New to sobriety?

[BW1]

New to sobriety?
Are you new to sobriety?
Scared and feeling lost and alone? Feeling confused hopeless, despair, maybe you cannot even identify or put a name to your feelings? Yet you feel like no one could possibly even understand?

There truly are many hundreds and thousands of people here and around the globe who have been exacly where you are feeling exactly like that. You may not believe it .. You do not believe it because they smile, they laugh, they have a light in their eyes and are leading purposeful lives and are joyful.

They stood exactly where you are standing now, feeling exactly where how you are now.
How do I know this? Because I am one of those.

I have been around listening, learning and growing with these people for a number of 24 hours tho it does not really matter how many because all we really have is a daily reprieve from this deadly fatal disease.

I have been to funerals of many who had to go back out to do more "research" because they were not able for whatever reason to get really honest or were not able to continue to be willing to follow the simple suggestions of growing spiritually.

Our book and the pioneers that blazed the path for us suggested.."Trust God --Clean house and Help others".

I wish I were able to sit down face to face and share with you a most recent expereince I had with a suffering individual as there are not enough words to adequately describe what it means when it says "intense work with another alcoholic".

Several of us, [none of us journey alone] just did spiritual warfare with King Alcohol at his worst. He had a death grip on an individual. It was beyond human imagination. What made it even worse was a person in a face to face meeting sayng to the person -- "You do not have to listen to your sponsor" That individaul saying that had no knowledge of the chaos, insanity, mass confusion etc etc that was going on in this suffering tormented person's mind and soul.

What I am trying to say is...2 simple things...Please find an individaul you can trust and PLEASE PLEASE follow their suggestions

And secondly when you go to meetings; take what you need and leave the rest. If you hear things that are contradictory to what your sponsor, guide, mentor has suggested...talk it over with them. That is how we learn and grow. On this journey of recov ery there truly are no stupid or dumb questions.
If I had listened to all I heard in meetings without the guidance of a sponsor, guide, mentor I would have taken giant steps back to the beginning of time when there were dinasoaurs roaming the earth adding to the terror beasts in my mind which is exactly what occured to the individual we were trudging with.

I'm begging you as the book says, "with all the ernestness at our command" to learn to listen and listen to learn so you do not have to go to the depths of H#ll that others have had to go to. When you trust whatever Higher Power you can understand or concieve...that higher power will lead you to the persons who are trustworthy that will lead you and guide you into the SunLight of the Spirit.

Thank you for allowing me to share with you

The first tradition speaks of Unity
In my expereince on this journey I have learned we do not have to agree with everyone..We do get to learn to agree to disagree with love and respect

[LookingOut]

Thanks for this. Makes sense! I need to hear good advice like this when a bit confused by AA. So far still finding it the best way, though.

[Kathylady]

Thanks for sharing your wise and hopeful message. I am feeling discouraged with my ability to fight my disease. It is patient and sooooo insidious. I will keep asking my Higher Power to guide my soul to be less willful and surrender again to my powerlessness.

[MajestyJo]

Welcome Kathylady, so glad you made the decision to join our family. Our disease is cunning, baffling, and powerful. It wasn`t until I came into the fellowship(s), that I could stay stopped. I had many issues I needed to address. If I hadn`t looked at the whole picture, I would have relapsed, it wasn`t something I did do immediately, I just did what I could do in the day to stay clean and sober and the rest followed.

[LookingOut]

Originally Posted by Kathylady

Thanks for sharing your wise and hopeful message. I am feeling discouraged with my ability to fight my disease. It is patient and sooooo insidious. I will keep asking my Higher Power to guide my soul to be less willful and surrender again to my powerlessness.

I am there with you, but I think I have come to a point of surrender. God keeps telling me I cannot do this alone, that I need to surround myself with folks that can help.

BW makes some excellent points about AA. I was getting so tripped up. Now I realize there are well people in AA and people who are not well yet. I need to hone my focus in on a couple women with good sobriety time and good sense about the 12 steps and recovery and really take in what they say. If I hear some things that throw me or irritate me, I need to throw those things out.

AA can be our recovery family if we let it. (Or Celebrate Recovery, or any recovery support group that fits our needs). And when things seem to be moving too slow or not going my way, instead of quitting, I have to keep pressing in with guidance of my HP until I get what my recovery needs.

Blessings.

[bluidkiti]

Hey Kathy, So glad to have you join us here. I do hope you will continue to share with us. We are all here for you.