u/Hammerhead_90

I've come to notice that in AA, many members (particularly the older members, though I've seen younger ones picking up the same habit) tend to be cruel, condescending, purposefully offensive and mean in how they talk to new members-always under the guise of "I'm not telling you what you want to hear, I'm telling you what you need to hear."

It's as though they take the opportunity to speak to someone new, and use the excuse of "giving the harsh truth" to instead use whoever they are talking to as an emotional punching bag and a target of bullying behavior and verbal abuse.

Having spent half a decade working as a behavioral health clinician with children, this very much reminds me of abusive parents who will use the "I'm just being honest" excuse to say absolutely horrible, and purposefully hurtful things that are devoid of empathy and compassion and not meant to help so much as to be emotionally cathartic for the person saying the cruel things.

Concerningly, I've also noticed that when someone brings up that they are being mistreated in such a way, there is a tendency among the AA culture to gaslight them by asking them "what part did you play in this interaction?" and telling them "clearly you're the problem here, if you're the 'common denominator'," (even if this is something that happened between them and only one other person, rather than a multitude.

There seems to be a tendency, when someone is mistreated, to blame the victim and to try to gaslight the victim to blame themselves as well. I've even seen it here on this subreddit towards others.

What gives with that?

This is like my (36M) 3rd post on here in as many days, and I worry I'm talking too much, but I'm still very new to this-this is only my 5th day away from alcohol, and as a member of AA.

I feel more clear-headed than I have in months, maybe longer. Before going to my first meeting on Wednesday I had been drinking at least a pint of bottom shelf hard liquor every day. I've found that with this clear-headedness though, some of those ... "sub-optimal" feelings and thoughts have come back, particularly surrounding loneliness and isolation, resentment and self anger, and anxiety (though this anxiety is so qualitatively different and manageable compared to what I would feel after sobering up from a previous night of drinking).

I went for a walk today, it's beautiful outside and I never went outside when I was drinking. I feel like I haven't gone for a walk in so long. I went grocery shopping at one of the stores that I know doesn't sell alcohol-I didn't want to risk making a bad decision. I bought hot dogs, because it feels like a good day to have the kind of food you cook at a barbecue. I came home and downloaded the original Resident Evil on my PS4-I've always wanted to play it, but back when I was a kid I was (embarassingly) sort of frightened by it.

I did my first things first-personal hygiene, cleaned my apartment (both things that were so, so hard to keep up with when I was drinking daily) and now I'm planning to eat some food and play this game and just relax.

I guess the point of this post is: What else can I do? I won't lie, I really, REALLY don't want to ever touch alcohol again. I've given so much of myself and my life to the bottle, and I'm beginning to look at my alcoholism as a bully...and a thief. I can't go back to that, I can't invite it back into my life.

I realize I've used drinking in the past to fill my time. What do you all do when you have free time? How do you fill your time? Any suggestions for things you all do to stave off the minutes and hours of boredom and empty time in between the tasks and responsibilities we all have would be greatly appreciated-this is my first weekend sober in a long time.

And, I just want to add, thank you all for how supportive and amazing you all have been in previous posts. When I stepped into my first meeting and got that 24 hour chip earlier this week I was so worried that I was going to just be alone in a group of people. My worry has been proven unfounded.

I (36M) made it to my second meeting today, the first was on Wednesday.

It was the most uncanny thing - before I went, I was pissing myself off thinking about the past, thinking about all the people who have ever wronged or hurt me. I was getting wound up in resentment. The problem with that, is that when I dwell on resentment and past hurts (though I don't know if I can call them "past hurts" just yet, because they still hurt) I tend to try to alleviate those feelings of anger and pain by drinking. One of the biggest things that makes (or made, I suppose, though I'm hesitant to use past-tense yet since I'm only 4 days sober) is those feelings of resentment, and anger-that and loneliness, I'm starting to realize that I would also drink when I was lonely.

Anyway, tonight at the meeting, someone brought up "Know God, Know Peace. No God, No Peace. It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness" just completely out of the blue and as something that was on their mind.

It was uncanny. I felt like I was being addressed personally, even though nobody at the meeting knew how I'd been feeling and what I'd been mentally tortured by before showing up today.

I just had to mention this somewhere, because I'm still sort of blown away.

I (36M) was abused by my family. I can't remember a single day in my childhood when my mother, father, or stepfather didn't lay their hands on me in anger. On top of that, they would say such horrible, cruel things to me that I internalized well into adulthood (and still struggle with).

At 14 my mother kicked me out and I spent a month living with my aunt and cousins. During that month my aunt would hit me, and so would my cousins. My cousins had bought tasers, BB guns, and even a blowdart gun from one of those stupid magazines that sells replica swords and the like. They would use them on me "for fun." I'd get shot with BBs, tazed, and I have a scar on my neck where my one cousin got me with the blowdart gun. I only returned to my mother after a month because the school counselor noticed I was showing up to school dirty and in the same clothing and usually with dog feces on my shoes (my aunt had a dog that would defecate in the house and nobody would clean it up and I often would accidentally find it by stepping in it on my way out the door to school) and CPS was getting involved. Back to my mother's, back to her and my stepdad hitting me and verbally/emotionally abusing me.

I couldn't cope, so I started drinking. I was an alcoholic all through my 20s and 30s, still unable to cope.

Yesterday I went to my first AA meeting, and received my "24 hours sober" token. I feel clear headed. Even though I got the 24 hour token, It's been closer to 72-80 hours since my last drink.

But-I can't help but wonder what the point is? I'm 36. If I get lucky, I'm not yet halfway through my natural life, but that still means I've lost almost half my life to the abuse and the consequences of the abuse. I have no family, I have nothing.

What kind of life can I expect to have, starting over this late in the game? I never got the opportunity to make friends, find love, or start a family of my own, and I don't think people do that at my age...even if they do, and I did, I'm only getting half of my life, and I'll never have the experiences people who weren't abused get to experience in their 20s and 30s related to building a good life for themselves.

I honestly don't see the point in trying to salvage my life this late. I'll never have the things I want, and anything I do build will be colored both by the abuse of my past and my memories of them, and by the nagging ache that comes with looking at the clock and knowing that I've had literal decades stolen from me. Nearly half my time on this earth.

I'm staying sober today, but that nagging voice in the back of my head keeps asking me "what's the point?" (followed by: "you wouldn't feel like this if you had a drink.")

I (36M) was abused by my family. I can't remember a single day in my childhood when my mother, father, or stepfather didn't lay their hands on me in anger. On top of that, they would say such horrible, cruel things to me that I internalized well into adulthood (and still struggle with).

At 14 my mother kicked me out and I spent a month living with my aunt and cousins. During that month my aunt would hit me, and so would my cousins. My cousins had bought tasers, BB guns, and even a blowdart gun from one of those stupid magazines that sells replica swords and the like. They would use them on me "for fun." I'd get shot with BBs, tazed, and I have a scar on my neck where my one cousin got me with the blowdart gun. I only returned to my mother after a month because the school counselor noticed I was showing up to school dirty and in the same clothing and usually with dog feces on my shoes (my aunt had a dog that would defecate in the house and nobody would clean it up and I often would accidentally find it by stepping in it on my way out the door to school) and CPS was getting involved. Back to my mother's, back to her and my stepdad hitting me and verbally/emotionally abusing me.

I couldn't cope, so I started drinking. I was an alcoholic all through my 20s and 30s, still unable to cope.

Yesterday I went to my first AA meeting, and received my "24 hours sober" token. I feel clear headed.

But-I can't help but wonder what the point is? I'm 36. If I get lucky, I'm not yet halfway through my natural life, but that still means I've lost nearly half my life to the abuse and the consequences of the abuse. I have no family, I have nothing.

What kind of life can I expect to have, starting over this late in the game? I never got the opportunity to make friends, find love, or start a family of my own, and I don't think people do that at my age...even if they do, and I did, I'm only getting half of my life, and I'll never have the experiences people who weren't abused get to experience in their 20s and 30s related to building a good life for themselves.

I honestly don't see the point in trying to salvage my life this late. I'll never have the things I want, and anything I do build will be colored both by the abuse of my past and my memories of them, and by the nagging ache that comes with looking at the clock and knowing that I've had literal decades, almost half my time on this earth, stolen from me.