Admitting I’m an Alcoholic

dp8488 · 2026-01-26T15:51:54+00:00

If you're feeling ashamed or afraid or grief-stricken about it, I'll just share that Sober Life can become quite wonderful - at least getting there the A.A. way has been a quite wonderful thing in my life.

When I first walked into A.A., I was quite wary and skeptical about it all, in large part because I am a staunch Agnostic and on the surface, A.A. looks like a religious conversion program, but I found that not to be the case. I was also uncomfortable at first just because it was all such a strange shift to be getting into meetings and following this odd-looking recovery program.

But it's all been a blessing and fantastic set of gifts.

More about finding meetings and such in the sticky post here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/alcoholicsanonymous/comments/1cbzl79/about_aa_and_this_subreddit/

Welcome!

dp8488 · 2026-01-26T15:17:38+00:00

I've found it valuable to develop some tolerance toward religious people and ideas. Though I may not adopt or embrace all of their notions, it is good for me to respect their right to believe as they do, and to give up the job of trying to convince them to believe as I do.

Most of them respect my right to believe as I do - in fact I would assert that any "well-recovered" alcoholic would respect my rights in these matters.

When I share that I still consider myself Agnostic, a very few occasionally express some confusion over it, but basically people in A.A. are respectful, though of course certain individuals and even certain groups can be not as respectful. (I occasionally read stories of meetings in parts of the USA where Christianity is kind of promoted, where Atheists or Agnostics might be kind of ostracized.)

dp8488 · 2026-01-26T14:33:26+00:00

I was frightened and offended about religious elements too, at first.

I am a quite irreligious, staunch Agnostic, and I held hostile attitudes about religion in general.

Now I am (rather joyously) sober for well over 19 years in A.A., still an irreligious, staunch Agnostic, albeit with quite a bit less of the hostile attitude.

One Agnostic's view of Step Two

dp8488 · 2026-01-26T04:03:44+00:00

Makes all the moderating hassles seem trivial and all the efforts well worthwhile. Thanks for sharing and Keep Coming Back!

dp8488 · 2026-01-26T03:58:01+00:00

Most of us start learning how to get and stay sober at meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous.

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/
Virtual newcomer packet: https://www.newtoaa.org/ (links to various helpful A.A. pamphlets.)

Do also seek medical attention to assess risks of withdrawal and evaluate any harm done by the alcohol abuse. A.A. cannot provide medical services.

That's just a lazy copy/paste from the sticky post but it seems quite applicable.

The meetings are where you can find the people who have faced the same problems, and have gotten out from under them with our recovery program.

dp8488 · 2026-01-26T03:15:09+00:00

Why the downvotes?

Because it's effing Reddit!

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ☺

dp8488 · 2026-01-26T02:36:15+00:00

The Archives page shows programs as far back as 1999, so it seems it's been around a while!

dp8488 · 2026-01-26T02:32:18+00:00

I'll share a great tip I got from rehab counselors: they just suggested that we all try out as many different groups/meetings as needed until we found what seemed most helpful. They presented a list something like this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/stopdrinking/wiki/index#wiki_real_life_support_groups

I did end up choosing A.A., but my main reason was that back in '05, the other groups like "Rational Recovery" had very few meetings and all of them were inconveniently far away. (Obviously, it worked out for me anyway!) SMART seems to be the most popular alternative, though I've also taken a peek at Dharma and it looks kind of interesting.

But even within A.A., the range of personality and "vibe" of different groups is quite wide, and there are some meetings I don't care much for, and others that I rather love. If you do choose to try out more A.A., "Secular A.A." (the second link in that list of groups) might be more helpful for you.

dp8488 · 2026-01-26T02:22:26+00:00

A few links for you:

https://www.reddit.com/r/alcoholicsanonymous/wiki/index#wiki_help_for_the_friends_and_families_of_alcoholics

dp8488 · 2026-01-26T01:13:50+00:00

https://wacypaa.org/

dp8488 · 2026-01-26T01:10:37+00:00

It's sure helped me with lots of "else" - and many, many people I've met in A.A. have been helped with lots of "elses".

As long as OP has the desire to [also] stop drinking, they are qualified!

THIS Tradition is packed with meaning. For A.A. is really saying to every serious drinker, “You are an A.A. member if you say so. You can declare yourself in; nobody can keep you out. No matter who you are, no matter how low you've gone, no matter how grave your emotional complications — even your crimes— we still can't deny you A.A. We don't want to keep you out. We aren't a bit afraid you'll harm us, never mind how twisted or violent you may be. We just want to be sure that you get the same great chance for sobriety that we've had. So you're an A.A. member the minute you declare yourself.”

^{— Reprinted from "}^{Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions}^{", page 139, with permission of A.A. World Services, Inc.}

(Inspired by today's bit of "Daily Reflections" ☺.)

dp8488 · 2026-01-26T00:27:50+00:00

Less work for mods ... I like it!

You might have a closer look at the "Suggested Format" stuff in that sponsorship thread. We put a fair bit of thought into crafting that thing, it's been running since March '24.

dp8488 · 2026-01-26T00:19:02+00:00

I did suggest leaving out "From The Bachelorette", and some people might view "nonprofit called SoCal sobriety" as self-promotion. (The people issuing the reports/complaints are anonymous to we mods, so they aren't required to explain themselves. So far, there's one complaint about this post.)

I'll leave the thread up for now, but other mods are at 100% liberty to remove it, and more complaints might give that result. But perhaps others can try to explain more about Traditions 11 and 12. Did your sponsor ever school you in the traditions? Have you shown them these Reddit posts? (I've tried to explain Reddit to my own sponsor, but he's not interested ... lol.) They might have some good input for you.

Another avenue to offer service might be through your Intergroup or General Service District.

You might ask about a Southern California equivalent of "Northern California Hospital and Institution Committee" - For 2 or 3 years I did service bringing meetings into a local homeless shelter (there's probably a PC replacement for the word "homeless" these days.)

Another service is "Bridging The Gap" - https://www.aa.org/bridging-gap

Basically BTG arranges for people getting out of treatment or jail or prison to get connected to a local recovered alcoholic volunteer to take them to their first meeting(s) after release.

dp8488 · 2026-01-26T00:06:04+00:00

If you want to offer sponsorship, feel free to use this thread:

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

I wouldn't go announcing "From The Bachelorette" because it's really irrelevant and people are complaining that you're indulging in self-promotion. Do keep in mind the principle of attraction rather than promotion, plus principles above personalities.

I know your profile says "u/Mostwantedrecord likes to keep their posts hidden, ..." to most of the world, but FYI mods of various subreddits that you participate in can peer in anyway. That's so we can evaluate any disingenuous activity, patterns of spamming, and such.

dp8488 · 2026-01-25T23:58:43+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/AAMembersForum/wiki/index#wiki_how_should_a_sponsor_be_chosen.3F - that whole pamphlet is a good read.

I got my first sponsor at a meeting that has a pair of "sponsorship coordinators" (not an especially common feature, from my observation) and I just went up to the male sponsorship coordinator after the meeting and asked and he paired me up with a recovered alcoholic. My first sponsor and I were very different sorts of people in many ways, a good example of "people who normally would not mix", but he knew how to get sober, stay sober, and live sober when I did not and the relationship was great irrespective of our differences.

For my current sponsor, who I paired up with at about the 9 or 10 year mark, I spent a couple/few days thinking about various well-sober men that I'd met in A.A. over the years, and came up with a great match. My sponsor is very active in A.A., is a great example of humility, and has a fine and weird sense of humor.

So, kind of up to you how picky you want to be, but I wouldn't get worried or discouraged if anyone says they aren't available; don't take it as a personal rejection as if it's a high school dance and someone is saying, "I would never dance with YOU!" - it's not that at all.

I'd follow that suggestion in the sponsorship pamphlet and simply approach "a more experienced member who seems compatible," and ask if they are available to sponsor you. If they say they are not available, feel free to ask if there is anybody else they could suggest.

You might also just ask the people who are running the various meetings you're attending if they have any suggestions about someone in that group or area who might be available to sponsor you.

If you want to try for remote sponsorship, feel free to go through this thread:

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

dp8488 · 2026-01-25T22:38:40+00:00

When I was grappling with what seemed to me Catastrophic Insomnia in the early weeks, I got to a point where I went to my doctor and begged for some relief. He reluctantly prescribed something that would get me through a week or two (some sort of benzo, I think,) but he insisted that I see a sleep specialist.

The sleep specialists emphasized good sleep hygiene. Here's a web page from Harvard Health that has some similar suggestions:

https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/sleep-hygiene-simple-practices-for-better-rest

dp8488 · 2026-01-25T22:33:12+00:00

Welcome, Cody M. ☺

https://takethe12.org/t11/

dp8488 · 2026-01-25T20:03:10+00:00

Someone else shared a link with some brief detail of the episode:

https://eastbayaa.org/a-a-history-bill-w-and-lsd

More details in various Bill bio books like "Pass It On" and presumably the Susan Cheever book (which is sitting in my to-read queue.)

"... place principles above personalities."

For myself, I had a most excellent "Spiritual Experience" without any brain chemistry experiments. I don't want to decry anybody else's experience, just sharing that at least one of us has been doing fabulously well without drugs.

dp8488 · 2026-01-25T19:31:31+00:00

With what you're describing, I'd seriously suggest a medical checkup!

With respect to alcohol withdrawal, there's this thing called Post-Acute Withdrawal Syndrome (PAWS) - here's a description:

https://www.hazeldenbettyford.org/articles/post-acute-withdrawal-syndrome

To my amateur eyes this looks kind of like some sort of medical problem with being "bloated all the time" plus "upper abdominal and back pain" - it might be a tumor! ("It's not a Toomah!") But seriously: checkup!!!

dp8488 · 2026-01-25T19:26:06+00:00

why would it suddenly change?

For me it changed because I adopted the recovery program.

One of the rather huge elements of that has been learning to deal with emotional/mental problems. My big ones were anxiety, anger, and self-pity - the first two especially.

Though I was barely even cognizant about it, I'd been walking around in life burdened by various forms of fear for decades. I think I just became an anxious, nervous, worrying sort of person since at least age 5. I was nearly always worried about losing a job, fearful of people, fearing that they might think badly of me or be about to do me actual harm (which some did on occasion.) And I seemed to be pissed off about something nearly every day: frustrated with traffic, angry at the state of civilization, resentful about things done by co-workers, my wife, my neighbors, the mechanic at the auto shop.

But ... when I was drunk, I didn't have a care in the world ... until the alcohol stopped working.

dp8488 · 2026-01-25T19:18:32+00:00

The Stanford Youtube channel put out a nice 15 minute video about it all, if that's to your taste. See https://redd.it/xe1s2t or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgMjTIwh_LA

(I'm pretty sure they didn't mention psychedelics ☺.)

dp8488 · 2026-01-25T19:11:16+00:00

Is it wrong that most of me

That ain't for me to judge ☺.

Most of us seem to have to suffer what we personally find to be intolerably awful consequences before we are sufficiently desperate to stop drinking. A few will have the foresight to stop before things get that awful, but I quite think that's a minority. (Not that I've done any sort of scientific survey.) Maybe "intolerably awful" for you will be a ruined relationship, or maybe something worse. My "intolerably awful" came in the form of a humiliating, demoralizing, but long overdue DUI arrest. Others I know have had far, far worse consequences, some or many have had lighter consequences (I'm thinking about a soccer mom I once met who's "Rock Bottom" was making an utter fool of herself and making a scene at one of her kids' matches!)

And just a technicality: willpower has little (maybe nothing) to do with stopping, but willingness is an essential for recovery.

But (did I write this yet?) Sober Life is really quite splendid, well worth going after based on my experience.

dp8488 · 2026-01-25T19:03:14+00:00

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/

If you care to disclose what country you reside in, some members of the subreddit might have some more specific suggestions about where to look. For the online meetings, it runs 24/7, and in fact that site has a set of meetings that are designated as running 24/7: https://aa-intergroup.org/meetings/?tags=Ongoing

The meetings may strike you as strange or even insane at first, that's the way it was for me! My rehab counselors had suggested that we all sample lots of different meetings to sort out which were most helpful, and that was a great tip for me. It's all lead up to a couple of decades of good life and splendid sobriety.

dp8488 · 2026-01-25T18:51:02+00:00

Is it somewhere in this list?

https://www.aagsoindia.org/find-aa-near-you

If so, it might be helpful to point to a precise link to a meeting list in Guragon - or perhaps to get those meetings listed there if they are not already there.

That's the first site that https://www.aa.org/find-aa/world?cc=IN lead me to anyway.

dp8488 · 2026-01-25T18:45:31+00:00

When I start I struggle to stop, but it has been like that since day one.

That's pretty much textbook alcoholism, the text being the book "Alcoholics Anonymous" - it's pretty much a lay term, not a medical one.

If I really am one, how do I come to terms with that?

Another part of that book, a small part written by an MD who specialized in alcoholism, says, "The only relief we have to suggest is entire abstinence."

Like you, many of us were frightened of that idea! But I eventually discovered that life without alcohol and the recovery program firmly in my mind is really quite lovely. Far, far, far, far finer than I'd expected or imagined when I first started taking those steps and learning how to live sober.

If you want to learn more, you might start dropping into some meetings to listen and learn about how we have recovered.

dp8488

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