How Do We Stay Away From Drinking

[MajestyJo]

From "How Do We Stay away from Drinking?"


"We change ourselves, gradually, day
to day. We help other alcoholics. And,
by helping, we stay sober, sane and happy.
For the first time in our lives, we've
found real freedom. For we have broken
out of the dim prison of alcoholic
drinking that was closing in around us.
Now we are free to discover who we are,
who we hope to become, who we were meant
to be."

c. 1992, Young People and A.A.

Always a good reminder, when you are hurting, get out of self, and help someone else. Service was an important part of my recovery. I know I wouldn't have stayed sober without it.

Even if you aren't hurting, if you get a thought of someone, pick up the phone or say a prayer for them. Today, I called friend only to find that she was stressed and worried about her granddaughter who went into labour early.

I called my sister the yesterday who lived about 300 miles away from me, only to find that she had a really bad cold bordering on pneumonia. I try not to pooh who thoughts away these days, I try to offer them up in prayer, and when able, follow them up with action.

[MajestyJo]

For me it was, don't pick up just for today, go to meetings, get a sponsor, get a group, and get active in that group. It was important to get phone numbers and build a support group. I couldn't do it alone and I had to learn to pick up the phone in good times as well as in the not so good times.

I had to fill the hours with positive things. Go out in nature. Go to the library. Go to the coffee shop with recovery friends, not hang around with friends who were still using. I even had to detach from family for a while. I loved them dearly but.... My sobriety had to come first. Without that, I had nothing. Using was not an option, for me to use was to die. I had to give up everything, pill (for some of my friends pot) and food maintenance to stay sober didn't work. A drug is a drug and it takes you back to your drug of choice. The drug is but a symptom of my disease, the problem is me. As the slogan in Al-Anon says, "Let it begin with me." When I started looking at my issues, instead of those of the people, places, and things around me, I started to heal.

As the picture indicates, willing to go to any lengths and do what ever it takes to stay clean and sober in today.

[MajestyJo]

One of the ways to help stay sober is to read the literature that is available. There is the Big Book, the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions, the pamphlets, and other books like Living Sober, Came to Believe, As Bill Sees It, and so much more.

This applies to all fellowships, plus spiritual literature of your own personal faith. One old timer told me that the Big Book was his Bible and he didn't want to hear anything about religion. While others are brought back to the religion that they had left behind as a result of their alcoholism and addiction.

[MajestyJo]

Relapse prevention the Alcoholics Anonymous way is proactive action....

One form of these strategies is The AA Six Pack, which says;

•Don’t Drink
•Go to meetings
•Ask for help
•Get a sponsor
•Join a home group
•Get active (in the program)

These are practiced so as to ensure immunity, an insurance policy against the first drink.

"Don't Quit Before The Miracle Happens"...

[Leana Jo M.]

I pretty much stay away from bars/nightclubs (where I did 95% of my drinking anyway).

Go to meetings, do the Steps, & call someone if I'm having a bad day with my husband and/or negative thoughts for the day.

Exercise everyday for an hour is how I start my day right.

And meditation/prayer to my Higher Power.

[MajestyJo]

If you are in the center of AA, you won't fall off the edge.

Directions to AA: Just go straight to hell and make a U-turn.

AA: Being a part of something is more important than being the center of attention.

AA is the only place where you can walk into a room full of strangers and reminisce.
A.A. Romance......The odds are good......but the goods are odd.

AA: Look for a way in; not for a way out.

AA: We are not reformed drunks, but informed alcoholics.

AA has no fixed address--you can take it with you.

AA: We're here for a reason, not for the season.

AA Groups: An AA group will be judged by the worst behavior of its members.

AA Groups: When you clean up after your group, you leave the signature of AA behind you.

AA is a check-up from the neck up.

Before I came into AA I was dead, but I did not know enough to lie down.

AA is not a sentence, it is a reprieve.

A.A. is a self-help program but you can't do it by yourself.

AA won't keep you from going to hell nor is it a ticket to heaven but it will keep you sober long enough for you to make up your mind which way you want to go!

AA won't open the gates of heaven to let you in, but it will open the gates of hell to let you out.

In AA, there are no losers--just slow winners.

Alcoholic (as defined by self): A piece of crap the universe revolves around.

Alcoholic: Someone who refuses to give up a life of failure without a fight.

Alcoholic: A person who, when s/he goes to a wedding, wants to be the bride; when s/he goes to a funeral, wants to be the corpse.

Alcoholic: An alcoholic is someone who wants to be held while isolating.

Alcoholic: I may not be much, but I'm all I think about.

Alcoholic: If I could drink like a normal drinker, I'd drink all the time!

Alcoholic: If you drank enough to get to AA, you drank enough.

Alcohol: It provokes the desire but takes away the performance.

Only an alcoholic would believe that the solution to loneliness was isolation.

Alcoholics burn their bridges in front of them.

Alcohol: An alcoholic is someone who finds something that works and then stops doing it.

Alcohol: It's not what or how much you drank, it's what it did to you.

Alcohol: What you thought was the solution became the problem.

Alcoholic: Terminal uniqueness!

Alcoholic: They didn't make a glass big enough for me to have one drink.

Alcohol: You will be rich when you know you have enough.

Alcoholic drinking's three stages: impulsive ... compulsive ... repulsive.

Each and every alcoholic ---sober or not--- teaches us some valuable lessons about ourselves and recovery.

An alcoholic alone is slumming.

An alcoholic is not a guy who thinks he's had one too many.

He's usually the guy who thinks he's had one too few.

Every alcoholic's favorite brand: More!

If you think you are an alcoholic, chances are, you are.

Alcoholics heal from the outside in...but feel from the inside out.

The destiny of every alcoholic is to be locked up ... covered up ... or ... sobered up.

An alcoholic is a man with two feet firmly planted in mid-air.

You can carry the message, but not the alcoholic.

You're probably an alcoholic if: You think spilling beer is alcohol abuse.

Alcoholics are in a class by themselves. Everyone else has graduated.

Alcoholics are life-long loners who cannot stand to be alone.

Non-alcoholics change their behavior to meet their goals and alcoholics change their goals to meet their behavior.

Alcoholics aren't afraid to die. They're afraid to live.

Alcoholism: Alcohol went from being my best friend to my worst enemy.

Alcoholism: An alcoholic can be in the gutter, yet still look down on people.

Alcoholism: Guilt of yesterday, fear of tomorrow, shame of today.

Alcoholism: High bottoms have trap doors.

Alcoholism: If the cure works, chances are, you have the disease.

Alcoholism: If you drank long enough to get to an A.A. meeting, you drank long enough.

Alcoholism: Name it, Claim it, Tame it!!!

Alcoholism: Once you are a pickle, you can't be a cucumber. But once you are a pickle, you can be a newcomer.

Alcoholism is an equal opportunity destroyer.

Remember that alcoholism is .. incurable, progressive, and fatal.

Alcoholism: The three most dangerous words for an alcoholic -"I've been thinking"

Alcoholism: We are not bad people becoming good, but sick people becoming well.

Alcoholism: Your bottom just may be six feet under.

Alcoholism: Your disease progresses even when you are not drinking.

Alcoholism doesn't come in bottles; it comes in people.

Alcoholism is a self-diagnosed disease.

Some people think alcoholism is a two-fold disease -- more and right now.

Some pause for thought, I know I have read this before and yet, don't remember reading the following line before. It is strange how you can read something, and it becomes new or it is something you need to read and address it anew.

Alcoholism doesn't come in bottles; it comes in people.