stories where people were still suffering years later I have been clinging to the hope I will feel better in a month or so. I am feeling physically stronger now on day 3.

[2granddaughters]

I remember the old priest that ran the recovery home I was at in 1989.

He said "This is a 1 yr, 3yr, 5yr, 10 yr program" as he pounded the desk !! he was about to hit the desk again and that would have been 20yr ??!!

I thought he meant 1 week, 3 week, 5 week, 10 week program ...... Boy, was I wrong.


It's all in AA's HOW IT WORKS http://www.aa.org/assets/en_US/p-10_howitworks.pdf


Dragging your butt to an AA meeting regularly sometimes really sucks. I guarantee you that not doing it will suck far more.

All the best.

Bob R (been dragging my butt to meetings for over26 yrs .. that's why I'm still alive and sober)

[whipping post]

Glad to hear your first meeting went well. It takes a lot of guts to walk in.

I know a lot of happy people with long term sobriety and they are working the program. I know a few people who seem miserable and they don't do anything but attend meetings. The relief is in the steps.

[Stepchild]

I have been clinging to the hope I will feel better in a month or so.

There is no reason you shouldn't have that hope. We awaken our spirit by working the first nine steps. After having done so these things are promised to us by the founders of this program....

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us - sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.

And this....

And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone - even alcohol. For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality - safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is our experience. That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition.

pgs 83 - 85

I experienced these promises at two months sober....There is no reason you can't either...If you put in the work. Forget about the ones that are miserable.....Find one that is happy and let them show you how they did it. Good job on getting to that meeting...That is where we learn about the steps....Who works them....And who doesn't.

[leejosepho]

...I did find it scary hearing stories where people were still suffering years later

Removing the alcohol stops the troubles caused by drinking, but sobriety does not treat chronic alcoholism. So for anyone willing to give the Steps an honest shot, that is how we get our living problems resolved for us.

[change]

Thanks everyone

[avaneesh912]

I did find it scary hearing stories where people were still suffering years later

Like others pointed out, its an internal job. Unfortunately, Many in AA use the meetings for therapy. But the intention of the whole fellowship is about change. Having a psyhcic change, a spiritual awakening, then go about helping others. If you want to get a glimpse of what this is all about, you may want to read the "Vision for you chapter" where the 2 co-founders go help the 3rd and so the fellowshop grew.

[tyg]

It was difficult but I am glad I did it, I will def attend again my brain was raceing with withdrawal so it was good to listen and I felt a bit calmer there. I did find it scary hearing stories where people were still suffering years later I have been clinging to the hope I will feel better in a month or so. I am feeling physically stronger now on day 3.

Try not to compare yourself to other people. Though we have a common problem and solution, our recovery rates vary greatly. The rate depends on several factors and...how vigorously we are relying on our God (not self) and following the 12 Step principles. Life is full of bumps in the road but we meet calamity with serenity. Stepchild posted some promises that come when applying
Steps 9 thru 12.

Pg 60: The first requirement is that we be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success.

pg 68: We trust infinite God rather than our finite selves. We are in the world to play the role He assigns. Just to the extent that we do as we think He would have us, and humbly rely on Him, does He enable us to match calamity with serenity.

pg 42: Quite as important was the discovery that spiritual principles would solve all my problems.

pg 116: If God can solve the age-old riddle of alcoholism, He can solve your problems too.

Reading Alcoholic Anonymous and studying it has become important because then I can better differentiate the true from the false of what I hear in the rooms.

[Lali]

I posted something - I thought - but it's not here.

Anyway, I was wondering why people in your meeting were saying they suffered for "years". I don't know what program those folks worked, if any, but I can tell you that when the steps are worked honestly and thoroughly, you will see the changes happening early on in the process.

[avaneesh912]

Its like some of the pamphlets, while big book tells us, we will be placed in a position of neutrality, this piece of information (its in the information on AA pamphlet) tells totally a different story.

The 24-hour plan

For example, we take no pledges, we don’t say that we will “never” drink again. Instead, we try to follow what we in A.A. call the “24-hour plan.”

We concentrate on keeping sober just the current twenty-four hours. We simply try to get through one day at a time without a drink. If we feel the urge for a drink, we neither yield nor resist. We merely put off taking that particular drink until tomorrow. We try to keep our thinking honest and realistic where alcohol is concerned. If we are tempted to drink — and the temptation usually fades after the first few months in A.A. — we ask ourselves whether the particular drink we have in mind would be worth all the consequences we have experienced from drinking in the past. We bear in mind that we are perfectly free to get drunk, if we want to, that the choice between drinking and not drinking is entirely up to us. Most important of all, we try to face up to the fact that, no matter how long we may have been dry, we will always be alcoholics — and alcoholics, as far as we know, can never again drink socially or normally. We follow the experience of the successful “oldtimers” in another respect. We usually keep coming regularly to meetings of the local A.A. group with which we have become affiliated. There is no rule which makes such attendance compulsory. Nor can we always explain why we seem to get a lift out of hearing the personal stories and interpretations of other members. Most of us, however, feel that attendance at meetings and other informal contacts with fellow A.A.s are important factors in the maintenance of our sobriety.

You will hear all kinds of story in the fellowship. The key is to find a sponsor who can help you experience the promises laid out in the big book of AA.

[Stepchild]

Where is that pamphlet from? I've never seen it....It's frightening.

[avaneesh912]

http://www.aa.org/assets/en_US/p-1_thisisaa1.pdf