Hello, I've been sober 1 year, 1 month.
I'll spare the story and I'll just say that after 20 years of drinking "on again, off again" from teenage years into my 30s, it got progressively worse each time I was "on" again. I was never a daily drinker, just drank in binges. Was never in a recovery program, institutionalized, arrested, etc. I was lucky to avoid all of that. There were just very few fun drinking stories and many more "I woke up to a horrible scene, did something truly embarrassing, ruined a relationship or nearly had the balls to kill myself" stories as time went on.
I tried AA after a low-point where I didn't really have any in-person connections or people that trusted me. I had the fears of "it's a cult" going in, but also didn't really have anything to lose. It's not a cult. Nobody forced me to do anything. Nobody forced their specific church down my throat, though I am a believer and started taking faith more seriously. Everything I did and do is the result of my own action, and I'm free to stop showing up or making/taking phone calls at any time I desire.
Some rooms are great, some suck. If you tried it once and didn't like it, try a different meeting. Some meetings are like a knitting club for old people, some have a younger crowd, some follow the Big Book exclusively, some ignore it or large parts of it entirely. It's all run by volunteers who craft a tailored experience that is whatever the group wants out of it, so don't be put off if the first one seems off. There's a not insignificant chance that it is a warped vision of AA.
The main thing is that it helps to talk to other self-identified alcoholics who have a desire to stop drinking (and all other drugs). It helps me, and it helps them, whether they have more time or less being sober than myself.
The sticking points:
- Anonymity and respecting anonymity is easy for me as a long-term denizen of the internet, but part of dealing with character defects is living a congruent, honest life. And that means being accountable for every action, even those made in the security of "privacy". Being able to be entirely open and honest about every part of my life with other people was difficult for a long time because I just spent long stretches of being a degenerate scrolling the internet. And I would lie about how I spent my time or what I was doing most days. But I've since (step 4) given an account of my worst to more than a few people, including priests. It's relieving to drop all the "I'm taking this to the grave" parts of my life.
- As said, some meetings really suck. The worst are ones where old people show up to bitch and complain every single week, and they offer no hope or personal accounts of what they've changed for the better in their life (other than another day spent sober). "Dry drunks" do not help newly sober people. In order to be a benefit to yourself and others, you have to change what drove you to being a miserable drunk, or you will be a miserable sober person. Be willing to travel an hour or two out of your way to find good meetings where people are talking about improvements in life.
- The God problem is easy for me, but I see so many people get scared off or pick and choose what steps they'll follow. They're much smarter than all of the God-dummies, you see, and they have to let everyone know. The important thing is just dropping the mentality that you are the center of the universe, and that you are a small thing. There is a larger presence that you can and should choose to participate in for the benefit of yourself and others.
- It's never cured, the alcohol problem. The things that made me drink just slowly come back when I start getting lazy and falling into old patterns and behaviors. I have to wake up and plan my day in an ordered way, and go to sleep reflecting on what I could have done better that day.
I don't know the point of this post, I've just been lurking and figured I'd share after reading some of the same reservations about AA that I myself had in the past.
