Changing Attitudes

I’ve been going along to A.A. meetings for a number of weeks now (only to one meeting per week, but more about that some other time) and I think it is beginning to change the way I think about alcoholism. When I attended an A.A. meeting last week, I shared some of my feelings of how my attitudes are changing.

In my recovery up until now I think I’ve been trying to partition alcoholism away from the rest of my life – thinking that I can deal with the alcoholism on one side and then get on with the rest of my life on the other. I’ve been wanting to keep my alcoholism separate from the rest of my life as much as possible. Over the last few weeks though, as I’ve attended A.A. meetings and listened to other people sharing their stories, it has caused me to think a lot about my own relationship with alcoholism. I’ve been sat at home quietly during the last couple of weeks with plenty of time to think, and the more I have thought, the more that I’ve come to realise that alcoholism is a much bigger part of who I am now than I had been allowing it to be. I feel that I have to be more embracing of my alcoholism and accepting of it as a major part of my life from now on. It doesn’t feel right to be separating it off as just a small part of who I am, it’s something much bigger than that which filters through and affects everything about me in one way or another.

This change in attitude towards alcoholism has also had an effect on how I’m feeling about A.A. too. Whilst up to now I’ve been happy with attending meetings, listening to what other people say and sharing my own thoughts, I now feel more ready to start learning about the 12-step programme and how A.A. can keep me sober. Attending meetings so far has been good, but I know that I’m going to need to do more than that if I’m to stay sober long-term.

At the end of last week’s meeting I purchased a copy of ‘The Big Book‘, the basic text of Alcoholics Anonymous. I still don’t feel like I’m throwing myself completely into the programme yet, I’ll just take it steadily. I’ll start reading The Big Book at the beginning and see where it takes me.