by A Women in Sobriety | Oct 29, 2014 | Addiction Articles, Recovery
Written By: Fiona Stockard
Articles are the sole work of the individual author and do not express the opinion of Sobriety for Women.
Grateful Alcoholics Don’t Drink?
If you’re in recovery, you go to meetings. If you go to meetings, you hear corny sayings. If you hear corny sayings, you’ve heard “grateful alcoholics don’t drink.” So, by the transitive property, if you’re in recovery, you’ve heard that grateful alcoholics don’t drink.
I hate that saying, okay? It’s clichéd, shallow, corny, and worst of all, misleading! Now, before you write me off as a ranting and raving lunatic, let me explain.
Why I Hate That Saying
“Grateful alcoholics don’t drink” isn’t inherently bad. I mean, if you know the true meaning of gratitude, you probably won’t drink (or get high). Okay, sounds reasonable. Besides, gratitude is an important part of sobriety.
Here’s the thing though, the saying is used as a sort of band-aid AA. It’s right up there with “don’t drink and go to meetings,” “meeting makers make it,” “put the plug in the jug,” and “easy does it.” Hey, someone should write articles about those too!
Let me explain something very clearly. Alcoholics drink. Grateful alcoholics drink. Sober alcoholics drink. Drunk alcoholics drink. Alcoholics in any form drink. We drink because we’re alcoholic and we’re alcoholic because we drink. We drink because we don’t have a choice and we don’t have a choice because we drink.
However, once you do the work, you have a choice about whether to drink or not. Do what work?, you ask. I thought I only had to go to meetings?, you ask. Here’s the reason why “grateful alcoholics don’t drink,” and all those other sayings, suck.
Do Some Work
I didn’t get sober until I got off my butt and did some work. I sat in meetings immediately after shooting up. I relapsed over and over and over again, until the day I decided to try something different.
When I say I did some work, or that I tried something different, I’m talking about working the twelve-steps. You’d be surprised how many people go to meetings and don’t work the steps. Well, maybe you wouldn’t. Maybe you’ve sat in meetings and seen the girl nodding off.
See, AA wasn’t designed around meetings. In fact, meetings came about as an offshoot of doing step-work. Bill W., Dr. Bob, and the other original AA’s met weekly to talk about issues in their lives. They met to encourage each other and provide a safe haven for new members. They met in each other’s houses and had meetings downstairs. Upstairs, sponsor and sponsee would be working the steps together. Guess what? Everyone wanted to be upstairs. They knew that was where you started to get better.
When we first get sober (or dry, if we’re using the correct term), we sit in meetings and are literally insane. We don’t know what it is to be sane. Yeah, we’re not drinking or drugging, but we’re not better! We’re still delusional, selfish, and manipulative. Simply put, we’re still sick.
So, how do we get better? We get a sponsor and start to get in touch with a god of our own understanding. We have honest talks with our sponsor. We write down the people we don’t like. We write down our fears, our character defects, and our sexual escapades. We write down the people we’ve hurt, then we go out and make things right with those people. Simply put, we work the steps!
After Doing Some Work You Probably Won’t Drink
See, gratitude is a verb. You can’t sit in meetings and be grateful for being there. You can’t be in south Florida and be grateful for the palm trees. You can’t white-knuckle being dry and be grateful for “being sober.” No, in order to be grateful for anything you need to put the work in.
Know what I’m grateful for today? I’m grateful my parents answer the phone when I call. I’m grateful I can show up for work. I’m grateful I have friends. Know how I got those things? Well, I made amends to my parents and then stopped screwing them over. I got a job and showed up everyday, whether I wanted to or not. I talked to people and showed them, through my actions, that I was worthy of friendship.
In each of those cases, work was involved. After doing the work, and feeling the peace that came from it, I’m able to be grateful. After doing the work, I’m able to appreciate things.
So, you want to be a grateful alcoholic who doesn’t drink? Get a sponsor, work the twelve-steps, start getting in touch with god as you understand god, make things right, and show up for life. Otherwise, you’re going to get drunk.
by Fiona Stockard | Oct 27, 2014 | 12 Steps, Addiction Articles
Written By: Fiona Stockard
Articles are the sole work of the individual author and do not express the opinion of Sobriety for Women.
Meeting Makers Make It
Meeting makers make it is my least favorite phrase in AA. There I said it! If you’re anything like me, you’ve been thinking the same thing for a long time.
Is there any saying more cliché and ultimately untrue? I can’t think of any! But my opinions are just that, opinions. You know what they say – opinions are like…well you know.
So, for the sake of journalistic integrity, I’m going to hold back from going on an intense rant.
Attending twelve-step meetings is important. Attending twelve-step meetings is KEY to achieving and maintaining sobriety! It’s at meetings that we hear a message of hope. It’s at meetings that we get a sponsor and then, in the future, get sponsees. It’s at meetings that we’re able to spread the message of recovery.
All of that is vital to long-term sobriety. Notice anything missing from the above list, though? That’s right, there wasn’t anything about working the steps.
Meeting Makers Make Meetings
Meetings don’t keep us sober. Working the twelve-steps (in order and with a sponsor!) keeps us sober. Entering into a relationship with God as we understand God keeps us sober. Taking other women through the steps keeps us sober.
So, what about meeting makers? Well, they make meetings. Meeting makers experience the fellowship aspect of twelve-step recovery. Once again, this is a vital part of sobriety. Still, it doesn’t allow us to recover from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body.
To put it another way, only going to meetings never kept a needle out of my arm.
The Benefit of Going to Meetings
It’s at twelve-step meetings that the process of recovery begins. The first time I heard someone at a meeting share what was going on in my head, my jaw dropped. I was so taken aback that someone else actually knew what I was thinking and feeling! I immediately knew I was in the right place. I immediately knew these people could help me.
That’s the identification part of recovery. It’s important. After all, if I didn’t believe the steps could help me, I wouldn’t have done them. Duh! There’s more that’s needed for REAL sobriety, though.
First, I reached out to women I met in meetings. I listened to what people said. I talked to people who said things that made sense to me. I got numbers and called those numbers. Finally, I found a woman who had everything I wanted in life.
She smiled, laughed, and seemed happy. She could look other people in the eye. She had friends. I had nothing and couldn’t look anyone in the eye. I didn’t smile or laugh. I definitely wasn’t happy.
I asked this woman to sponsor me. I was sweating and shaking like I was dope sick. I was so scared she’d say no! She said yes and I got her number. I called her exactly zero times.
All of the above stuff is important. It’s needed and vital for sobriety and recovery, but it’s not enough.
My Experience
I had a bunch of meetings I hit regularly. I had sober supports. I even had a sponsor. Guess what happened? I relapsed.
See, I still had the mental obsession and spiritual malady. I hadn’t done any work on myself. I was still sick and suffering. Some people call it “stark raving sober.”
So, I relapsed. I got high for around a year. During that year, I was in and out of the rooms. I was making meetings, but I wasn’t making “it.” I was a slave to the obsession to use drugs and alcohol.
Finally, I was beat up enough. I called my sponsor and said, “I’m done. I’ll do anything you tell me to.” I meant what I said. I was so sick of living the way I was. My sponsor got me right into the steps.
Recovery in Every Sense of the Word
I started working steps and I got better. I got better FAST. Within six months, I had a spiritual experience. The obsession to drug and drink was removed. God replaced my spiritual malady. I started to sponsor other girls. For the first time in my life, I felt okay.
Would that have happened if I only went to meetings? Nope. Twelve-step literature tells us so. It doesn’t matter if you go to AA, NA, CA, GA, or any other A. They all tell us the same thing. They tell us that the real alcoholic or addict is unable to get better without a spiritual experience.
Once I started to do some work (aka the twelve-steps), I had a spiritual experience. I found a God of my own understanding. I found peace.
What about those meeting makers? Well, they’re still making meetings. I’m out in the world, living my life.
by Sally Rosa | Sep 15, 2014 | Recovery
Written By: Fiona Stockard
Articles are the sole work of the individual author and do not express the opinion of Sobriety for Women.
Same Sh*t, Different Meeting
I wasn’t involved in twelve-step recovery twenty years ago. Hell, if we go back twenty years, I was still in diapers and raising hell! I’ve heard old-timers talk about what meetings were like back in the day, though. It sounds awesome as f**k!
Imagine a twelve-step meeting where addicts and alcoholic are sharing about the solution! Imagine a twelve-step meeting where there aren’t any treatment centers rolling in fifteen minutes late. Imagine a twelve-step meeting where Jane Doe, still spiritually sick and only a few days sober, is offered hope, instead of dope! Yeah, sounds better than most of today’s meetings.
So, who’s to blame for the watering down of AA and NA? That’s a complicated question with no easy answer. However, it’s my opinion that these stupid f**king sayings play a part.
Easy Does It? Come on! How can I get better, how can I recover from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body, if I take it easy? I need to get into the work, into the twelve-steps, if I want to recover.
But Easy Does It is in The Big Book
I hear this all the time. Someone doesn’t like me trash talking Easy Does It and points to AA’s Big Book. Well Ms. Big-Book, can you tell me where Easy Does It appears? I didn’t think so.
Easy Does It appears on page 135, at the end of the chapter “The Family Afterward.” It tells the recovering alcoholic’s family to be easy on him (or her!). So, Easy Does It DOESN’T mean take years to work the steps. It DOESN’T mean to only go to meeting. It DOESN’T mean anything other than to treat situations involving family with great consideration and care.
Easy Does It? How Am I Supposed To Get Better?
Up to now, I may have been ranting. Okay, I was ranting! But why? Why do these cheesy slogans get me so worked up? Because they’re killing alcoholics, that’s why.
The idea behind Easy Does It is the same idea behind grateful alcoholics don’t drink, meeting makers make it, don’t drink no matter what, and countless other sayings. The idea is a watered down version of recovery, which doesn’t give alcoholics the proper chance to get better.
To put it another way, if us alcoholics don’t take our medicine (the twelve-steps), we don’t get better. If we don’t get better, we drink and drug ourselves to death.
See, I have a three-part disease. It’s physical, mental, and spiritual. I have a physical allergy, which means once I start drinking, I can’t stop. I have a mental obsession, which means once I start thinking of booze, I can’t stop until I drink. I have a spiritual malady, which means I have a bunch of crap inside which makes me turn to alcohol in the first place.
Through working the twelve-steps, the mental obsession and spiritual malady are removed. God as I understand God removes the mental obsession. It can return, but doesn’t as long as I stay connected to God. God also removes my spiritual malady. Through working the steps, I’m put into contact with God, who then “fills the void” where my spiritual malady was.
I’m always going to be an alcoholic and an addict. The physical allergy never leaves.
My body will always process alcohol and drugs differently than normal peoples’ bodies. If I take a drink after twenty years of being sober, I won’t be able to stop.
What I have done is recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. I’ve recovered from active alcoholism. I’ve recovered from active addiction.
It’s important to note that I’m speaking in the past tense. I’m a recovered alcoholic. The problem of active alcoholism no longer exists for me. That’s straight from the Big Book. Look it up, pages 84 and 85.
What the twelve-step and God as I understand God offer is a way to get better. Upon coming into a twelve-step fellowship, alcoholics and addicts generally don’t have that much time to recover. The mental obsession is tricky, insidious, and powerful. Without God, it comes back fast.
Case in point – how many times have you seen someone pick up a white chip, do no work, and relapse a month later? I see it almost everyday. If us alcoholics and addicts want to get better, we can’t wait around. We can’t take it easy! We simply don’t have that luxury.
So, What Should I Do?
Don’t take it easy! Get a sponsor and call your sponsor. Get into the twelve-steps. You don’t have to do them in a week, but start them right away. Write a fourth-step and share it with your sponsor in a fifth-step. Start making amends (with direction from your sponsor and sober supports!).
If you’re new in recovery and take it easy, chance are you’re going to drink. This is true for women with some sober time, too. We can’t let up on our program of action. If we do, we drink. If we drink, we die a spiritual death. It’s as simple as that.
