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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/magazine/get-yer-yeah-yeah-yeahs-out.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0>>
>>I have always shared everything here. It is no secret that I have a problem with alcohol. Lately it has been bad. Really bad. If you pray, please say a prayer for me. Even if you don't normally say prayers, please say a prayer.
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>Sorry to hear that Mike, unfortunately I am neither religious to say a prayer nor good to give counsel.
You may be pleasantly surprised to hear that you have helped. Thanks to Tamar and Denis as well. I have poured out what was left of the bottle and will not drink any more today. One day at a time.
That phrase sounds shallow to some who don't have the disease. It's really true. The other day at the beginning of an AA meeting it was asked, as it always is, if anyone was celebrating an AA anniversary or a birthday this week. A woman said she had been sober for 14 years. There are people in the group who had been sober for 20 or 30 years.
BTW, the depiction of AA meetings in movies of someone speaking behind a podium is bogus. We all sit in chairs around a table. Preachiness is discouraged. Everyone is listened to, from people who have been sober for decades to those who who have been sober for a day. Or even less. There was a young woman last Friday who had only been sober since the previous night. I complimented her for being smart enough to come in at a young age. I wish I had been that smart.
There are a number of reasons the old timers keep coming back. One is that friendships evolve there, as they do in any organization where people get to know each other. Another is that one of the pledges is to help those who still suffer.
Another of the myths is that only men are alcoholics. The other day the reading from the "big book" was the chapter called "To Wives." The big book is very outdated in some ways -- it was written in the 1930s by two guys-- and none more than this chapter IMO. There are at least as many women around the table as men. Maybe they're just more willing to deal with it than men.
