AA - not for quitters!

You know how there's always a stigma to things in life? How people get preconceived ideas toward things they know nothing about?

Well, one has been snuffed out in my family this week.

Steven started going to AA (yep, alcoholics anonymous) on Monday. After a couple weeks of fighting and stress, I think it finally hit when things got really bad this last weekend. I couldn't do it anymore so I left him at a birthday party...where he and a friend decided it was time to do the sober thing together.

AA has always been considered for "quitters" in a lot of people's eyes. Acceptance really is the first step in this whole thing. Not necessarily acceptance that you have a problem (which is the obvious first step in the program), but rather acceptance that it's okay to be someone that goes to AA...it's okay to give up on social pressures...it's all okay!

I can already see changes in him. I see the parts of Steven that I love dearly surfacing and growing. He has stated that he's learning a lot about himself and I honestly can't wait to see the result after even just a month.

I, too, am living the sober life. I should have been a long time ago. February 2009 I got a DUI and that should have stopped me right there. But it didn't.

Really, what did stop me, was getting pregnant. I realized that this little sacrifice in my world will bring so much more happiness to Marlee's life! She doesn't need to be around it...she can discover it one day and we can help her through it, but she doesn't need to see the terrible effects first-hand. What kind of childhood would that be?!

The end of 2008, I did recognize addictive tendancies in myself with my social life. I wanted to be out drinking all the time! So, I stopped that right there. I was sober for 6 weeks until I met Steven.

That sounds terrible. It's not his fault I started drinking again; it's my own. I'm just glad I have had the ability since to stop myself.

Okay, to wrap this around into a complete post; some people can't just stop with their own free will. That's okay though!! It's perfectly acceptable and admirable to ask for help. To seek peers who know exactly what you're going through.

I admire Steven.