I will - keep doing what you are doing! 
duffer, your post described me almost perfectly.
I was a functioning alky. I went to work, paid the bills mostly on time (until the lights/cable/whatever went out, then I had to go down and pay the things off at the office. But that didn’t happen often.). I didn’t really offended anyone except for some really dumbass posts here. I got two DUIs, about 10 years apart, but other than that I never had any trouble with the law. I didn’t have any trouble with people because, hey, I didn’t have any friends except the counter guy at the store where I bought my booze.
I wasn’t a social drinker. I didn’t do bars or night clubs. I drank alone.
I had a good job. I had been promoted numerous times and liked what I did.
I thought about AA and stopping drinking for a long time. I went to a couple meetings and it wasn’t for me.
Then things got worse. I kept drinking. I started missing work. My employer realised there was a problem and I got into a week long treatment center. That didn’t work. I got fired. I moved and lived off of the money I made (which was a lot) and some help from my family for two years and did nothing but drink with an occasional try at getting sober. That lasted for two years then I ran out of money. I got a job and got fired for missing work(too hard to get up in the morning with the hangover). I got a better job and then got fired for the same reason. I went to treatment and came back. I got a job in Costa Rica and that went well for about two months then I stoped going to work, the hangover thing again.
I came back to the US jobless, homeless and penniless. My parents loaned me a car so I could get a job. I got a job. I got loaded and wrecked my parents car (man, did I do a number on that thing! I somehow managed to hit every corner of the car. I mean I totalled the thing. Both sides, the front and the back. Amazingly, I apparently only hit the dividers on the freeway. I say apparently because I don’t remember what happened.)
At this point my family was done helping me with anything.
At that point I went to a halfway house. AA was manditory. At the halfway house I realized that AA was for me and I just didn’t know it earlier.
I now have one year and 11 months clean and sober.
I have a good job.
I have friends.
I have a nice place to live filled with nice things.
I have a new car.
I have a recording studio in my house.
I have regained the respect of my family.
And, most importantly, I enjoy living.
Looking back I knew I had a problem long before I did anything about it. Not doing anything about it cost me years of my life and a lot of money. Thankfully, it was only some time and some money, it could have been worse. I could have killed somone. Or gone to prison. Or died.
Slee
Good job Phlosphr. I have spoken on numerous panels at schools, hospitals & institutions.
They may or may not get anything out of it, but it does wonders for me.
Deb, sober every day since 3/4/91. Night and weekends, too.
sleestak, aren’t the Promises great? I thought they were bogus when I first heard them, but damn, they’re real!
Duffer, I feel for you. If you decide you want what we have, try doing what we did. Which for me, meant I kept going back, after relapsing many many times saying AA was bogus and not for me. Finally it clicked.
And everything changed. For the better. It really is true, my worst day sober is better than my best day drinking ever was. I thought that was an idiotic statement initially, but now for me, I see it is true.
As a recovering alcoholic (fairly recent too), I love to hear these positive stories. I am also thrilled to have a thread where people that have never been to a meeting come in and critisize AA. I am not a regular attendee anymore, but I think it is one of the most pure and altruistic organizations in the whole world bar none. Other things outside of 12-step groups should look at its rather unique and effective model.
I would think this should be the last thread at the Dope where posters would be critical of anyone’s story.
duffer, that was an amazing post. Being so straight takes a lot of courage especially when you haven’t taken a firm grasp of the solution yet.
RSSchen, I appreciate your response to my question.
I mean no disrespect nor, truly, criticism, and I write this in all humility but…meetings are your medicine Phlosphr. Perhaps duffer would find they help also. However, my take on it - and it is only my take, for no one can “speak for AA” - is that AA has never claimed to be THE answer to alcoholism nor a guaranteed ticket to sobriety. All AA says - in my understanding - is “we had a drinking problem, we tried this and found it worked for us. If you have a drinking problem and would like to do something about it, it may work for you too. You’re welcome to see for yourself, and we’ll help just as those who came before us helped us.” duffer may find exactly what you found, or may find something else that works, should it come to the point of wanting to quit. As bobkitty pointed out, there are other avenues to sobriety which some have found a solution in.
Attraction rather than promotion too. It’s a fine line, and I do not mean at all to imply it has been crossed. It does bear keeping in mind.
Correctional facilities work is invaluable and a calling of its own. Kudos to you Phlosphr for your part in making sure that whenever anyone anywhere reaches out…
Yes, the promises rock. I didn’t believe a word untill about 6 months in. Took me a while to realize how right the promises are. I can be a stubborn, dumb SOB. I only went to meetings because I knew something had to change and people kept telling me AA worked.
duffer, I missed something in my post. I forgot to meantion hope. When I was drinking my only hope was for another drink.
My life is now filed with hope. When I was drinking I got some of the things I had hoped for, things that I truely wanted. When I got them they didn’t seem to matter all that much because whatever it was I hoped for did not take away the crushing loneliness or dispair. Life was the next drink, everything else was a temporary diversion that, in the end, didn’t matter. All my hopes were stillborn because I couldn’t enjoy anything except the next beer.
Man, it is nice to have hope again. I don’t know if you are in the same kind of place I was but, if you are, you ought to know that hope is out there and you can get it again. And man, it is wonderful.
Slee
You’d be wrong. I am very surprised that someone hasn’t come in here to trash AA yet. It seems to happen no matter what- it even happened in one of my sober birthday threads that didn’t mention AA in the OP! Go figure.
I should try to clear up a few things.
First, It wasn’t pity I was looking for. I started to write and it just took over. Maybe it was just some stuff I had to get off my chest. Considering the content and topic of the thread, it seemed as appropriate a place for it as any. I certainly didn’t mean for it to be a “Look at me” post even if it seems that way. Again, just had to get it out of my system at that time.
Second, I didn’t mean to imply that AA doesn’t work. It does. I know it does. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. When I said it hasn’t taken, I meant yet. I keep thinking I’m smart enough to figure everything else out in my life, that surely I can figure out the trick to this. (sound familiar?) I know it’s almost certainly my only option, and I’ll keep trying. For now, I’ll keep reading the stories of other’s and their journey to sanity. And I’ll appreciate every single one of them.
Shit, just noticed I didn’t finish that. Anyway, what he said was religion didn’t have to be any part of AA. The Higher Power could be something as simple as the group of people you’re meeting with. Belief in God was about the last nitpick I had on AA in my effort to deny my own core problem, even though I do have faith. I just needed something to deny my addiction and the reality of it. I couldn’t deny that what was happening at a meeting was, in fact, larger than myself.
I guess Joe knew his shit. Years later after that one discussion I can recall it all as easily as if it were Tivo’d.
Heh. Yeah. I stayed unique and different for years.
Yes, somewhat, but I choose not to open the threads about good wine, beer, spirits etc…etc… In the end it is always a choice. Just like it was my choice to choose AA as a way to give up drinking and start living a more wholesome life. I could say the same for those who choose the drink. It is their choice to keep drinking.
There is a famous saying I heard in AA regarding the types of people who come into the rooms.
People that come into the rooms can be from Yale or Jail - it doesn’t matter.
The drink doesn’t see boundries.
Duffer - Only you know your path and only you can find it. People enter the rooms for different reasons, you’ll see people in the rooms with all kinds of stories from very low, low bottoms to very high bottoms to everything in between. The one common thread of course is that everyone has a desire to stop drinking. Even if you don’t have that desire, and you may only think you have a problem the rooms can offer answers.
I can not tell you how many times I have heard alcoholics say things like: “* I am so grateful to be a recovering alcoholic”, or * I’m happy I’m an alcoholic tho has been fortunate enough to find this program; my life is so much more full and clear…
As for God - He is only the God of my understanding. I give up so much to my higher power, because frankly, I don’t want to keep doing this alone, I need some of the gear on my back taken from me. I was in denile for so long before I entered the rooms. And I’m not talking about the river in Egypt…
I’m going to leave you with a favorite saying about what we truly feel inside.
We can dance around the circle and suppose, but the truth sits in the middle and knows
Take care.
Phlosphr, I just want to say that it’s people like you that make the world a better place. Wishing you Happy Holidays. Much Love, Ms.Deanna
Thank you Ms. Deanna. Sometimes giving is much better than receiving.