"Read alcoholics don't have cravings" says AA frie

Well done Deirdre. Thank you.

PS. An old addiction counselor actually told me that joke.

I am too biased I think, My dad is a recovering alcohol of 21 years (well let's say 20 now because now he taken to taking nips of Nyquil even though he won't admit it). Anyway I was 17 when he started going to AA and there were no other optins at that time. He went to rehab for 30 days and the started going to AA meetingmaybe twice a day in the beginnig and while he was in rehab the family was going to Alanon meeting. pain in the ass for a 17 year old girl whose mom was just diagnosed with a brain tumour but that diagnoses made him go over the age (but he drank our entire lives and was quite abusive to us).

Over the course of the next several years I would attend his anniversary meetings, 90 days, one year 2 years, etc, he would get pins and angels and what not. He would tell his story (never th whole story) and everyone would say aww and you go Mike and this and that, the room was filled with cigarette smoke. The I'd hear frightening stories of other people, like nothing I've heard on here, and nothing someone my age should have been listening to frankly in a really gross room that smelled of 3 hour old coffee and was foogy with cigs.

Anyway we noticed a change in my dad but it wasn't a good one. He never came home, he just hung out with these people all the time, he bought a 10 speed and took up biking, was on the phone a lot . And we was still th same judgemental f-er he was before he was just "sober' and pissed that my mom was sick and that h had to deal with this situation so he escaped from it anyway. He became very selfish and I found it to be a very selfish program, it was all me me me I have to take care of myself first and my sobriety, meanwhile my mom is laid out on the sofa with a brain tumour and he is going out for bike rides with people we barely knew and I suspected he was cheating which is a big no no in AA ( think he past the no no stage in the AA handbook though). My mom grew more resentful of him and they had a huge fight and he became physical of her (which he never really did before he only did with us to my knowledge) and he spit in her face and hit her in her head, and this was a woman who lived in agony with horrible head pain so I came running out and she told me what happened and he left the room. he went into him and called him a bastard for doing that and then he clocked me in the eye and gave me a black eye. The next day my big brother called my father in the a.m. and told him that if he didn't leave willingly he make him leave for him, because the entire night before I kept telling him to get out and he kept telling me, "you don't tell ME what to do". That was the night my mom out I smoked (lol). Anyway this is why I hated AA. it had turned out all along my suspicions were true, he moved out and right into another AA woman's apt, and my mom died about a year later because he was too weak and selfish to stick it out and do it. I was 23 and had to work two jobs and about a month before she died I quit both of them because my older brother moved back in to help me. My oldest brother has not spoken to him since then (1992), I spoke to him about 4 years later and now we are estarnged again because of this Nyquil this which is a whole other story. This is why I hate AA.Sorry it was such a long story.
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Patty,

I completely appreciate your story. I have no experience personally with AA (except one women's meeting I went to many years ago with someone. That was ok), but I have the feeling it is a me, me, me, thing as you said. My sobriety first and f... you. Although they are supposed to make amends aren't they? I guess some use it as an excuse as your dad did. Now I can understand your anger at him.

Let me share this: I said before I have a disabled son (though he's much better now). But when he was at his sickest, I could barely stand to live and that's when I began drinking. I went to an analyst/psychiatrist for two years. He taught me one thing that really saved my life: learn to separate or compartmentalize the bad thing in your life so that it doesn't become the snowball at the center and keep on picking up everything else, merging with it, until you have a big ball of bad. I was finally able to do that. I can enjoy the parts of my life to be enjoyed. I still like that bottle of wine, but I could have been far, far worse. I think now it is about changing my body/brain chemistry as they say here.

Thanks all for your wise comments. Yes, it is all about semantics. My AA friend who is a poor person living in a wealthy area keeps mentioning how wealthy her AA people are. Like who cares? But obviously she thinks this is a better class of drunk? To a degree I understand because where she was before they had a lot of court-mandated cases who were scary. Oh, well. I hope I can do it here, guys, and not have to go to that organization.

Ned/Ivy

Wow Patty, I knew, you had metioned a bit about your Father, before, but my God. That breaks my heart, reading your story.:( You must have an incredibly strong spirit...
Not that I don't appreciate my Family... but hearing something like that, sure can put things in perspective, as far as enjoying what we've got. Thank you.:o

Ned,
How did you learn to isolate the bad thing so it wasn't at the center any more. I think all of us could learn from this, would you mind sharing?

Somebody is out of their gourd here. I didn't start drinking because of cravings, but I can tell the world that I didn't stop because of cravings, yes, I said cravings and more cravings. If I didn't have these horrible cravings every time I have tried to quit on my own, I wouldn't be here today spilling my guts to everyone on this site, and RJ probably would never have written her book. E.

What makes us all start is one thing, and the one thing we all have in common is to keep on going. You know that nice fuzzy toasy feeling after say, 2 or 3 glasses of wine ( or 2 glass of the harder stuff??). My "normal" friends say ok guus must go home now to hubby and have din din or don't want to miss a TV show or something. Our brains our wired differently and I think for the the most part we inherited it. We want to to be numb and plastered. Well at least we used to be until we came here!

I've been up all night because of my daughter's diagnosis and the horrible timing of the letter to my dad (same day). My hubby's friend from NJ came by today to help him collect some bins of my daughter's clothing and some other things from their apt but his friend was running late so I asked my brother to let them know. At around the time hubby's friend was supposed to come the doorbell rang and we looked at each other like "wow Rob's is super erailer than he said he's be". It turned out to be my stepmom and my coward dad stayed in the car , meanwhile the huge bins and a whole bunch of of large toys were right next to her so she waited to ring the bell until after he got back in the car, LOSER!

HI,
It's hard to say exactly how I learn to isolate the bad thing so it wouldn't be at the center and collect everything else. It was over two years of therapy. OK, I'll give it a try.

Here is an analogy I used to help change my thinking: we are all blades of grass. Sometimes one gets crushed. It might be the one next to you, your child. This is awful but you, too, are only a blade of grass and cannot raise any other blades back up. Maybe you can offer comfort and shade by being taller, stronger, but you are still only a blade in a universe of fragile grass. You are in only a small spot of a great lawn. This seems like the whole world to you. But you do have consciousness--the ability to understand that there is a whole universe/lawn. Picture yourself having an out of body experience--as if you are lifted up to the sky and can now see the whole lawn. All those blades of grass, barely distinguishable. It would be foolish and arrogant to assume that you have power over what happens there. We are not gods. Hold onto that overview. Don't let your world dwindle to just you and the close blades of grass. Liberate yourself like a balloon and see the whole. A bent blade is no one's fault, it is just nature. We are part of nature and not in control of it. So float free as much as you can.

I hope this makes some sense to you.

Wow Ivy THAT IS BEAUTIFUL!! thank you.. that's gonna go on my fridge! Hope ya don't mind! Hugs, Judie