AA people????

Hi! My name is Leslie and I am an alcoholic. I have been sober since October 4, 2005. 

ANyone here?? I have been looking for an AA board not thinking MENTAL HEALTH! Duh! To me I am normal!  LOL

Anyway, I wanted to talk to those who are on this journey with our specific and unique situations.  I have healing my emotional self and now it is my physical self I am getting ready to take care of. I have surgery on the 25th of June and I am so excited!! 

Lets chat!
Leslie

Hi  Leslie,
I'm coming up on on one year - June 18th.  It feels wonderful.  I love becoming sober.  I am pretty active in AA, although I work 2 jobs and chase 4 kids.  Would love to chat with you anytime.  I also have alot of emotional healing - major trauma - to work through.  Don't know why it just started up.  My drinking career wasn't long - about 18 months, but long enough to cause me trouble.  I absolutely love the people in AA - they are true friends.
Kathy

Hi Leslie.. 

Been sober myself since 11-2006.  This board use to be the Addictions Board and changed to Mental Health a little bit ago.  But some wonderful people on here in all walks of their journey.. mental and physcial.. and BOTH

Glad you found us!!

Rhonda

Hi Leslie,

Congratulations on your sobriety AND your upcoming surgery date!! This is a great board for support!! You've come to the right place for sure!!!

Hugs,
Marie

I am not a member of AA but I am recovering.. I was sober for 15 years and recently started back up.. I am currently on day 22.. I hit rock bottom and finally understood that if we don't take control of our issues we are destined to repeat them..  I am currently working on controling them.. Another great piece of advice that I have learned is that I can not control other people's action merely my reactions.. I reacted the wrong way to an issue and I hurt myself and no one else.. Please understand that it will be a tough journey because you will no longer have food to comfort you but you do have the people on the board..  May the good man above be with you on your journey.. PEACE

I myself am not an Alcoholic, but my father became one after the death of my mother in 2001, and we just recently lost him in October 2008.  It was very hard watching a man that I thought was Superman as a little kid just deteriorate over the years. 

I've done my fair share of Al-Anon meetings in the past, and I still get scared sometimes that if I get depressed one day, that I might turn to the bottle and never look back. 

I hope you'll let me in to your discussion because even though it's a major disease, it's something that  you can overcome, and I would love everyone's insight.

hi, i am ejjy, and i will confess i am a drunk and a drug addict.  i've been sober since february of 1991 with the help of AA and some excellent therapists, and the gift of desperation.  keep it green.

Hi Ramon!! I've seen your post! I also visited your web page. Very inspiring!!

Kelly, I love al-anon people!! What a way to get my butt kicked!! LOL  I am so concerned about having narcotics after surgery. I enlisted the aid of my mother and my friend who is also a nurse to 'dispense' meds to me. I know that my faith is strong in my higher power, just remember to breathe and pray is what I tell myself all the time!! We can talk anytime.

ejjay, It is so nice to meet you!! Its good to know others. Some of the people in my meetings tell me I don't need the surgery, I just need OA.  I know I am powerless over food!!  But I can't not eat between meetings.....Oh well.  I like the route I have chosen.

Hugs to those who have replied to my post!!

Leslie

one thing i've learned is that just because two problems look similar, doesn't mean they have the same origin.  i have a number of both physical and mental health issues that are so overlapping it's nearly impossible to isolate what causes which.

if you need a 12-step program for food, you will find out.  you will get plenty of dogmatic people in AA (and any other program you look into).  when i hear dogmatism, i hear fear.  the 12-steps are not about control and are not about being close-minded.  i say, listen for the ring of truth and know it is personal and real, and it's not the same for everyone.  the wonderful thing about the 12-steps is that they open up the field to nearly any solution that works for anyone.  look at step 9, about making amends.  what is an amends?  it means to fix, to change, to make restitution.  it doesn't prescribe what those actions should be.  

when i got sober, i was acting out addictively in EVERY area of my life.  i was in every 12-step program known to humankind that i could jam into my day.  i did therapy, a lot of it.  many people in AA told me not to do that.  based on what? their interpretation of the 12 steps?  fortunately i didn't care what anyone thought.  i hung with the winners, i trusted the people my gut told me to trust, because that ear for the ring of truth told me what i needed to do to survive.  and it has never let me down because i am as honest as i can be, and because i want it, pure and simple.  i wantd to live, and i knew i would otherwise die.  and here i am almost twenty years later, and my life has changed beyond recognition, and i am damned grateful for that.

but do i still see everything - EVERYTHING - in a 12-step model?  have some of my behaviors changed and improved on their own, as a result of recovery from my primary addictions, from my crippling depression and codependcy?  you bet they have.

OA is an AWESOME program but like any program it's not the right solution for every single person who comes along.  and you and only you can be the judge of that.  if the shoe fits, wear it.  if you aren't sure, and you want to be safe, do it.

my personal .02 is read the literature of the program carefully and thoroughly, because otherwise all you have to go on is what people in the program say about it, and many of them have never really studied it or bothered to put it into practice, they just like to sound important and get a thrill out of influencing or controlling other people.  you have to decide in the end what you want out of AA.  i promise you will get it.  you may have to pay a price, but you will get it.  when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

I was in a nutritional class when we talked about the post-op meds, and the dietician said that they only give us a small amount of the narcotic for pain, and mine is going to be Lortab elixer, I believe... the paperwork is at home and I can confirm that when I get off work.  It's really only enough for about 2-3 days worth, from what I gathered.  And I'm going to do my darndest to not use it, but I was told to not be a hero  

I admire you, Leslie, for asking your mom and your friend to aid you in this.  Many people I know wouldn't ask for help like that, and it takes a lot of willpower to ask for help :)  Hugs to you!