Brother...
I had full alcohol withdrawal anxiety and it was exquisite. Imagine a panic attack, but it doesn't stop, and it goes for hours unless you get a drink or a benzo. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.
Yep. A good year of that before I got things figured out. 2021 - 2023 was just kind of a blur of white knuckle days.
If you don’t mind me asking (and sorry if you already said earlier in this thread) how much were you drinking before you got sober?
At the height of my career, I drank a liter of vodka every day. I drank more when partying.
Decades ago, I was court-ordered to go to AA for fucking years, literally years. I was lucky. Anyways, they do this shit in AA as well. It's really depressing how gleefully they tear each other down over personal issues. It makes the whole "brotherhood" aspect feel really hollow. There are some very good people there as well, but my experience was like 10% super good people, 20% people really trying to fix their lives, 50% assholes with personality disorders, and 20% people on court cards.
It's hard to find a good group of supportive people but, when you do, it's fantastic.
I tried quite a few AA meetings, but I felt like no matter what people did, they were frequently told they were doing sobriety "wrong" in some fashion and talked to in a manner that seemed to re-enforce the "I'm a fuck up" mentality. It began to feel like forced purity testing, where folks had to adhere to a very specific mentality according to whoever there had the most AA clout. It honestly felt like a real life bluesky thread at times where there was "tisk tisk"'s handed out with an almost smug measure of superiority.
Honestly? Mixed meetings are where I see this happen. I do not see this kind of retarded purity testing at men's meetings. Even women will tell you the biggest assholes in AA are the women.
I've never gone to a men's only meeting so I've no frame of reference there. I tried small meetings in church basements with less than 10 people (which actually were the best experiences), and large meetings at Serenity Halls with a good 30-40 folks, but they were all mixed.
There are a lot of people in AA who make being in recovery their entire identity. If that's what they need to do to stay sober, then, well, you need to do what you need to do.
This is an apt description. Many type A chest puffers who insist you MUST listen to their opinion or you're doing it wrong. But they also had a decade or two of sobriety so... whatever works, man. It just didn't work for me. At the end of the day, I'll recite the serenity prayer with someone if they need it to get through the day.
ironically I used to work in a liquor store and even all of the horrific shit I’d see everyday wasn’t enough to get me to quit, you reminded me that the real pro move I’d see everyday drinkers do is get the big ass jugs of Barefoot wine or Black Box.
The professional move is to revolve your liquor stores. Congrats on choosing sobriety, though. Imagine how much time, money, and grief you'll save.
Yeah, I've found the old timers are evenly split between type Bs who are pretty chill and type As who pretty clearly treat AA as a process addiction substitute. It can take some time to find your freaks and get a meeting that's a healthy mix of the two, and that's not always an option if you don't live somewhere with a lot of different meetings. I remember the other people in AA being my biggest complaint for a long while when I first started out, and it took things getting pretty bad for me to stop letting that be a reason to stop/not put in the work. Hell, it's part of why I found fellowship in NA, since the nature of the drug there meant people had more serious concerns to take care of than a DUI/getting concerned loved ones off of their back and there were fewer preening busybodies as a result.
Swear to God I had a daily rotation so I didn't show up at the same place more than once a week. That seems to be pretty standard, sharing that tidbit during H&I gigs at my rehab is usually the point where all the patients share a laugh and relax/open up a bit.
2 years here and it's amazing how I can get stressed or pissed off about something now without having to get drunk to keep myself from feeling anything or thinking about it and end up stewing in it for days as a result. The littlest things would ruin my whole week, now I'm just like "well that makes me mad" and I'm pretty much over it like 15 minutes later.