New Here

Hi everyone, I am new to the Addictions Message Board. I am also newly on the journey of WLS. I had my initial consultation on June 1. I found OH the following weekend. I have been hanging around in the Pennsylvania Forum since then. I am Trish and I am an alcoholic. My sobriety date is September 26, 2001. My first AA meeting was in October 1989. In addition to being a middle school teacher in Philadelphia, PA, I am also a therapist part time at a psychiatric hospital. I look forward to when I can practice social work full time. I look forward to getting to know you all better. Hugs, Trish

Welcome Trish, We have a nice group of posters going here. I have been going to NA a little over 2 yr. Needed to do something after my wls!!!! If you have read the old posts it explains my journey. 12 steps are a marvelous tool to apply to your post op recovery. I personally can't separate the two in my journey. I like to think of my addictions to everything as my baggage and wls and 12 steps as the wheels that I strap onto it and take it along with me or I could carry the heavy bags on my back. Wheels are better. I hooe you hang around and post. It is alot more fun and helpful when people participate. Laurie

Hi Laurie, Thanks for the welcome. You are so right about the 12 steps being the answer to life in general. Since I started in AA and OA back in 1989, I have been incorporating all of the steps in my life in everything, as it says in the 12th step. I love going to AA meetings and seeing the newcomers and giving them hope. I also love working with recovering people in my two part time jobs. Great to be here. Trish

I was Miss quasi popular but very smart, adventurous, lived overseas 13 years, travelled the world, married a Singaporean, cutting edge MBE in business w/ a I am the only girl in the entire school of boys Mechanical Engineer B.S. (echoes of Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront " I cuuda been a contendah!) Do you think I wanted to become Secretary of an AA meeting ( I was student secretary!) or have my social life revolve in part around AA events? Nooo. NO..Oooooh>>>ohhhh! I wasn't raised religious I went to Christian school, but was never taken to church, saw too much overseas, and knowing that hubby was a much better person than I, he would not be refused admittance to heaven because he didn't follow Christ (sorry hardliners...respect your position, maybe you're "right", we all find out path) What AA is giving me is coping skills, how to live life on life terms (I'm currently freaking out about kids. EVERYBODY has this same thing happen when they have teens! Should I get on the pity pot, think I am unique, this is a crisis...oh, must drink?) I don't socialize w/ AA people, except at aa events. We are anonymous and we have different lives. I am a techie going to a mountin Deadhead community, where all of the people have known each other for generations and there is no hiding. I have lived in So. California. overseas and am incognito. There is nothing but hiding in my world. Upper class white country club, debutante. If you don't want a story, click off now. My very first AA meeting, I went to this house in Ben Lomond which was owned by Johnny Weismueller, the very first Tarzan, in the midst of the Redwoods. Couches and skanky chairs everywhere. I walked in, scared, with my 6 mos old baby and my 1 1/2 year old. The first thing I saw was Hank: almost 400 for sure, leather chaps, jacket, chains, tatoos, long greasy hair, scary as hell and I thought...Oh **** these are REALLY alcoholics! I sat in the back of the room, trying to be inconspicuous as we all do at first. Midway I had to go to the loo, so I gathered up my kids and headed towards the ladies. The secretary, Julie, who I now know as a renowned trawler for men, came out and confronted me saying that this was her private time and I shouldn't bring kids. This was despite the preamble that kids were welcome. The kids didn't even know what anyone was saying!!! I left after that, halfway through. crying, almost even not able to drive, because I knew this was the last stop for me. I hadn't had a dui or legal consequences, but I was sick of waking up, painfully doing the minimum, setting my kids in front of Barney, and looking occassionally through one eye to make sure they were OK. I later heard from a lady who said she accidentally set her house on fire, and I am sad to say, I could see the possibility. Anyway, I was desperate. Shamed as I was, I found another meeting and went again. This time I went in, defeated, embarrassed, and sat down with my 2 kids. About 5 min later, a woman came up to me and asked "May I take your children outside so you can concentrate on the meeting instead of worrying about your kids?" And THAT was my first real meeting. I do not know who she is, she never tried to make an obligation, she just was there when I needed it, and unbeknownst to her, she changed my entire family's life. Had I met with distancing or hostility that day, I would not have come back. I haven't been perfect. 11 years, 2 relapses. I was convinced at first that could NEVER happen to me. And hopefully, it won't happen to you. Somebody said something that really struck me. I love drinking, I would happily drink, but I am jutst too goddamned unwilling and tired to suffer the onsequences. Is that what they what they mean by bottom? Let's see.. National Meriot Scholar, top three in the US, designated to be the representative for Sino-US relationships via student exchange in a not so happy mid-70's period, World Mktg Mgr for the second biggest Asain component company in the world. Owner of a Pacific/ Asia manufacturer's reperesentative comapny. Made bucks, very popular lady in Asia. Drunk, embarrassed, fat to the point of non-involvement, feeling self-pity over what could have been, self-loathing of what I had become. Lost myself. Donna Reid syndrome has a lot to do with it. We got transferred to Japan where I was non-existant, couldn't get a work visa, no TV, radio, newspaper, other foreigners, and hubby was away M_F, Japanese ladies not allowed to talk to foreigners (Geisha district, very expensive, very proper in a way you can't imagine!) Stll, I had to be a good wife and serve my husband. It wasn't until mu Chinese Singaporean girlfriend lashed out and told me I was too f'ing Chinese, even more than they were, that I realized what I had let myself become enmeshed with. Ugh. M.E., M.B.A., business owner throughout Asia, fat, 370 pounds, 2 babies, Japan. no identity!! Good Lord, life has a way of snaking itself around you when you least expect it. I am happy with where I am at, but there is a long and, I hope, wonderful and curious journey ahead. More installments later! Business owner of

I can relate to feeling too smart for AA. When I first started attending meetings, I was in grad school for a counseling degree. I quit then because it was either grad school or my sobriety. I chose sobriety. I put together over 8 years sober, but then my marriage deteriorated, and I found a different program, one without meetings. It was online. My husband left me in 2001, and my drinking really took off then. This time, I was just going back to grad school to get a Masters in Social Work, because when I grow up I want to be a psychotherapist. So, in September 2001, I went back to AA and got sober again. Shortly thereafter, my 19 year old son came home from college strung out on heroin. Not a pretty sight. I did continue in graduate school, doing internships at rehabs and halfway houses, and turning in major research papers on alcoholism in women and recovery issues. Now, I am awaiting my social work license, which is on hold because I had to get a drug and alcohol screening due to my sobriety date not being more than five years ago. Some people told me I should have lied on the application, but I have this thing about honesty and ethics. Program says we are as sick as our secrets. So, this weekend, I am just chilling out, waiting for my foot to heal and hoping I don't have an emotional relapse on this Vicodin. I need to get a new sponsor. I have not worked with a sponsor in three years. I was too busy to do any program work while in grad school. Now, I need some accountability because sometimes I get too busy to get to meetings. (Excuses, excuses). Sorry to babble. I am just dealing with some heavy duty loneliness, as my kids are all grown and live far away, and my ex is now remarried. Hugs, Trish

Hi Trish,Im someone who posts here often Im someone who has switched additions from food to alcohol... i comehere to share whats happening tome I look forward to more posts from you ~Bethany

Hi Bethany, Thanks for the welcome. I have been in recovery for alcoholism and food addiction since 1989. I used to go to OA, but found they drove me nuts with their obsession over food plans. I do participate in AA and have been sober almost five years now. Do you go to AA? It is a great program, which I love dearly. Thanks for your post. Trish

Hi Bethany, It is good to see you posting! How is it going? Laurie