If you or a loved one is suffering from a drug or alcohol addiction, please contact us today. Contact us today to find out more about treatment options for substance abuse disorders. At Cirque Lodge, we understand that addiction differs for everyone and that treatment needs to reflect this. Our medical experts will work with you to design an individualized substance abuse treatment plan. Living a chaotic or disorganized lifestyle can be detrimental to staying sober. It’s essential to create a daily and weekly schedule; maybe this is waking up and going to sleep at the same time every day. The Sober Mom Squad began during COVID-19 times as a way to offer support to women who are sober and now find themselves overloaded with taking care of the kids while also working and quarantining and….

• I am kicking around the idea of going since leaving 8 years ago i found myself struggling with drinking too much on the weekends or wanting to.
• I’d rather be completely free from all the complicated talk and trying to remember all the cliches.
• Each of these alternatives to AA may have strong merits for different circumstances.
• However, in a highly curious duality, AA has no problem with tobacco.
• You might need to decline invitations to events if you don’t feel comfortable.

I don’t like the arrogance that AA members have that their way is the ONLY true way to stay sober and everyone else are just dry drunks. I think that I have the conscious choice to pick up a drink or not. What I just dis was delete from my phone my last AA friend who I knew for 13 yrs. Yet…the “quality & type” of support no longer works for me today. I have moved beyond the friendships where prying into your personal life and constantly inquiring about your “spiritual” life is just of no value to me anymore. That friendship dynamic used to work but no longer works. She is one of the 2 friends that did not immediately drop me when I “left”.

Staying Sober From Alcohol Without AA

And if you’ve felt weird about not finding a fit in 12-Step recovery, or want to supplement your existing recovery program with another community, please understand you’re not alone. These programs typically last 30, 60, or 90 days, sometimes longer. The first step of an inpatient program is detoxification. Then behavioral therapy and other services are introduced.
Looking at old photographs may help some people stay clean and sober. This especially may help if people are thinking about taking a drink of alcohol. Sometimes, in recovery, people may feel run-down, tired, and unhappy. Alcohol used to be their solution to these feelings. After their first splash of surprise , I had to accustom get sober without aa myself to my peers viewing me through the distorting lens of alcoholism. My experience has taught me that most people—even intelligent, worldly people—have bad data about alcoholism. When others learn you’re an alcoholic, you immediately become a victim of the information shrapnel they’ve passively absorbed about the disease.

So yes, we drink, and if anyone were in our shoes, they would probably drink too.” These are the words that begin Sober Black Girls Club’s mission, and they’re right. The traumas faced by the Black community, and women in particular, are many. So finding help in recovery for your particular experience is really important, which is why this community exists. Is free, as well Sober House as a new membership program that offers more virtual meetings, a community forum, group coaching, and more. If you’re a sober mom in need of help and extra support, this may just be the place for you. The Instagram account, run by Erin Shaw Street who is a seasoned media professional, criticizes other websites and media who are promoting alcohol in an unhealthy way.

Medication-Assisted Therapy (MAT)

You can explore your options for a support group while in addiction treatment. Many treatment providers offer suggestions to help you find the best fit for your recovery. Treatment centers can help to keep you safe from the triggers and stressors in your everyday life. Sober living homes can be the next step after completing a treatment program. After a sober living program, the time it may take you to get back in the “real world” may vary in comparison to others. Then, completing treatment advances you to sober living.

Kelly hopes that the review will encourage more studies of other programs, possibly without spiritual elements, such as Smart Recovery. Some people do need meetings every day, and others do not. Regardless of the difference in our needs, the most important thing is that we just don’t drink. Your sobriety is your own, and how you do it is entirely up to you. Many more modern “sobriety programs” exist that are suitable solutions for people seeking sobriety with others without the issues mentioned above, such as SMART Recovery.

OUR DAY JOBS

Today, I have not one single friend in my life from AA after 23 years of active participation in my community. It may have its place in my life 20 years ago when i didnt know better but i am 39. I think that i will take with me what has worked and leave the rest. Convinced in rehab I had an incurable disease of the mind, which put simply only gets worse has absolutely destroyed me. Being convinced im sick and have a disease has been a huge weight to carry around. I have decided to leave AA for good now, although sober I have struggled from the outset with the disease model.

Following that, you get back in the real world, where your life of sobriety is just beginning. “Anyone struggling with their drinking can walk into a meeting full of people who’ve been there and are ready offer support,” said Smith, an attorney. The well-known program that seeks to help people with alcohol use disorder, Alcoholics Anonymous, has long been criticized for not having the medical research to back up its efficacy. 5) The peer group in AA is not a healthy or positive environment for an individual who wants to make changes. There are many people with decades of “recovery’ whose lives are anything but manageable. They have nothing to offer and often are parasitic. 2) For an individual with a psychiatric disorder, the AA program is counterproductive to clean living and exacerbates the symptoms, particularly encouraging dependency on others. This is the absolute worst direction for an individual with a personality disorder. What’s most important is making the decision to get help and finding a path to recovery and a support network that works for you. Recovery is possible, with or without the 12 steps.

How To Get Sober and Stay Sober Longer

Having to face your group of peers and admit that you broke your sobriety can be a powerful deterrent in the face of weakening resolve. To answer this question, we’ll share some benefits that AA offers the recovering alcoholic. We’ll explain how other types of recovery programs can help as well. Nevertheless, the choice to become a part of the AA community is yours and yours alone. Most people in AA seem to be spiritually damaged. They don’t like the fact that God made it so easy for me to quite drinking and I get a lot of grief for sharing my experiences, strengths and hopes. AA showed me that there are a lot of walks of life and spiritual philosophies that could lead to a wonderful life too. I am so grateful I did or I may well have lost myself during that time of loss and abandonment to a bottle.

Drugabuse.com needs to review the security of your connection before proceeding. Many believe that to gain any benefit from Alcoholics Anonymous, the alcoholic needs to make the commitment on their own. Prodding and persistence rarely trigger the alcoholic mind to do something against their own will. There are also different types of secular recovery groups.

Is AA The Only Way To Stay Sober?

I absolutely agree, I had started to do some volunteer work and loved it! I find joy in many things but have struggled with the idea I have a brain destined to torture me. Choosing a rehab facility that is right for you can be a hard decision. It is always comforting to know that there are many treatment centers that will be able to treat whatever you are struggling with, and that also cater to your individual needs – whether that is… We know that recovery is a lifelong process, and our treatment does not end when you leave our center. Alcoholics anonymous is one of the most well-known support groups.

And also I do feel like I miss helping others more so I am going to do some voluntary work in a hospice soon. Its like there are more ways to do service than just helping other alcoholics. Surely the principle of being less self absorbed and helping others shouldn’t just be restricted to AA members in a cultish way. Also I continue to support my self care and meditation/spiritual practice through yoga and have a good therapist and self help books to help me to stay sane and grow. Anyway, I am still glad that AA allowed me to stop being a drunk. If I had my time again, I don’t know what I would do. I only wish there were better alternatives for people looking to be sober. Anyway, I am just happy that I haven’t ended up in a mental hospital or dead like many of the AA members said I would if I left.

Alcoholism then is the only “disease” with a spiritual component … to AA’ers, the program never fails you, you fail the program. If it’s not working, attend more meetings, crack open the Big Book, call your sponsor. While that’s my answer, it’s not a one-size fits all solution, and that’s a leading cause of AA’s failure … but they really don’t care about you getting sober . If you believe, like I do, excessive drinking is really just a bad habit for many, then abstinence only is doomed to fail. Self-Management and Recovery Training, better known as SMART Recovery, is a support group for addiction recovery that offers strategies, tools and techniques based on self-reliance and self-empowerment. Unlike NA and AA, there is no spiritual angle to SMART recovery.

My first sponsor dropped me like the proverbial bad habit and then acted like it was my fault when I failed to acknowledge her subtle hints that she no longer wanted to sponsor me. When I said I thought I really ought to learn to stand on my own two feet she said, oh, no, you can’t work the program without a sponsor. So I’m supposed to set myself up for yet another failed friendship? Congratulations to sober alcoholics leaving aa. We don’t need anyone micromanaging our recovery. We can be full-fledged responsible people fully capable of making sound, reasonable decisions. Sunshine Behavioral Health strives to help people who are facing substance abuse, addiction, mental health disorders, or a combination of these conditions. It does this by providing compassionate care and evidence-based content that addresses health, treatment, and recovery. LifeRing is “an abstinence-based, worldwide network” of people who want to live without drugs or alcohol.

It is that first drink, I tried for years on my own without the support group. Bad things still happen but I don’t deal with it drinking. Good things happen and I don’t have to be drinking for them to happen. I’ve learned a lot and I could not have done it without AA. Grateful to be alive and sober today but really had a problem with the sponsorship deal. How is a newcomer supposed to know how to find an “appropriate” sponsor?

Feelings of inferiority, anger and confusion at what happens in life, but hell am I really that unique? My problem wasn’t with the program so much it was with other members who seemed to go out of their way to try and humiliate me. It came to a head a couple of months ago at a meeting. This one member tried to get a rise out of me, playing the clown behind my back and generally being obnoxious. When it came time for the meeting he sat down next to me. I felt my hackles rise and knew that if I didn’t leave the meeting I was going to thump him. Many times there is shouting, anger and self defeating brainwashing that often makes me feel leaving worse than when I arrived. I am no saint btw, but I never try and demean people for the sake of my own soulsickness.