40 days sober - taking annabuse - need advice

[madisquared]

I checked myself into detox the day before Thanskgiving 2015. This was my second attempt at breaking free from alcohol. Before detox I was drinking from 8 am until I blacked out. I was consuming a fifth of hard stuff all day, everyday until money ran out. I lost my job, my home and had to move back in with my Mother. I am 40 years old and am starting from zero. Before leaving the hospital shortly after Thanksgiving the doctor would only prescribe me annabuse and I was not able to enter treatment because I have no insurance. The medicine is very expensive and I am 20 days away from running out. I currently landed a great job but have no benefits. The medicine is a life saver but I am afraid of the day to come when I run out. Will I be able to stay clean?

Is anyone else here taking medication? Any advice for someone like me with no insurance, no support. AA does not work for me. I am a fairly attractive woman and every AA meeting I have attended turned into a stalker situation and made me feel very uncomfortable. I have even tried church groups with the same results. Woman only meetings were very unwelcoming to me because they are held in churches in this area and I felt like I was being judged. I just dont know where to go from here. Maybe this forum is the place for me but I don't know how welcome I am here. I have lost my sense of self and feel that I am not worthy of help from others. Thanks to the addiction I have lost my sense of self. I no longer no who I am. I need help.

[avaneesh912]

Antibuse is fear based treatment for drinkers. If you are a real-alcoholic, its a pretty dangerous path. My brother took it and drank over it and lost his life. And I have ran into a woman who would drink watching for hives to break out on her face so she could call 911 immediately.

Regarding stalking, I would suggest, you find some strong women who would help you work the 12 steps and shield you from stalkers. There could be women only meetings. Worse scenario you can find women here who can help you work the 12 steps and gain some serenity and then you could start visiting f2f meetings.

[PaigeB]

Welcome madis! I was like you and I got sober and haven't had a drink in 6+ years!

Woman only meetings were very unwelcoming to me because they are held in churches in this area and I felt like I was being judged.

AND the women's meeting was in the church where I was baptized in as a baby! And those B**tc*es!

Now I laugh about it because they are my sisters in sobriety. My drinking really skewed my perceptions I truly had no idea what they were thinking about me but they must have, at the very least, loved the AA program because they let me stay! I got a sponsor, a woman from that group, and I worked the Steps and slowly but surely I came to love those women, maybe even before they loved me! They were not judging me... well just enough to make sure they moved back if I was gonna blow up!

Then I got well. This is a disease. I had to treat myself because there is no cure.

I was told: You EARNED your seat at these tables. Don't let anyone tell you that you didn't. You have suffered enough. Claim you seat and get busy living again. What others may think does not matter.

I didn't lose everything, but I was initially on medications that I have since stopped taking. That is up to you and a doctor. We don't give medical advice. Hang in there and go see those women!

[Reborn]

AA doesn't work for me either...I have to work for it. I know how you feel...when I was new I felt like an outsider looking in...I hated these people...this is deffinitely a disease of perception. I know this is not what you want to hear but you're going to have to step out of your comfort zone and be willing to do something different. Ask yourself if you are willing to go to any lengths for recovery..if the answer is yes then take some time and find a new meeting and go in with an open mind.

[clouds]

Hi Madisquared,

Thats great you got a good job and can live at home for a while until you get things sorted.
Its also wonderful you have been able to admit defeat with the drinking and are looking for a solution.

I went to the AA ladies meetings for some time before attending regular mixed meetings. I made some good connections with a few of those gals and they told me how to do it. I mean how to get sober with AA.

I also was a blackout drinker who drank all day, and so not able to face anything, even cleaning house, without a drink. It was rough going for the first few weeks after stopping drinking for sure.

So I needed some fast answers. One thing they did say was that antibuse was dangerous. You really can get sober with just AA if you get to as many meetings a week as you have time to. I was a bit limited and could only get to three. I didnt have a license and so women from the groups were happy to give me a lift. They were able to tell me how they were staying sober and what they did to achieve sobriety.

Some simple things were that I was told to just focus on the present day, not to let myself get into worry about the future or the past and focus on being honest. I got some phone numbers from them and called them any time I felt like drinking, instead of a drink, they said call them, they helped me get through those early cravings.

They also gave me things to work on, things to read, like the book of AA. I started to understand what step one meant and how I was powerless over alcohol. Then I needed to understand how to live without drinking and they had the answers for that too.

So I think you will find the solution in AA, may as well give it a go, sounds like you are ready.

[ezdzit247]

....Is anyone else here taking medication? Any advice for someone like me with no insurance, no support. AA does not work for me. I am a fairly attractive woman and every AA meeting I have attended turned into a stalker situation and made me feel very uncomfortable. I have even tried church groups with the same results. Woman only meetings were very unwelcoming to me because they are held in churches in this area and I felt like I was being judged. I just dont know where to go from here. Maybe this forum is the place for me but I don't know how welcome I am here. I have lost my sense of self and feel that I am not worthy of help from others. Thanks to the addiction I have lost my sense of self. I no longer no who I am. I need help.

Hi madisquared and welcome.

Congratulations on 40+ days of sobriety!

Many alcoholics are prescribed antabuse, especially in the first few months of sobriety, so If it is helping you to stay away from that first drink and remain sober, good for you! According to AA's Traditions, medications are an "outside issue", a private matter between you and your doctor and no one else's business.

I'm sorry you had some unpleasant experiences when you attended AA meetings in the past. Every AA group is different and more or less reflects its own local cultural influences depending on where in the US or the world it happens to be located. Unfortunately, some groups are more indifferent to the needs of female alcoholics in addition to being far too tolerant of "bad behavior" among its members. However, you don't have to attend AA meetings or deal with any AA members behaving like jerks in order to stay sober or work the AA program. The AA Big Book was written primarily to make the AA program available to alcoholics who wanted to get & stay sober but had no access to AA meetings. Many alcoholics around the world still have no access to AA meetings but have successfully used the AA program suggested in the BB to maintain their sobriety. You can work the AA program this way as well and enjoy the same spiritual benefits as any other AA member. The AA program works if we work it!

Thanks to the internet, there are many many online resources for people in recovery these days. The online Serenity Book Club has the 1st 164 pages of the BB available in html which you can browse through at your own pace by clicking on different chapters. It also has a handy word search feature at the top of each page for BB references on different topics like "fear", "anger", "resentment". "honesty". "willingness", etc. Here's a few more recovery websites you might want to browse as well:

Staying Cyber
12 Step Forum
Sober Recovery
AA Grapevine
AA Activeboard
AA Online Group
Step Chat

Please feel free to ask any questions you may have.

Glad you're here. Keep coming back....

[positrac]

Antibuse is fear based treatment for drinkers. If you are a real-alcoholic, its a pretty dangerous path.

I took it and yes I agree the fear factor was motivation for me and that was over 26 years ago.

About the looks and stalker stuff. I will say unless you are in a one horse town you should be able to find a women's group and even those might be stalker like at times. But the point is you have to get over yourself as you drank freely with the same stigma and survived. See if you want what we have you'll go to any length to get it and this should be the mantra for you.

[Db1105]

"Antibuse is fear based treatment for drinkers. If you are a real-alcoholic, its a pretty dangerous path"

And even if you are just an alcoholic. You don't have to be real, just and alcoholic.