I went to an AA meeting for the first time in three years. I recognized some oldtimers. One of the guys remembered me and said I was in a horrible condition last period I was there. He was happy to see me doing so well today. Everyone were so loving and nice to each other. I think I will go there again soon. 
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It sort of feels great when people who knew me back when I was not doing well, see me now and I get a thumbs up for turning my life around.
Very cool for you to go and reconnect and most of all… have someone recognize that you’ve come a long way and your healing.
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It reminds me of the song “If my friends could see me now!” Some of them did. That’s great.
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I went for about two weeks and it wasnt for me. One, I read some of the book, had a guy who is all about AA go over it with me and ask me questions about my behavior with alcohol, and it turned out that I wasnt a real alcoholic, I just used to use it as medicine, and it was effective medicine, my therapist says that I was never a true alcoholic.
I can have one or two drinks and stop. Most of the time I do. I went because during finals week, I took 3 xanax and washed them down with two beers at 230am. I had finals starting at 8am. I made myself barf as much of it as I could, but woke up feeling like I had been given a horse tranquilizer. I drank two very strong cups of coffee (more like pots of coffee condensed into one cup) and made a 4.0 that semester.
But I am not an alcoholic and it makes me feel depressed seeing real ones. Its sad and I dont need any more sadness in my life. I might check in to get my sobriety chips but honestly I do not belong there. Some of my friends think I am an alcoholic but the closer ones know well that I am not, they have had just one beer with me quite a few times.
I did use fireball whiskey as my primary antipsychotic during my freshman year of college and people remember my shitty behavior, not mean (one time mean, just once) but my laughing psycho drunk ass doing things like falling asleep with my face in a toilet, masturbating in a room full of people, running through a thorn bush in shorts and not feeling pain or realizing that my legs were covered in deep cuts and thorns and blood were all over my shins, playing “referee” in drinking games, calling time out and drinking all of the cups in a game of liquor pong and then filling them back up with cheap vodka and saying “Game on!” (with my shirt off I might add), getting belligerent and committed to a crisis assessment center after being surrounded by seven cops, projectile vomiting on my birthday, peeing off a balcony at a friends apartment, drinking a few bottles of vanilla extract (which is 80 proof) to get drunk and then having diarrhea, oh well I could say more but you get the point.
I will be 21 on wednesday and I plan on going to a bar and ordering one irish car bomb, driving myself and a couple of buddies to make sure I dont go â– â– â– â– â– â– â– apeshit, and smoking a couple cigarettes and taking it easy and just be happy to live another year.
But if it is good for you, go there. I myself just dont need it. I havent had a beer in like two weeks, and I just had one when I did.
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Good for you that you have realized your habits. I on the other hand can’t stop once I start. I drink until I’m out of alcohol or passed out. I’ve been drinking heavily since I was 17 years old (1995). Stopped drinking completely in February 2010. At the end I did not drink every day but very much when I consumed alcohol.
The big book has helped me a lot to know I’m not alone. All those ppl at the meeting have the same problems as me. Both the beautiful young mom to older not-so-handsome worn guy. We are brothers and sisters glued together by understanding, compassion and support.
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Good to hear! That is why I like AA, it is the right place to be for some people.
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i am so glad for you that it turned out well…keep going if it brings you comfort…
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Good job. I find that the majority of members of AA, CA, and NA can be really nice. Not always, but often. In 24 years in the program I have rarely been singled out for abuse or picked on in a meeting. Maybe a few incidents but nothing that bad. The other members are no angels, but we all have a common goal which manifests itself first: To help each other get clean and STAY clean. Principles before personalities.
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I really enjoyed reading this thread!
Mortimermouse, you are to be complimented for giving such concrete examples of troubles you have had with alcohol. That is, many schizophrenics, myself included, have difficulty understanding abstractions.
I do want folks to keep an open mind about alcoholism. It seems that some people go along for twenty years or more of heavy drinking before “crossing over the line” into alcoholic drinking,
In my case, I knew right from the start that my response to drinking was unlike most people. I absolutely loved drinking! When I drank I could suddenly do things I had never been able to do. For the first time in my life, I felt like I had always wanted to feel.
Seven years after my first dirink, I was still in the same four year school. I had become a prey to misery and self pity. For help, I went to AA.
AA did for me gradually what alcohol had done for me immediately. That is, for the most part, now I am comfortble in my own skin and meet people eyeball to eyeball without especially looking down on people or thinking people are way beyond me.
Jayster
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