I was glad the first thing  i saw was "how do you get through the steps if you don't even have a higher power" that was something at meetings i had really listened for and not gotten any response other than ppl grateful to GOD, i needed to hear where ppl started. I have been using drugs and alcohol for over half of my life now, my first drink was under the age of four. i know WHAT feelings i have to deal with, but i am unsure it won't kill me to go through them. i do not have any clean time, i have been in and out of meetings. i know that i use drugs to be numb and they don't even always numb enough so imagining no aneasthetic for life seems unbareable.

"imagining no aneasthetic for life seems unbareable"

Denial is the greatest aneasthetic, until it isn't. What I mean is that when you enter recovery, accept step 1, you are coming out of denial. Denial that your life is manageable with you in charge. If for some reason you go back into denial, you will most likely end up back at Step 1.

This really reminds me of something someone said in a meeting once.
"You have to go through the muck and the mire, you can't go around it"
I really took that statement as truth. That I could not expect to go back to living as I had before. It simply didn't work. I didn't know exactly what recovery could do for me, I just knew that nothing else had worked. The pain always managed to work itself into my life. So I had to do the work. I had to become emotionally sober in order to heal.

thanks for listening
Dave

AFRAID THE EMOTIONS WILL BE TOO MUCH, NO FEELINGS IN MANY YEARS. Blaming it on someone else is always easier than blaming yourself. I always took the blame. Now I am trying to get it in perspective. Feelings are something God gave everyone! I Loved to stuff them far down because that's where you couldn't hurt me or see me or reach me. No crying for many years I became a cold blooded in human beings and hated the world. truthfully, I hated the WORLD, GOD, MEN, EVERYTHING. I was out to destroy everything in my path and myself included I had the money, I knew the right people, one flaw I was an Alcoholic with a God that LOVED ME that I didn't know about. The first years of Sobriety were all full of tears and joy, that pink cloud effect. I cried so much in the first couple years of Sobriety getting all the pain out of me that I had stuffed all those years. During the first stage of getting in touch with myself was actually seeing the Beauty of Gods World. I got to see the trees, hills, flowers, cows, and appreciate them. Really look and appreciate them. I was always so loaded I never stopped to appreciate anything that God created. I still have pain today and I cry like a natural woman should and it's alright. My Sponsor said stay away from slippery people, places, and things, that means. I did what she told me. SHe gave me permission to cry so the tears ran. I stayed on page 442 3rd edition now of the BIg BOOK of A.A. forever still should. You don't hang around the same people you drank or used with. My life changed I had no desire for anything that was the same as before. Because I no longer used Alcohol, Drugs or cigarettes I didn't want to be around anyone that did any of those things. It made my pain less painful and my Recovery easier on me. Call me selfish, O.K. I am but I had to stay Sober do or Die. I wanted to stay SObER I had a 9 year old. During Step 4 I won't dwell on it or elaborate on it, but I wrote 346 people on it. My tears rolled for hours with my Sponsor later on. It felt painful to heal all that buried hurt and guilt. I was like the ugly Oyster on the outside, it's all hard, sharp, rocky, dark, sealed tight so you can't get in. Then you ask God to help you, SPonsor to listen, FORGIVENESS, turn it over, with some team work the Shell Opens and inside is the most amazing thing, "A NEW CREATION," "A PEARL" one of a kind, lusterous, lumenous, unique." I Love the name of this program. I am "STILL A MIRACLE IN PROGRESS" lOVE

Life happens! When life happen what do you do? Life is certainly going to happen to each and every one of us. WHY? We can look at our glass as 1/2 empty or as I like to look at it today 1/2 full. I couldn't have said that before. I couldn't have said anything positive. Today when life happens I don't have to like it. I do however have to live it One Day at a Time. It is like when my only child has been lost to the World in living his WILL not GOD's. The pain of watching his life and the suffering HIS CHOICES are bringing him My Dear sweet husband had Cancer and a finger amputated, then he'd been diagnosed with Diabetes 2 . Then he lost 4 jobs in the 12 years we have been married. I have disabilities and can't work on a consistant basis yet! We have lost friends to death, sponsers to death, family to death, Church family to scandal and me and my Love for Jesus Christ The LORd to ridicule. In all of this I am still hanging onto my FAITH in GOD first Sobriety comes from that FAITH. Why? We need GOD to run the SHOW, or the SHOW is a NO GO. Thaks for letting me share, Blessed