I thought I'd take one of my most "popular" twitter tweets (according to Twitter analytics) and expand upon it here.
"16 months in and I STILL get nervous going into AA meetings sometimes. A combination of still dealing with the reality of alcoholism, and my social anxiety. If you feel the same way it's OK. Just go, and be what you can be that day."
One thing have found in recovery, both in-person and online, is that people in recovery thrive on sharing vulnerability. I would assume that is because we've hidden our faults and vulnerabilities for so long, and in finding a group of people we are comfortable talking about them, they come pouring out.
To take it a level deeper, I think that if we are in productive recovery, we are acknowledging the things that caused us to do what we were doing in the first place. It's only in recovery that I have understood I had massive depression at age 10-12, that I started experimenting with alcohol at age 14 to medicate that depression and to control my social anxieties. From the moment I took that first drink, my life became a series of drunk sessions separated by periods of withdrawal, a big part of which was waiting for the next time I could drink. Those periods of withdrawal became shorter and shorter as my alcoholism progressed, and the withdrawal symptoms more and more severe.
So to me, it's quite easy to admit my anxiety in entering an AA meeting, or really any social or work meeting where I will potentially be expected to "perform" and be a functioning human being. It may not be easy to over come that anxiety. But the alternative is returning to isolation, potentially returning to my methods of self-medication, and all the agony that approach served me in the past.
And so each time I am confronted with anxiety, I make the conscious decision to trust in my Higher Power that this will be OK. And every time I do, I end up accomplishing what I need to do, and hearing what I need to hear.
"No thanks, I'm not drinking tonight...", it's a line I have used in sobriety on a number of occasions. It's my first line of defense in responding to what we all have to deal with in recovery. "Surely you want to have a drink right? Why wouldn't you??".
I was never NOT shocked during my drinking days when someone would abstain or cut off their drinking after maybe one drink. It seemed inhuman, and certainly felt unnecessary. So now, to be that guy that occasionally goes into a setting where a drink is available even encouraged, and NOT accept a drink... really it is a surreal feeling to be that guy!
There is frequently discussion in AA meetings and other recovery settings around how to handle such situations. It's obviously a huge pitfall of sobriety to be around your drug of choice. And its further complicated with alcohol recovery in that its use is so widely accepted. We are bombarded daily by advertising telling us to drink their brand, showing people enjoying friends and family doing ...
I actually feel guilty when people ask me how I'm doing. In a world where there is a large segment of the population that believes the world is evil, broken, is about to end, or wish that it WOULD end... I am enjoying life far more than at any other time in my lifetime. I've overcome addictions and daily alcohol abuse that had me retching, shaking and drinking at 4am every day. I drank lethal doses of alcohol daily. I took my life to the edge of the cliff and bounced off of it. So I'll see your existential threats to humanity (climate, viruses, or whatever those may be) and raise you a huge IDGAF. Life is fragile and fretting over our existence isn't going to change that.
Okay, it's not that I really don't care. But I do believe the egotistic nature of mankind is what is really at work here. Humankind is intellectually curious, ambitious, somewhat greedy. We have become conditioned to always want more and more, leading to expecting more, eventually to DEMANDING more ("OK, Karen" ). While certain ...
How often does this happen to you - when you hear a line of discussion in an AA meeting and you wish you were recording or writing things down. It's like you're receiving words of wisdom from a well written book. I had just such an experience this past weekend, and I will try to share it with you.
The topic was "how do you move forward with your sobriety in times of turmoil".
The first gentleman that spoke on the topic shared that his biggest source of turmoil in his life has always been himself - his conflict with others, his anger, his abrasive reactions to others in his life. While others may do us wrong, the one constant in our interactions and problems we have with other people - and the only one which we can hope to control - is ourselves.
This guy spoke of a another man that had come to do work at his house shortly after he had gotten sober. The man was disheveled, reeking of alcohol and smoke from the previous night or perhaps hours before. Upon realizing the state of his worker, ...
