Powerlessness and Alcohol Addiction Help

“If a mere code of morals or a better philosophy of life were sufficient to overcome alcoholism many of us would have recovered long ago. But we found that such codes and philosophies did not save us no matter how much we tried. We could wish to be moral, we could wish to be philosophically comforted, in fact, we could will these things with all of our might, but the needed power wasn’t there. Our human resources, as marshaled by the will, were not sufficient; they failed utterly. Lack of power that was our dilemma. We had to find a power by which we could live, and it had to be a power greater than ourselves. obviously. But where and how were we to find this power? Well, that’s exactly what this book is about. Its main object is to enable you to find a power greater than yourself which will solve your problem.” – Pg.44 We Agnostics from the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous

We have tried many times to get sober on will power alone only to fail over and over again. It is not until we are beaten down and surrender that we can then be truly open to receiving alcohol addiction help. If we want to recover we learn that we must rely upon a power greater than ourselves in order to be freed from our seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. We found that if we wanted it bad enough the tools along with our own concept of a higher power could be found through the help of 30 day rehab programs, AA, drug addiction detox, as well as other programs. It is through the continuous use of these tools as well as a conscious contact with our higher power that we can go on to live an amazingly happy, joyous, and free life.

Happiness and Continuously Working the Steps

“The less people tolerated us, the more we withdrew from society from life itself. As we became subjects of king alcohol, shivering denizens of his mad realm, the chilling vapor that is loneliness settled down. It thickened, ever becoming blacker. Some of us sought out sordid places, hoping to find understanding, companionship, and approval momentarily we did then would come oblivion and the awful awakening to face the hideous four horsemen terror, bewilderment, frustration, despair. Unhappy drinkers who read this page will understand! Now and then a serious drinker, being dry at the moment says, ”I don’t miss it at all. Feel better. Work better. Having a better time.” As ex-problem drinkers we smile at such a sally. We know our friend is like a boy whistling in the dark to keep up his spirits. He fools himself. Inwardly he would give anything to take half a dozen drinks and get away with them. He will presently try the old games again, for he isn’t happy about his sobriety.” – Pg.152 from a vision for you from the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous

It is imperative that we continuously work the steps. For us alcoholics becoming complacent with step work will mean that we will end up like the boy whistling in the dark. No matter how hard we try when we are dry and not working a program we are unable to keep up our spirits. We become restless irritable and discontent and there is little hope unless we turn it over and do the work. It’s one thing to seek out alcohol addiction help. It’s another to go the extra mile and actually apply the principles to our lives. Weather we go to a 30 day rehab, AA, or drug addiction detox we must continue working on ourselves or we will surely drink. These places are not a cure all, or a quick fix. Sobriety is something that a) we must participate in and b) we must continuously work on in order to continue growing. If we keep at this we can go on to live a happy and healthy life.

Sobriety and Spiritual Awakening

“The greatest gift that can come to anybody is a spiritual awakening. Without doubt this would be the certain verdict of every well-recovered alcoholic in AA’S entire fellowship. So, then, what is this “spiritual awakening,” this “transforming experience”? How can we receive it and what does it do? To begin with, a spiritual awakening is our means of finding sobriety. And to us of AA sobriety means life itself. We know that a spiritual experience is the key to survival from alcoholism and that for most of us it is the only key. We must awake or we die…Little by little I woke up to the possibility that God hadn’t put me on earth  for the purpose of getting all the money, prestige, and romance that I could lay my hands on. I finally had to face the fact that I would have to settle for less, a lot less. And If I couldn’t accept this, I’d probably get drunk again”. –pg. 232-235 from The Language of the Heart

As it states in our 12th step “Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all of our affairs”. This means that it is highly unlikely to have the kind of spiritual awakening they are referring to in the language of the heart without first asking for alcohol addiction help, getting sober either through a drug addiction detox, AA, or some sort of 30 day rehab program, and working the steps. Furthermore without working the steps and having some sort of spiritual awakening we cannot carry the message to others. After all, we cannot transmit something we haven’t got. If we stop carrying the message to others as well as discontinue working the steps we as a fellowship will perish and without any solution we would surely lose the battle against alcoholism individually as well. When we first get sober many of us want the “stuff”. The house, job, family, and perfect life seem to be a driving factor for most of us but the longer we stay sober we realize as a result of a spiritual awakening that it’s no longer what sobriety is all about for us. We are here to greet the world and live life on an altruistic and spiritual plane.

The Alcoholic and Feelings of Inferiority

“Just 10 years ago my own mother, after years of bewilderment, lost hope. Long a chronic problem drinker, I had come to the jumping-off place. A very good doctor had pronounced the grim sentence; “obsessive drinker, deteriorating rapidly – hopeless. “The doctor used to talk about my case somewhat like this: “yes, Bill has underlying personality defects…great emotional sensitivity, childishness, and inferiority.”  This very real feeling of inferiority is magnified by his childish sensitivity and it is this state of affairs which generate in him that insatiable, abnormal craving for self – approval and success in the eyes of the world. Still a child he cries for the moon….discovering alcohol, he found much more in it than normal folks. To him alcohol is no mere relaxation; it means release-release from inner conflict….As one who knows me a little, you may have heard how, ten years ago, a friend, himself a liberated alcoholic, came to me bearing the light which finally let me out of the toils. There will come a day like that for you and yours.” – Pg.101-102 from The Language of the Heart

 

If you have battled alcoholism then you can probably relate to the above writing. Most of us do indeed experience the childishness, sensitivity, inferiority, and we definitely can identify with finding much more in alcohol than others do. It is a release for us. With that being said prior to receiving alcohol addiction help booze was also our prison. We could not stop ourselves. As you can tell Bill W. struggled with this disease, and felt just as hopeless as we do before getting sober. Just like bill we can recover too. With the help of a drug addiction detox, AA, and/or a 30 day rehab program we all have the opportunity to be released from our toils. We can overcome this disease and go on to live the kind of happy, joyous, and free life we were meant to.

Sobriety Maintenance Post Rehab

Maintaining an addiction to drugs or alcohol is not only unethical and illegal in many cases, but also detrimental to the family dynamic, financial stability, health, and happiness. Following your stay at Above It All treatment center, you may find it difficult to avoid situations and people from your past that encourage your addictive behaviors. In this entry, we will provide you with a few tips to help ensure sobriety following rehab.

1 – Keep in close communication with family members when a craving arises. Family is typically the best means of council when one of these episodes occurs. Avoid turning to friends if at all possible. Keep in mind, that friends may be limited in their commitment to helping you overcome your negative behaviors. With family, however, members will generally go much further to ensure help is provided. Pick out a close family member whom you can trust, and rely on when temptations become tough.

2 – Work on your self-discipline. Know that family members and other types of outcry witnesses will not always be available 24/7. By practicing self-discipline, you will be better able to cope with issues on a solitary basis, and for extended periods of time. When a craving presents itself, remember to take a deep breath, and remember that you don’t need to indulge. Once you have said “no” once, the idea will begin rooting in your mind, and the process will become much easier. Another way to deter yourself from relapse is remembering the legal consequences of your actions. One more high is never worth ruining your life over.

3 – Avoid situations and people that revolve around your addiction. Those who still use drugs or alcohol will often be of little help when the time comes for you to quit. If your friends truly care about you and your decision to quit your addiction, they will make efforts to include you in activities and events that do not involve drugs or alcohol.

4 – Write about your feelings. A recovery journal will work to place your progress into perspective, while giving you something to reference when temptations come to a head. Write daily, and write honestly.

5 –  Think back to the activities you enjoyed before the addiction. Pick up an instrument, join a gym, or dive into your favorite author. Though life can be difficult to visualize without addiction, once you begin filling your schedule, you’ll wonder how you ever lived life fully before.

6 – Keep in touch! If you ever feel the need, our Above It All counselors are always available to take your call. Grab the phone and contact us with any questions, concerns or updates you may have. Recovery is never an easy road to follow; Call us if you require any additional direction.

The Importance of Safe Detox

“Despite the general effectiveness of the AA program, we often need the help of friendly agencies outside of AA. Nowhere is this more strikingly true than in the field of hospitalization. Most of us feel that ready access to hospitals and other places of rest and recuperation borders on absolute necessity. While many an alcoholic has somehow gotten over his bender without medical aid, and while a few of us old the view that the hard “cold turkey “ method is the best, the vast majority of AAs believe the newcomer whose case is at all serious has a much better chance of making the grade if well hospitalized at the outset. Indeed, we see many cases where recoveries without medical help would seem virtually impossible, mentally so beclouded have they become, even when temporarily sober. The primary purpose of hospitalization is not to save our prospect the pain of getting sober; its real purpose is to place him in the state of greatest possible receptivity to our AA program. Medical treatment clears his brain, takes away his jitters, and if it is done at a hospital he is kept there under control so that everybody knows just where and when he can be visited. Moreover the atmosphere of most hospitals is extremely conducive to a good first presentation of AA.” –pg.51 from The Language of the Heart

Back when this was written in 1947 they didn’t really have 30 day rehab programs, sober livings, or drug addiction detoxes available like they do now. If you were in need of that kind of alcohol addiction help then you usually wound up in the hospital being detoxed. It was a time when bringing booze to a 12 step call was not unheard of, and the options were limited. Perhaps it was due to lack of information about this disease. Looking back through articles such as this one written in the language of the heart it is easy to see not only how much we have grown, how far we have come, or how much more information is available to us these days but mainly its clear as day that we are truly blessed and have so many more options available to us. Today we don’t have just AA, church, or hospitalization to choose from. There are many other programs out there and we all have a fighting chance to stay sober and live a happy and healthy life.

Alcoholism, Addiction, and Getting Help

“We are told there are 4,500,000 alcoholics in America. Up to now (1958) AA has sobered up perhaps 250,000 of them. That’s about one in twenty, or 5 percent of the total. This is a brave beginning, full of significance and hope for those who still suffer. Yet these figures show that we have made only a fair-sized dent on this vast world health problem. Millions are still sick and other millions soon will be. These facts of alcoholism should give us a reason to think, and be humble. Surely we can be grateful for every agency or method that tries to solve the problem of alcoholism –whether of medicine, religion, education, or research. We can be open-minded toward all such efforts and we can be sympathetic when the ill-advised ones fail. We can remember that AA itself ran years on trial and error. As individual AAs, we can and should work with those that promise success-even a little success.”- pg. 184 from The Language of the Heart

Sometimes we forget how lucky we are that we received alcohol addiction help and got sober before it was too late. It is easy at times to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of everyday life and in turn lack in expressing the gratitude for our recovery that it deserves. Whether we went through or need to go through a 30 day rehab program, church, AA, or a drug addiction detox the fact still remains that we are some of the few lucky ones that got another shot at life. The sad reality for us is that many of us do not make it. We get the tools to recover and go on to live a healthy and happy life while many alcoholics have not gotten that opportunity and either drink themselves to death, go insane, or are institutionalized. It is important that we take the time to appreciate our sobriety. It is important that we remember that every day is a special gift.

The Purpose of the AA Group

“Our first duty, as a society, is to insure our own survival. Therefore we have to avoid distractions and multipurpose activity. An AA group, as such, cannot take on all the personal problems of its members, let alone the problems of the whole world. Sobriety-freedom from alcohol-through the teaching and practice of the twelve steps is the sole purpose of an AA group. Groups have repeatedly tried other activities and they have always failed. It has also been learned that there is no possible way to make nonalcoholic into AA members. We have to confine our AA groups to a single purpose. If we don’t stick to these principles, we shall almost surely collapse. And if we collapse we cannot help anyone.”-pg. 223 from The Language Of The Heart

As we talked about before no one can decide weather or not you are an alcoholic. Either you are or aren’t and that choice is up to you. When seeking out alcohol addiction help there are many places we can turn. There are 30 day rehab programs, AA, as well as several other drug addiction detox programs. With that being said it is important that if we decide to go to AA that not only do we have a problem with drinking but also that we identify as alcoholics. It goes back to our first tradition, which states “our common welfare should come first. Personal recovery depends upon AA unity.” It is important that we stick to our singleness of purpose so that we can ensure the groups survival.

Growth in Sobriety

“I think that many oldsters who have put our AA “booze cure” to severe but successful tests still find they often lack emotional sobriety perhaps they will be the spearhead for the next major development in AA- the development of much more real maturity and balance (which is to say, humility) in our relations with ourselves, with our fellows, and with God. Those adolescent urges that so many of us have for top approval, perfect security, and perfect romance- urges quite appropriate to age seventeen- prove to be an impossible way of life when we are at age forty-seven or fifty-seven.”- pg. 236 from The Language Of The Heart.

When we first receive alcohol addiction help and get into recovery, a drug addiction detox, AA, or a 30 day rehab program focusing on staying sober and working the steps is enough at first. There comes a time though when we start craving more out of life, and the program we work. At that point just staying sober and not drinking isn’t enough. We must enlarge our spiritual life as well as our emotional sobriety or we will surely drink. We must set aside our ideas and expectations of ourselves, our fellows, and our higher power so that we may remain open and teachable. If we close ourselves off to learning and taking things in then we stop growing and if we stop growing we either remain stuck in the bondage of self, and become miserable or we get loaded. When we are ready we will do the work, and establish a conscious contact with a power greater than ourselves. Through that experience we can continue to enrich our sober lives not just through physical sobriety but emotional and spiritual sobriety as well.

Getting Sober and Making Amends

“Just how and when we tell the truth – or keep silent- can often reveal the difference between genuine integrity and none at all. Step nine of AAs program emphatically cautions us against misusing the truth when it states: “made direct amends to such people wherever possible except when to do so would injure them or others.” Because it points up the fact that the truth can be used to injure as well as to heal, this valuable principle certainly has a wide- ranging application to the problem of developing integrity.”  – pg. 261 from The Language Of The Heart.

After we seek alcohol addiction help, start doing the work, and get ready to make amends it is important that we have a clear understanding on what we are doing. It is also important that we do not cause further harm in order to make ourselves feel better. When we go into a drug addiction detox, AA , or a 30 day rehab program we are given the tools needed to not only make a proper amends but also to continue living a healthy and happy sober lifestyle. When we go to make amends it is important that we stick to our side of the street. Stating what the harm was that we caused, and attempting to make it better. With that being said we do not get to make amends that will end up further hurting the person. For example if we gossip about somebody behind their back and we know for a fact it hasn’t gotten back to them we don’t get to go up to them and make amends by sharing the hurtful things we said. Instead, we make amends through changing our actions and move forward while trying to continuously be aware of our actions and how they might affect us, our sobriety, and others.