What were your feelings when you were first in recovery?

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bluidkiti
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Joined: 15 Mar 2005
Posts: 10500


PostPosted: 07 Jul 2005 03:57 am
What feelings were you having when you were first in recovery?
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fibiray



Joined: 16 Mar 2005
Posts: 515
Location: Australia Central Coast NSW

PostPosted: 07 Jul 2005 08:18 am
I guess my feelings were of terror and desperation. I feared to drink as I knew I would die and I feared not to drink as I was only 23 years old when I came in. It was hard to imagine life without alcohol. My thoughts were certainly confused and clouded and this took a long time to pass, but my feelings were so sensitive and raw and whenever i felt anything it was always to the extreme. After the first 6 months I began to experience this really strange thing call contentment, which I had never experienced before. I was incredibly tough on myself in those days but I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing as it contirbuted to my commitment to staying sober. It took me a long time to trust and this was a real issue form me particularly coming from a violent background. I was at a meeting 2 weeks ago and an older sober member who had been sober for 35 years had said that we must get a least one person in the fellowship to be able to confide in. This rang true for me as I did just that. The concept of a sponsor and putting trust into that person was too much for me because of my trust issues. But I did have an ally and over the years have managed to surround myself with many allies in recovery that love and support me through thick and thin. I tell them anything and my life is an open book.

chow chow Cool
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lightlover



Joined: 17 Mar 2005
Posts: 385


PostPosted: 07 Jul 2005 09:00 am
My feelings are twofold:

I am really grateful to be sober, to be rid of constant confusion, exhaustion, panic, guilt, shame, and chaotic thoughts & emotions. Right now, though, i am fighting to overcome my existential attitude towards everything and am quite doubtful that i will be able to experience the psychic change of which the BB speaks on any meaningful level. Right now, I am truly just existing, trying to bear down and make financial amends. That is my current goal, the one that is making me get out of bed in the morning. Otherwise, with relationships, to me it's like, "what's the point." If I am brutally honest, I really don't like real life, and I really don't like a lot of people. It is a daily battle to fight the desire to isolate. I truly understand that feeling of not wanting to live a life of using drugs anymore, but of not wanting to live life sober either. I sure as he!! don't know how to live sober and be happy, joyous and free at this point. I am sorry to report that my current level of awareness is only of the agonizing boredom and emptiness and alienation and pointlessness and purposelessness of my life....and a mourning for the private universe that i used to create in my head to entertain myself and get through the day. though i am grateful not to be actually believing my own insanity anymore, i feel flat and lifeless. And, of course, guilty that I can't be a better person, just happy with what I have, that I can't just stay in gratitude more.

Well, isn't that uplifting. I guess I must be a little depressed, I am sorry that I did not have better ESH to share with everyone.
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cassie
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Joined: 16 Mar 2005
Posts: 1029


PostPosted: 07 Jul 2005 07:13 pm
Good question!
At first, my feelings were of anger and resentment because I often wondered "Why me!" I had the 360 degree mood swings for quite a while and a huge pity party. But after a while, I felt a lot off regret and sadness. I greived for all that I had lost. That, of course, got me absolutely nowhere but grief was something I had to experience too. For a long time, I was overly cautious and would not myself be enthusiastic because I just knew something or someone was going to take what little progress I had made away. Gloommy Gussie Crying or Very sad was how I should have introduced myself at meetings.

It is different now. Acceptance and humility as well as the ability to laugh at myself are things I am grateful for. I try to understand my angry moments and work my way through them. I know how deadly they are. I am able to feel a wide range of emotion but without the mood swings. I have a chance today to be sane and sober and share the joy that comes my way. My HP and this fellowship play a huge part in that.

Again, thanks for the topic.

[gr8fl2dy]

When I first came into recovery, I had a thousand forms of fear, as the Big Book talks about. I was extremely paranoid, and I had no idea where life was going to end up. I was confused about everything, and I was extremely ticked off about the God thing. I just couldn't get it! Everytime someone would say, "Let go and Let God", I wanted to come unglued. I thought about giving up because of the God thing. I felt like a failure. I felt ignorant. I felt like I was lacking. It seemed like everyone had a HP, and I couldn't get one.

Thanks to the people at the tables. They kept saying, "keep coming back". For some odd reason, I did feel better after a meeting. I started to smile. I started connecting with what people were saying. I started to really become interested. I started to calm down. I was finding joy. I was finding Hope.

Thanks to the Fellowship, I started becoming alive. I started to see things as if they were in color. Life was begining to have meaning. I was comprehending the word gratitude, even though I had nothing besides my sobriety. My perceptions were changing. My thinking was changing. I was starting a journey of Life. Something that I always wanted, but never had.

Attitude of Gratitude!!

[clean42day]

Once I did my fourth and fifth and honestly looked, admitted and took responsibility for all that I had created in my life, I was overwhelmed. I was intensely overwhelmed with the same fear that was the same root of my troubles that underscored most of my fourth step. Fear had caused me to act in ways that were dishonorable, self-defeating, and disrespectful of self and others. Having this knowledge and owning it, at first, immobilized me. I was unable or should I say "unwilling" to make any decisions lest I might make the wrong ones again. Being immobilized by fear and motivated by it are two completely different things.

Going through an average day full of self doubt was terrifying. I would dissect every little thing I thought, every action, every choice. Were there impure motives and intentions motivating my actions? Was I rationalizing and justifying old behavior. Had my denial just hidden behind a different curtain?

I have heard time and again from many members that self-centered fear and selfishness was and is still the root of my troubles. And that the disease, denial, and fear manifest in small little ways. Like superficial dishonesty, complacency, procrastination..avoidance. My disease tells me that I don't need to call that friend back....that she won't care. That following through with what I say I will do is not that important – no one will notice. That it is ok to miss a meeting. So what if it takes me a week to do something that could only take a few minutes to complete. Small little insignificant things that no one else knows about.....(BUT ME).

That is how my disease erodes my self-trust, encourages self doubt, before I know it....I am right back into anger and resentment against self.
Fear, anger, and resentment is what leads me right back to seeking relief in all the wrong people, places, and things....and not necessarily in a drink. It tells me that it is ok to be an emotional predator and validate my worth externally through others, to hold others hostage to my feelings. It tells me that it is ok to stay so busy that I effectively avoid taking a deep look inside at what is "driving" my busyness. It tells me that outward accomplishment is a good veneer or replacement for lack of inner self acceptance. It drives me to do things that make me look so good on the outside....that I begin to believe there is nothing wrong on the inside. That great wall of denial is being reconstructed brick by brick, choice by choice, action by action. Until I have myself convinced of two things.....that I can rely on self will once again....and that I am not powerless over anything. The result is always the same....emotional unmanageability without a drink.

in many little ways the disease of alcoholism/addiction maneuvers me away from the power of God, from my connection to spirit, from my alignment with his will, and the farther away I get from the reason I have been given this gift in the first place.....the more denial takes over, and I begin to live in the illusion of self-sufficiency again.

I have been given the gift of sobriety and recovery, not through any human aid, but through divine intervention. And the only way I can keep it....is to stay in conscious contact with that which gave me the gift in the first place. Any priority I place above the spiritual path according to self will, will either become another painful learning experience, or another dead end with a wall at the end of it.

Once I made that decision in the 3rd step to turn my will and life over.....my life is no longer just my own. I must live it in alignment with the God of my understanding......and make decisions, choices, and take actions according to spiritual principals, not my own little plans and selfish designs.

Every time I step out on faith and make choices that go against what my (fear-ego) says to do.....the result is a spiritual awakening. Every time I set my own little plans and designs aside and follow a higher principal....the result is a spiritual awakening. Every time I take a right action in spite of selfish persuits....the result is a spiritual awakening.

How do I know this.....because when I don't live by spiritual principals, believe me, I have emotional awakenings that causes so much unmanageability I can't stand it and I am once again not comfortable in my own skin.

Through the disease of alcoholism and addiction…..I wrecked my life one choice, decision, and action at a time……in recovery as long as I am living by spiritual principals….I can rebuild my life, one choice, one decision, and one action at a time. Sometimes minute by minute, moment by moment and definitely day by day.

Either I make choices based on fear
Or based on faith and right action.
I am responsible for both.
And the results of both are obvious
When I choose the behavior, I also choose the consequence.
good result or bad….I own both.
Positive healthy behaviors not only benefit me, they benefit others who live in and around my life.
Decisions and choices that are in alignment with spiritual principals….in my opinion….are in alignment with the will of God.

I don’t live my life anymore by what will make people happy….I live my life by what God would want me to do in any given situation….and other people benefit from that as a natural by product of “right living� and “right action�.
is being around me always a pleasure? well I guess that would depend on what your own intentions and motives are? if you are a manipulator….probably not. if your self-seeking you might find yourself on the other end of one of my boundaries. if you are a people pleaser….you might find me validating you when you do nothing at all. If you are a constant complainer and a victim….you might find that I can certainly relate….but will always point out the responsibility you have for your own attitude today.
if you are an addict or alcoholic….in the beginning I will be as unconditional with you as God was with me….but after certain point in time…..the same power of self-dicipline that he taught me I will try to role-model for you.



Thanks for listening

light and love

Gail

[Doraine]

I lived in fear of drinking again. I did everything I was told to do to stay sober. Whenever anyone in my home group, made up of mostly newcomers, had a relapse I was gripped by the fear that it could happen to me. I crossed the street rather than walk past a liquor store. Finally I realized it would take a conscious decision on my part to pick up a drink/drug again. I had planned to stay sober no matter what. I began to relax a little and have confidence in my sobriety. I did stay sober no matter what. In early sobriety I had a child custody case I lost. I had a teenaged daughter hospitalized for a serious depression and drug and alcohol abuse. From there she went to live in a treatment center. I lost custody of her and my son. She ran away from her father's house and I didn't know where she was for months. A young female body was found in the same area my daughter was last seen. I called the police to find out if it was my daughter. The description matched except for tatoos. My daughter had tatoos and this body didn't.
My daughter later contacted me and asked to come home.She had been living on the streets of NYC addicted to heroin. I let her come back home. As soon as she was feeling better she stole from me and went back out. After that I reluctantly took her back and she went into treatment center again. When she was with me I took her to her first meeting. She finally stayed clean and sober for several years but relapsed after she moved to PA. Since then she has a habit of relapsing after she's sober a little while.
Also in my early sobriety my youngest daughter became pregnant. I kept it a secret from my landlord fo fear he would ask us to move out.
In early sobriety I was diagnosed as depressed and started seeing a psychiatrist. A couple of years later I was diagnosed with Bipolar disorder.
All the while all this was going on I was attending college. I stayed sober through everything that happened.

[mikeme]

Hi, I'm Mike, an alcoholic and addict.

Thanks everyone for sharing. I'm touched by your stories.

My first week of recovery I felt very sick and alone. I was physically very ill: sweating, shakes, green skin, bags under my eyes. The only thing worse than the way I looked was the way I felt.

I don't know how I dragged myself to a meeting, but I did. (God took me, I think.) And I did something I never thought I could do: walk into a room full of strangers and introduce myself. I was really, really scared.

As I waited for the meeting to start, I was consumed by hate, rage, and confusion. I hated everyone in the room for being happy, having friends, talking, laughing, looking good, and for not engaging me in conversation. I remember thinking: These people are stuck up. Even here I'm on the outside.

At that first meeting I decided I was going to stay sober just to show everyone there I could do it without their help. I would do it out of spite. And that spite took me to another meeting the next day, and the next, and the next.

Now, sixty odd days later, looking back at the way things were, I can see how much I have changed in such a short time. A nice lady at my morning meetings said to me: "First you come, then you come to, then you come to believe."

Well, I feel like I'm finally starting to come to. And I no longer attend meetings out of spite. I go for strength, experience, and hope.

Thanks for letting me share.

[Nana]

mike
I am Nana and I am so proud of you.When I first got in the program I couldn,t figure out why those people were so happy either. I am so glad I kept going back .So glad your here I need all the help I can get.Living in a sober world is hard,but having friends who understand is priceless. You have a good day........Love Nana

[rootsradical]

Feelings on joining AA?

Angry. Frightened. Angry. Horror at what I had become. Angry. Despair. Angry. Hopless. Confused. Angry. Sorrow. Angry. Loss. Angry. Bitter. Angry. Relief.

I did a lot of "Angry" in the early days. Lmao.

They called me "Angry Kenny" at my homegroup for well over the first year of my recovery. Can't imagine why...

ps I forgot "pity". I did a lot of self-pity as well.