Hey folks, fantastic that you're all willing to try and do something about it. Welcome back Havalina and Calalily. Your wee DD, PO, I was actually welling up reading that. So wise beyond her years eh?
Anyway, I do understand the fear of launching yourself into the unknown, losing your "best pal" - the drink. Now this is something you'll have to just take my word for (and teasle and BrassicMonkey), that when you finally address your drinking and achieve recovery, you'll see how much you were deluding yourself. It's not a "lifeline", it destroys your life, your relationships, your self-esteem. Put the word "alcoholic" and whatever mental images that conjures up for you to the back of your mind.
All you have to think about is that in an AA meeting, there will be men and woman of all ages, creeds, races, professions who are coming together and dealing with their alcoholism. I'd be very surprised if you saw a tramp, or anyone that stank of piss in the meeting. Your more likely to find those alcoholics in pubs, or sitting at home passed out on the couch. Do you see what I mean? Just because you go to AA, doesn't mean you are "lowering" yourself, it means you have the courage and wherewithal to change your life and those around you. When we talk about "in the gutter" it varies from person to person. For some, it's losing a job, others it's family, and yet others it's just a gradual realisation. They have decided that they're powerless over alcohol, no one else.
OK, higher power. Many people believe (wrongly) AA is all about being an evangelical christian, or turning into a nun, or denying yourself all pleasure when they've heard AA and the word GOD. Basically what it means, that a wee while after your heads clear, you've had a few days-at-a-time in a row, then we think about the other aspects the caused our drinking. By stopping drinking, we've dealt with the physical compulsion. You'll hear "don't lift the first drink, you can't get drunk". Amazingly simple idea and it will help you to get through a day a a time.
Afterwards, we have to look a wee bit further at ourselves because many of us have found that we could stop drinking for days, weeks or even months at a time. We've convinced ourselves that we can't possible be alcoholic, because those are the people in the gutter, with the smelly raincoat, that drink as soon as they get up. Then we find that no matter how great our "willpower" we eventually go back to drink.
SO this is where AA comes in with the 12 step programme of recovery. Being an alcoholic, I am told I suffer from a 3 fold illness: a physical addiction/compulsion; a mental obsession; and a spiritual malady.
The mental obsession will convince me that - even after I swear I won't drink again knowing the effects of it and seeing the destruction all around me - that this time it will be different. This time I will only have one drink, or one bottle. I repeat the same behaviour expecting different results. But it all happens over again and I can't figure out why I can't drink like a normal person. I've just been beaten by the physical compulsion and mental obsession: two powerful forces.
Lastly, and here's what I'm trying to explain - the spiritual aspect. I always found that when I drank I was searching for something. Trying to fill a hole inside me. Putting drink in there worked temporarily, but it took away much more than it gave. I had to admit that alcohol was more powerful than me, and in order to stay stopped I had to find something to replace the power of drink. We call it "higher power" because we believe there is something greater, more powerful than ourselves, that can help us to recover from alcoholism. For some, that power is the fellowship of AA, for others it a more traditional power (for example mother nature, Jesus, Buddha, Allah, the Tao). Others use the word "GOD" as an acronym : G-O-D = Good Orderly Direction. So there are many many interpretations on what a "Higher Power" means, but the most important part is that it can be absolutely anything you like. It's your own personal higher power.
I've really gone quite far in discussing the whole idea, which you really don't have to worry about right now. All you have to do is be willing to accept the help offered to you and do what's suggested to you. Don't let the Higher POwer thing put you off. The first thing you have to do is don't drink for a day at a time. That's all of us do in AA. We work on these 24 hours in hand.
Hope everyone else is well. Wel