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Does it make sense that HB’s ( Human Beings) can “ change”
Just Want to Talk | Last Active: Sep 3, 2025 | Replies (28)Comment receiving replies
Good morning, diverdown1(@diverdown1)
It appears we sobered up about the same time, or the same age, anyway. Exact memory escapes me, but I do know I was somewhere in my mid-40s. To the best of my recollection, I began my struggle to beat the sauce in the late '80s, but wasn't permanently successful until the early '90s. Like amny of us, I availed myself of all sorts of recovery helpers, starting with shyly skimming books on alcoholism in the aisles of our local bookstores ("I hope no one sees me … " 🙂 ), giving AA a number of tries, interlacing AA with Rational Recovery (too "rational" for me), Secular Sobriety (I liked the "secular" part), the local hospital's substance abuse workshop, finally ending up back at (in?) AA. To this day, I give AA most of the credit for my sobriety. But, as I believe I indicated in an earlier post, AA also turned me into a perfectionist. The notion that everything I did, the entirety of my consciousness, my every willful act had to be done according to some enumeration of "steps" or I risked failure (relapse?). I became a Master List-Maker. It has taken until only recently for me to recognize the insanity of my absolute perfectionism (or, as you say, "all or nothing"). I'm still a perfectionist (some degree of orderliness is in the marrow of me), but today I do what I can not to allow perfectionism to rule me; instead, I'm careful to "manage" my perfectionism insofar as I can so that I rule––or at least "negotiate with"––my perfectionism rather than the other way around.
Here's wishing you a fine weekend, diverdown1!
Ray (@ray666)
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@ray666
Congratulations on getting off the demonbrew! When I first got sober (this time) I was so desperate that I did everything AA suggested. I went to two and three meetings a day. I got really involved. I needed that at the time. My life took some drastic changes about 3 years into my sobriety. I ended up being my father's hospice nurse (even giving him the morphine), I had only met his wife twice. I was there for 10 days and my father was diagnosed withNarcissistic Personality Disorder, years earlier so you can imagine (maybe?) the shit show of dealing with his wife's side of the family. A lot of my defects of character reared their head, rage especially and my father was dying, so it was a terrible situation, and I was there when he took his last breath. I made it through that. My partner of 28 years had said he was going to get sober when I did. That did not happen. I got sober in 2017. I moved out of our house in 2019. He continued to drink and in 2021 and 2022 I drove him to the ER, 6 times total due to alcoholism causing extreme emergency health issues. I got him to go to treatment. He stayed sober for about 3 months. I found him, dead, in our house on 12/18/23. Devastating. He was my best friend, my family. He just could not stop. I developed long COVID in June of 2023 and still have this damn virus. My life has changed a lot, but I have not picked up a drink. For that I am so grateful. All this to say, I backed off AA meetings due to many factors, particularly the chronic fatigue and post-exertion malaise that goes with Long COVID. I know the 12 steps and gained so much in learning to live "life on life's terms." It is so difficult, but I have found that I wake daily, do some reading from many different sources and stay in the day. So although I don't go to meetings as much, I still have the tools that I gained. A lot of my "stuff" I am working on in therapy. I am trying to find the gray area, moderation, remembering that I do not have any idea what someone else is thinking. We are all experiencing our lives subjectively. It is strange, I am a perfectionist in some areas of my life and not at all in other areas. I feel like a kid emotionally, and I guess I am in many ways. How could I not be having started using chemicals at the age of 12? I like how you said you "negotiate with my perfectionism." I find myself negotiating with many parts of myself as well. The wonderful thing is that I am becoming aware of these parts of me. I never saw them because I was always under the influence. Viva es loco. Enjoy your weekend as well.
Ginny (@diverdown1)