Drug Rehab Options Blog

Hey guys....just thought this might be a good topic for those of us who use either the 12 steps or AA and 12 steps as non-god people.

So....I have found it very important that I be very upfront with the members of the meetings I attend that I am not a god person. I don't like get in anyones face about it...but i do mention it on a regular basis. It really has helped to make the help I get more effective cause it helps people know what things clearly won't be very helpful to me when i am in trouble or in pain.

I have also had to be very tolerant of thier beliefs as they are tollerent of mine. I try to share how i would do something very similar to what they do in a way that doesn't tie to a "god". So we end up with an understanding of how we are really so similar even though our belief systems seem so different.

I also know who NOT to call when I am in trouble :lmao

I also find humor helpful...my friends who are god people will laughinly talk about my "strange" program..but it is laughter of love and companionship not of thinking i'm stupid or something like that. And I laugh about their strange programs too.

I've been very fortunate in this support I've found, but to some degree I did have to make some very strong efforts to make this happen.

Anyways...just wanted to share it for any of you who are trying to do the 12 step meeting thing.

:bday8

Greetings, kidz. Just thought I'd give an update to my fiancee's Norco detox. (Read my "Norco withdrawals..." post)

Tomorrow will be 14th clean day, and she's still going through hell, although now it's more psychological. She sleeps fitfully at best, waking up every hour or so. She becomes panicky when she gets ready for bed, and that's partly my fault (see paragraphs below). During the day, she's very lethargic, and frequently wants to take a nap. But when she finally has an opportunity to get sleep, she can't. Her mind is still rather jumbled.

About the 10th day (Sunday), both of us realized that her Norco addiction really wasn't just about the physical pain. That night, everything that she had suppressed with the pills came spewing forth. Everything that I had done to her, or she thought I had done to her, everything that others had done to her yet somehow involved me... She used very little profanity, but it was the tone in which she spoke to me. It wasn't so much the vile and angry tone that got me; it was the sarcasm. The kind of cutting disdain that one could only find on a grammar school playground. She didn't just want me out of the house, she wanted me out of town. All the way back to South Carolina, to "go back to [my] little Mommy". She had a plane ticket ready to buy from HotWire.com!

The first five years of our relationship were awful. I was a very selfish and angry man-child, and she was desperate for companionship. My upbringing (or whatever it was) provided fuel for my rather despicable, yet thankfully only occasional, behavior problems. Before her gastric bypass, she suppressed her unhappiness about me with food. When she couldn't do it with food anymore, she turned to pills. I really thought she took the pills for her physical back pain.

God, I really had no idea! And it all came back that 10th night like vomit from hell.

Thank you for enduring my diatribe, folks. I know her recovery will take quite a while. I guess I just need a little reassurance now and then that what's going on is the normal process.

And it's obvious that I need some work, too.

My husband has been sober for 4 years now, but one thing hasn't changed - everything is always my fault.

Tonight he wanted to go to a meeting - fine go. He ended up not going because my son stopped in to visit. After son left, he became very agitated and said he needed to go somewhere or talk to somebody. I made a couple of suggestions -movies, out for dessert. Nothing suited him. Tried to call his sponsor who moved away ( never got another sponsor) - not available. Guess who paid the price??? ME AGAIN!

Ended up with him yelling at me that I think I know everything and he's having a bad night. Stormed out of the house after kicking in one of the kitchen cupboard doors and took some materials over to a buddy's house.

Somebody tell me why I feel so bad. Why is my companionship not ever good enough? Why does it always have to be somebody else?

I didn't cause him to miss his meeting - he made that choice. Anytime life interferes with what he wants to do, I get the fallout.

Anybody out there with any good ideas to share????

"For most normal folks, drinking means conviviality, companionship and colorful imagination. It means release from care, boredom and worry. It is joyous intimacy with friends and a feeling that life is good. But not so with us in those last days of heavy drinking. The old pleasures were gone. They were but memories. Never could we recapture the great moments of the past. There was an insistent yearning to enjoy life as we once did and a heartbreaking obsession that some new miracle of control would enable us to do it.note There was always one more attempt - and one more failure."

"The less people tolerated us, the more we withdrew from society, from life itself. As we became subjects of King Alcohol, shivering denizens of his mad realm, the chilling vapor that is loneliness settled down. It thickened, ever becoming blacker. Some of us sought out sordid places, hoping to find understanding companionship and approval. Momentarily we did - then would come oblivion and the awful awakening to face the hideous Four Horsemen - Terror, Bewilderment, Frustration, Despair. Unhappy drinkers who read this page will understand!"

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{Thank You Everyone }}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

For the bÂ’day wishes!!
I printed the thread out and am pasting it in my scrapbook.

I’m sorry it took so long to get on to see them – my neighbor has had some computer probs and she’s been quite sick. In fact, I spent all night last night at the Emergency Room with her. I wanted SO BAD to just find a terminal and spend the evening (from 12:30am until 5:00 am) with YOU all …

*sigh*

Instead, I had to make do with Terry Pratchett.

I logged onto this site soon after starting my new job while still detoxing in 2006.

I was one sick woman.
But the nature of the job, and your posts and struggling kept me coming back to Soberrecovery.
You had as much to do with my staying sober as anyone Â… anywhere.

And I never hesitate to tell those in real life ...
where I go for my recovery companionship.

My sponsor told me well over a year ago that SR had become my home group. Others have talked down on my time here, saying that many people post while still drinking, many are not sincere in their sobriety, bla bla bla. Saying that cyber time isn't 'real' recovery, and all that crap.

I always answer the same way – who cares?
IÂ’m in this for MY recovery.

And YOU Â… should be as well.

I am living a new life.
Everywhere I go .. is a 'real' meeting.
Everyone I speak to ...
is a 'real' chance for fellowship.
No matter what 'they' say.

Who am I to qualify the Infinite's idea of 'real'?

I made a promise to be where the Infinite wanted me to be
in order to serve the Highest Good.
*shrug*
seems to me ... it's ALL 'real'.


SO WHAT if the person youÂ’re answering isnÂ’t sober?
ThatÂ’s the whole deal, as far as IÂ’m concerned.
SOMEONE Â… and we never know WHO or WHEN Â…
is trying.
*IS* struggling.
*IS* suffering.
And they Â… will come along and read the thread just like everyone else.

ItÂ’s none of our business who it is. Was. Will be.

The Infinite placed each and every one of us here in SR and in the rooms of AA, NA, whatever *A* Â… (insert the methodology of your own recovery here)
As surely as IÂ’m sitting here typing.
I donÂ’t believe that Â…
I know it.

There *IS* a power greater than us.
Than each of us Â…
Greater than all of us put together.
And itÂ’s alive.
ItÂ’s REAL.
ItÂ’s accessible.
And Eternal.

It gifted all of you to me at the darkest time of my life Â…
And for that, I am truly grateful.

Thank you all so much.
I love you all.

:ghug