Why AA Meetings Work

So I haven't blogged in a while because we've been busy with our new addition to the family who is now 7 weeks old! Little baby boy!  Love, love him. But the strain for the last 7 weeks has been hard. I feel like I am constantly in HALT - Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired. And I've had drinking cravings.

My head thinks that things will be easier if I could have a drink. The thoughts are so strong that I even, almost, bought wine coolers. I thought that it maybe a safe way not to get drunk, I could just sip them all day long. Haha, that never happened! I never just sipped, in the end I always got drunk!
So I am a bit tired and overwhelmed and grouchy.

I decided that it was time to get to a meeting.

I love meetings. They bring me back to reality. Especially when there is a newcomer. I get to remember how it used to be; so lonely and hopeless, a total despair. So I listen. And then I am grateful again. Because I know. None of this would be possible if I was still drinking. And sipping wine coolers is not the solution at all. I have better solution now, that is AA. It keeps me grounded and sane. It's my higher power. And it works.

So I am still tired and bit overwhelmed. But I am sober and that's all that matters!

A Better Way to Live

Mother's day was a bit strange. Bittersweet I guess. I thought about how I dealt with her being sick when I was drinking. It was bad, I just got drunk, pushed the feelings down into my gut and pretended that it was not happening. And I drank, made excuses for my behavior, and hurt people. No one questioned my behavior, they just assumed that I was dealing with it the best I could.

And I guess I was doing the best I could, because I had no idea that there was another way. I mean isn't that what you see others do? TV is the worst. People get drunk anytime there is something bad going on.

But I come to AA and I get sober and I learn a new life, along with new skills. So when mothers day come and I was feeling down I knew exactly what to do. I reached out for help. I talked to people and went to meetings. I and still amazed that drinking did not enter my mind. That I found a better way to cope, that I was able to get thru the day and turn it into a positive experience.

The Mental Obsession.

I don't often have a lot of free time on my hands. Why? It's not cause I can't have any. It's because I intentionally avoid it. It seems that when I have too much free time, my mind automatically tries to fathom some elaborate plan to drink.

In the past I actually drank many times after creating these elaborate plans. Except the plans never ended quite right. The plan always started with trying to secretly get drunk and then sober up before I had to do whatever I needed to do later.  It always made sense; I could drink till like 3p, then have 2 hours to sober up and pick up my kids. Yes that sounded perfect, but it never ended that way; I would continue to drink and not be able to pick up my kids, or go to work, or meet someone. It was very clear that when I stared drinking I never knew what would happen.

Yet I worked really hard on making these crazy plans. I think this is part of the mental obsession that the AA literature talks about. It only seem to have made sense to me, no one else. And it absolutely made no sense. Who does that? Alcoholics that's who!! Normal people don't think about drinking in the way we do. Normal people don't create plans to drink and get away with it. Normal people don't drink like us. They do not have the mental obsession like I do. 

But in sobriety I don't have to do any of this. I can make better decisions. I have choices!