What do you do to walk in faith and not give in to your fears of what might happen?

[Montauktammy]

It is funny last year at this time I was nothing but a bundle of fear, I did nothing with out going over and over to make sure nothing was going to go wrong! Today I can trust it will not always go right or what I think is right, but I know I can show up for me and others regardless, I had to trust that, not everything was going to go my way and sometimes my way was not the better way. I had to look at it from another angle. I could get hurt and I could be in pain but if I don't show up, I stand the risk of not feeling happy and sometimes things going my way, so I keep showing up and things get better and I look at them different. When I put things in a world of right and wrong, I have passed a judgment on the process of my life and the life's of others. I am no judge of these things.

[barbie25]

For me if I give into my fears I know I will and up depressed and drinking again. For me prayer and positive think keep me in line with my faith. Also admitting to people that i don't drink because iam an alkie helps. because iam saying it out load. iam not ashamed of myself. also looking at the world as a positive helps with my faith. always waking up and saying to myself thank god i get wake up today and i will not drink today it will be a wonderful day. Thanks Tammy!!:smile::42:

[JohnDaniels]

Montauktammy, thank you so much for starting this topic.

In my youth I was a Golden Gloves Boxing Champion and quite athletic in many ways. In sports I could face up to any challenge and usually come up feeling mighty proud of myself.

However, outside the boxing ring, gym or the track I always felt so inferior. I never felt good enough no matter how well I did. I had inside of me a fear that only another alcoholic can understand. I later read in AA that it is people just like us who live with fear and that every fiber of our being is filled with fear. Looking back at my childhood and my youth, I was a complete set-up to be an alcoholic. I had everything it took, except the alcohol.

As a small boy, one night I carted off a 6 pack of my dad's home brew up into my treehouse. Dad was a sizable and well figured man of over 6' tall who was also an alcoholic. His home brew was so strong that a single bottle would give even him a buzz. So it is only to be expected that a single bottle would give a small boy an even bigger buzz... and it did.

When I drank that bottle down, it instantly made my fear go away. It instantly made me taller, stronger, and more outgoing. It made me so outgoing I got into some trouble with the preachers daughter across the street. She was more than willing though.

My point is, at that young age, I had found the answer that made me feel whole and took away all my fears. Consequently, by using alcohol along with a number of other things over the next part of my life, it did something else to me too. What it did to me was it never allowed me to grow up emotionally. It never allowed me to learn to face my fears in the normal and rational way most people were learning to do. So when I got sober I had the maturity level of a small boy. I was filled with fear when I sobered up.

At the end of my drinking daze was when the real fear set in. It was beyond fear. It was terror and paranoia. It got to the point as I added more and more booze and chemicals to my body, I isolated more and more. Someone would knock at the door and I wouldn't answer it.

I'd drive down the street, always looking in my rear view mirror or over my shoulder with a feeling of terror inside that went clear to my stomach. I eventually had several extended stays in the hospital for fear and paranoia. I took several medical leaves from my welding job for months at a time all because I was too afraid to go out of my house.

I saw a movie one time which depicted the same type of fear I had back then. It was a biography of Howard Hughes. In that movie they could have been talking about me when they showed his fear and paranoia setting in. That was the exact same type of fear I had.

Now, anyone who would have known me when I was a Golden Gloves Boxing Champion and winning those blue ribbons in track would have had to surely ask themselves, "HOW did that happen???"

I found my answer in Chapter 9 of the Big Book. It was as close to describing my fear as I had ever read anywhere. Not one psychiatrist or counselor had ever been able to help me as much as Chapter 9 "The Man Who Mastered Fear".

After I read chapter 9 I decided to do what that man did. He began facing his fears head-on. He was no longer freezing up when he walked down his street.

I was terrified of allot of things in life when I sobered up, but especially women. I faced my fears though head-on. First by walking up to the AA podium and being honest. I told them I was terrifed to be there speaking but if they'd just bear with me, I needed to face this crowd to get over the fear of it.

Surprisingly enough to me, I was given cheers and applause. That made me feel so good, it was a reward that gave me the confindence to face the challenge of going into a large shopping center, and I did. I stood there in that store with sweat dripping down my face & under my arms and had the shakes. But I stayed as long as I could stand it. When I went out to the parkinglot to my truck, I felt so good about what I just did, I went back inside, wringing wet with sweat, for another round of facing my fear of public places. I came out of there the 2nd time thinking, "And in round 2, the winner, by knock-out..." Hehehe. I had knocked out fear that day.

It made me feel so good to have faced these things head-on and know that I did not have to drink at them to get the courage to face them. It made me feel so good to face my fears, so I started talking about this very topic of "fear" at meetings. But it was/is not just dwelling on the fear, it is for me anyway, to get to it's root cause and then move on with solutions. For me those solutions require me to take action.

I dealt with the fear I had of women that came when I sobered up. I looked back at my drinking daze and saw some similarites of this fear. It was fear of rejection that was at the root of it all for me.

I remember setting at a dive bar up in the northwest one night with an ugly woman setting next to me whom I had drank beautiful by the end of the night. When we woke up the next morning she was no longer beautiful, nor was I that cattle barron or that oil man or what ever I was the night before on that bar stool.

Like Day and Night - The thing that alcohol did for my fears back then is something that I really have a hard time paying tribute to. Setting at a bar stool in the beginning of the evening sober, if I asked a woman to come home with me and she told me she was not interested, I felt terribly rejected! I wanted to run out of that place and kill myself by jumping out of a basement window.

However, if I had enough booze in me, and I was told by a woman she was not interested in going home with me, I didn't feel rejected at all. In fact, at that time I felt SORRY for her. "You're problem lady! Don't come crying to me later! Heh! Heh! Heh!"

That is what alcohol did for me. It took away all my fears and inhibitions. Until it stopped working.

That fear I had of women by the way, I did get over and I grew out of it. I got over it enough to fall in love and marry again. We will be celebrating 28 years in a few months. I can't believe how far we have came since back then.

I joke sometimes: "My wife and I will be celebrating 3 years of marital bliss in a few months".

"THREE years??? I thought you said you folk's had been married 28 years!"

"Yes... and only 3 years of it has been marital bliss". :43:

Well that is enough of that. We have actually grown so close together that we are often sharing the same thoughts at exactly the same time and that is something called "intimacy". True intimacy when we don't even have to touch to share it. That is something I could have never understood as a young man. It is one of the treasures my original sponsor told me I would recieve when I was mature enough to understand it.

I believe God has a treasure chest for us all, filled with a lifetime of treasures. I believe we will recieve them as we develop through life and as we mature. If we could have them all at once, our mind couldn't grasp them. Just my opinion of course.

My posts tend to get rather long and that is because I have allot of gratitude to share. I am so grateful that I lived to make it into this program that has given me a complete set of instructions for my life, a program desigend just for a guy like me who used to run away from life and learned that I didn't have to run away from it any longer.

[Humblepie]

I can't have fear and faith at the same time. Most of my fears are reminders that I am still trying to control things I cannot change. I find no serenity or acceptance in fear.

Knowing fear is a lack of faith I become more willing to turn my will over to God as I understand him. If I have fear then I am not living in today, in the moment. I am living in the future fearing what might happen. I try harder to stay in today in the moment where my higher power exists. Am I ok right now? Do I have anything to fear right now? If the answer is no then I continue to take care of now and let the future take care of itself. I do Gods will for me now and let faith replace fear.


1 John 4:18
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear

1 John 4:16
And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love.

[Montauktammy]

I was terrified of allot of things in life when I sobered up, but especially women. I faced my fears though head-on. First by walking up to the AA podium and being honest. I told them I was terrifed to be there speaking but if they'd just bear with me, I needed to face this crowd to get over the fear of it.

me to 90 days I was in a rehab of about 60 or 70 do my 90 day wonder story LOL
I almost peed my paints, told my story and 3 men got up and stared walking out look at my friend who was my support with so much fear I said did I make em go out ?? went out smoked a cig then came back to let others share the 3 men shared they left cause they where crying I told their story Blessed !:D I always say I am not afraid to die I know how to do that I am afraid to live cause I don't know how, so i get a chance to learn

[admin]

What do you do to walk in faith and not give in to your fears of what might happen?

I trust in God everyday.

[Mr.Willing]

maybe one of the things that really hurt me the most now that i am clean is my fear of tomorrow . I always think that whatever tomorrow shall bring would be something that would hurt me . I am terrfied that my baby boy would suffer and that being an addict will forever haunt him.
i as well cannot trust that my wife can take care of him the right way.
i am dying to replace those fears with faith. i don't think i have enough faith that God can and will take care of whatever there is in my life.
i think i believe that whatever i will choose to do will have a greater impact on my life than what God will choose . I am as well terrified that maybe God is punishing me and will keep on punishing me by making me lead a hard life.
I am always thinking that , i am a son of two good parents , and yet i have many difficulties in my life , then in what basis should i believe that my own life will be better ? not to mention that i have done so many wrongdoings throughout my life !! i find that so damned logic and reasonable to the extent of being crippled by those thoughts every day ....
i pray God for help and mercy but i just can't believe that i will be able to take whatever God will put in my way....