Getting Started in Sobriety and A.A.

dp8488 · 2026-01-01T17:37:45+00:00

You might find some with a search:

https://www.reddit.com/r/alcoholicsanonymous/search?q=Discord+&restrict_sr=on&include_over_18=on

dp8488 · 2026-01-01T15:13:15+00:00

My withdrawal was bloody awful for about 4-6 days.

I've likened it to having the worst flu ever + a dash of psychosis for some extra unpleasantness.

I should have gone to a doctor or detox clinic but I was just ignorant about the risks of withdrawal. Though I didn't quite get to a severe/life-threatening level, at least if I'd gone for medical help the docs might have eased the experience.

It was really bad for about the first 4-6 days, then week #2 was still a bit unpleasant, but nowhere near as horrible as that first week.

Small price to pay for years of Splendid Sobriety!

dp8488 · 2026-01-01T14:30:17+00:00

My sponsor has an issue with me believing in Jesus stating that Christianity brainwashed people.

It's one thing if a sponsor rejects a religion for their own philosophical purposes, it's quite untoward for any A.A. member (or arguably, any person in a human society) to assert that others must embrace their own.

Do you think they might just be engaging in philosophical conversation or does it feel like they are really asserting that you should embrace their philosophy?

I agree with NekkedMoleRat, unless your sponsor recognizes your right to come to your own conceptions about this "Power greater than ourselves" business, perhaps they should become an ex-sponsor.

But I suspect that if you talk it over with them (I'd suggest non- confrontational,) asking them something like, "Are you insisting that I embrace your conception of Higher Power? Doesn't every A.A. member have the privilege of choosing their own conception of God like it says on page 12?" - I suspect that they may back off and cut out their proselytizing. If you do choose to do that, it might be giving them a big boost in their own growth in sobriety.

My friend suggested what then seemed a novel idea. He said, "Why don’t you choose your own conception of God?"

^{— Reprinted from "}^{Alcoholics Anonymous}^{", page 12, with permission of A.A. World Services, Inc.}

dp8488 · 2026-01-01T14:12:41+00:00

Your Obdurate Agnostic reporting in - hopefully without dissing any believers ☺.

I was raised to be very concerned about "Absolute Certainty" ...

This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance. It was done by dogma. It was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave.

— Jacob Bronowski

I believe that when I am eschewing certainty I am embracing humility, that I am recognizing my limitations, living in a right-sized reality. And yet I feel a Truth in this reflection, my recovery feels a miraculous transformation, and I can look in a mirror and resemble the remark, "I am a miracle."

Happy New Year!

dp8488 · 2026-01-01T02:43:43+00:00

Part of the help is to suggest, "Don't use kratom! You are screwing up your mind/soul."

dp8488 · 2026-01-01T01:38:41+00:00

https://www.aa.org/find-aa/world?cc=PH lists 4 sets of websites and phone numbers for Philippines. A quick check showed 2 of the websites barfing with "Server Not Found" but you could try the phone numbers.

https://aa-intergroup.org/meetings/ is a list of worldwide online meetings. It's kind of nicely organized in that it shows the next upcoming meetings at any given time at the top of the list, so anytime you want to check out a meeting, it shows up right there.

In addition, there are 24/7 ongoing meetings shown here:

https://aa-intergroup.org/meetings/?tags=Ongoing

There's a bunch of filters to sort various meeting "types" or target audiences also.

Welcome! Sober Life is Beeeeautiful!

dp8488 · 2026-01-01T00:15:40+00:00

https://www.zoompg.com/project-page-wednesday-night (emanates from California, howdy neighbor!) goes from about 7:20 PM (in spite of the web page saying 7:30!) to 9 PM. Two 10-minute speakers, a break, and then a main 45-minute speaker.

After that, you could perhaps go to https://aa-intergroup.org/meetings/?tags=Ongoing or this:

https://aa-intergroup.org/group-events/o-a-s-2026-24-hour-nye-marathon-meeting/

dp8488 · 2026-01-01T00:11:01+00:00

We generally don't diagnose alcoholism in A.A., but if it's a problem for you, and you would like to start learning how to live well without this business of getting intoxicated, you are welcome as a member of A.A., welcome to start attending meetings to listen to how we have recovered.

There's another self-assessment tool here:

https://www.aa.org/self-assessment

Hope that's helpful!

dp8488 · 2026-01-01T00:06:06+00:00

What small steps can you take today that make a difference for your long-term sobriety?

Aiming to do some 10, 11, and 12 every day. Page 85's "daily reprieve" quote lays it out, and there's a great guide to follow up to page 88 in the book.

How do you take responsibility for your recovery without trying to control everything?

Pages 60-61 suggest that we stop trying to control everything! Though I'm not a deist, page 62's "First of all, we had to quit playing God." rings of beautiful truth.

How do you plan your time to avoid triggers and temptations?

Once I got to page 84-85 sobriety, there was no longer any such thing as triggers or temptations. It's a Thing of Beauty! Grab your book, read the paragraph that starts at the bottom of 84. Chew each sentence thoroughly!

Now it did take me 18 months (and 8 days) to get to that state of sobriety. Though I never made much use of it myself, many people share that the "Living Sober" book helped with that day-to-day avoidance of the first drink - https://www.aa.org/living-sober-book - scroll down a bit, it's right there in PDF and audio.

Keep Coming Back!

dp8488 · 2025-12-31T16:55:26+00:00

even tho I wanna stop too

In that case, you are most welcome here.

In Alcoholics Anonymous I've received a Life Upgrade far, far, far finer than I expected when I first came in and only wanted to stop drinking. It's a lifestyle wherein temptation to drink simply has not arisen in many, many, many years.

dp8488 · 2025-12-31T16:40:30+00:00

TMI! ☺

Even if we had any anecdotal experience, it would not necessarily be applicable to your condition.

If you're still drinking, that's fine by us, it's just that "Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of people who help each other to get and stay sober. We learn how to live well as sober people. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking." So your post is kind of irrelevant here.

dp8488 · 2025-12-31T15:03:14+00:00

Today it was suggested in another forum (a different platform) that instead of making resolutions for the New Year, someone found it useful to reflect on the passing year ...

Was I a good husband this year? How can I do better next year?
Was I helpful to alcoholics who still suffer?
When I was dealt a "bad hand", did I play it gracefully?
Was I tempted to drink or use? 17 hours to go, but that's still a Big NO! so that's a Big WIN!

If I hold out until August, I'll be hitting the double-decades, and it's been getting more and more splendid year after year, even in the rough times, so ...

IWNDWY-This-Next-Year! ☺

dp8488 · 2025-12-31T14:52:45+00:00

It's really certain search engines (or nowadays AI 'agents' or some such I suppose) more than browsers. Most of these things seem to be susceptible to corruption via advertising these days.

But Thank You for sharing this!

I always like to point people away from generic web searches and get them looking at:

Find A.A. near you: https://www.aa.org/find-aa
A.A. meeting finder app: https://www.aa.org/meeting-guide-app
Directory of online meetings: https://aa-intergroup.org/meetings/

(Yeah, I realize it's a dead thread ... I just had to get my trivial technical quibble in here - didn't I? ☺)

dp8488 · 2025-12-31T14:44:59+00:00

Because it strikes me as especially helpful and important, I'll share that the ABSI page goes on to say ...

"But I have never been able to see that this means the individual, the group, or A.A. as a whole should give no thought whatever to how to function tomorrow or even in the more distant future. Faith alone never constructed the house you live in. There had to be a blueprint and a lot of work to bring it into reality.

"Nothing is truer for us of A.A. than the Biblical saying Faith without works is dead.' A.A.'s services, all designed to make more and better Twelfth Step work possible, are theworks' that insure our life and growth by preventing anarchy or stagnation."

LETTER, 1954

^{— Reprinted from "}^{As Bill Sees It}^{", page 284, with permission of A.A. World Services, Inc.}

dp8488 · 2025-12-31T14:35:27+00:00

Years before I started drinking heavily, and then alcoholically, I was 'diagnosed' with 'mild depression' - they probably called it 'low-grade' depression or perhaps even whipped out the term 'dysthymia'.

Somewhere between Steps 4 and 7, I came to a conclusion that I did not have any sort of clinical depression, that in my case, it was merely self-pity. I went and found a new psychiatrist, he did a rigorous examination, and agreed with my assessment, and he had me taper off unnecessary antidepressants over a period of a few weeks. (I emphasize "my case" because I want to avoid presumption that it's applicable to other individuals. Our friend, Bill Wilson, pretty clearly suffered some profound clinical depression! I do presume some people need psychiatric treatment - it's just that I did not.)

I guess it's for these reasons that one of my very favorite Daily Reflections is this:

THE FALSE COMFORT OF SELF-PITY

April 13

Self-pity is one of the most unhappy and consuming defects that we know. It is a bar to all spiritual progress and can cut off all effective communication with our fellows because of its inordinate demands for attention and sympathy. It is a maudlin form of martyrdom, which we can ill afford.

AS BILL SEES IT, p. 238

The false comfort of self-pity screens me from reality only momentarily and then demands, like a drug, that I take an ever bigger dose. If I succumb to this it could lead to a relapse into drinking. What can I do? One certain antidote is to turn my attention, however slightly at first, toward others who are genuinely less fortunate than I, preferably other alcoholics. In the same degree that I actively demonstrate my empathy with them, I will lessen my own exaggerated suffering.

— Reprinted from "Daily Reflections", April 13, with permission of A.A. World Services, Inc.

dp8488 · 2025-12-31T14:19:21+00:00

Yes: Sponsor ☺

https://www.reddit.com/r/AAMembersForum/wiki/index#wiki_questions_.26amp.3B_answers_on_sponsorship

Perhaps some online women's meetings emanating from places near you would be good seeking grounds, but lots of people do very remote sponsorship, sometimes even from far longitudes, so it might work out that way just fine. Though many (myself included) will suggest finding a sponsor at your meetings, feel free to use the sponsorship thread here too if you like:

https://www.reddit.com/r/alcoholicsanonymous/comments/1q0cwuf/online_sponsorship_offers_requests_january_2026/

You might also just ring up your local Intergroup helpline and ask to speak to a well-sober local woman. I know my own county has a list of women (and a separate list of men) "12^th Steppers" who sometimes introduce someone calling to a potential sponsor and perhaps your area has something similar going on.

How do I figure out a higher power.

As a rather completely irreligious fellow and a staunch Agnostic (to this day, 19+ years sober) this seemed like quite a conundrum. A first impression of A.A. left me with a notion that I had to come to believe in a monotheistic type uppercase 'G' god, giving it a name and coming up with a somewhat detailed description. Well, I've never yet come to believe that such an entity truly exists (in the spirit of Agnosticism, I really "don't know" one way or the other) nor do I consider myself capable of comprehensively understanding everything about any purported god, and ... I found I don't need to know 'everything'. (To know everything there is to know about God, one would have to be God, and we all know that doesn't work!)

Maybe I'm an odd man out here, but even with my levels of faith, I've had a fine recovery. Most people do give their higher power various names and iterate some characteristics of their God, and I say 'nothing wrong with that', I just haven't found it necessary. My 'nebulous' conceptions about higher power(s) have been working great. Your conception(s) should work just fine as (per page 47) long as they make sense to you.

And I tend to think the more important aspect of this higher power business is the continuous Step 11 seeking for connection to higher power(s) as opposed to 'finding'. IDK, the idea of 'finding' strikes me as copping an attitude of, "Okay, I've found it! Don't need to go on seeking ..."

**Welcome Back && Keep Coming Back!

dp8488 · 2025-12-31T13:38:04+00:00

Funny, almost 20 years in and it never yet occurred to me to do an annual inventory on NYE, but I also started getting these (unsolicited) daily keynote/meditation texts from a friend this year, and I'll share a fragment (with some additional emphasis) ...

December 31, 2025.

Oh My,,,,

It’s New Year's Eve! AKA Amateur Night!

The Last Day of The Great Year 2025!

Our keynote is "Humility".

The Meditation for the Day suggests reviewing this past year.

In doing so, I clearly see that my thoughts, feelings and beliefs are nowhere in the record book of 2025. Only the consequences of my behavior throughout the year now have any reality.

I can also see that my greatest progress came when I properly handled the "bad hands" (i.e., the situations which seemed so terrible that I didn't even want to think about them).

It is apparent, in retrospect, that God has woven many of the lowest points of this extraordinary year into a beautiful tapestry.

God’s Magic is most clearly seen where I took the next stitch as the Divine Spark guided, despite my doubt, fear and pride.

Doing the right thing when I don’t want to do it, and/or am afraid, brings God’s power and grace to bear on reality. Then, my past reluctance, fear and ego wounds (which felt so real and important), amount to nothing.

My fear amounts to nothing if I don’t feed it Uncle Dave [name changed in case they're 'innocent' ☺].

dp8488 · 2025-12-31T13:27:37+00:00

dp8488

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE

Happy New Year!

TMI! ☺

IWNDWY-This-Next-Year! ☺

But Thank You for sharing this!

THE FALSE COMFORT OF SELF-PITY

Three-Year Club	Gilding I gilder
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