when you have a story that you believe someone may be able to use to help with their own journey to sobriety
@Doug Menuez on freeimages.com
- If you are an alcoholic, consider why you wish to write about sobriety.
- If you are an alcoholic, consider who you wish would read your message.
- If you are an alcoholic, consider if you are ready to tell complete strangers your entire story.
- If you are an alcoholic, consider how secure you are with your own recovery.
- If you are not an alcoholic, consider writing about sailing or gaming, or haircuts.
The truth is that most if not all alcoholics who are new to recovery want to only hear from another alcoholic who has been there and done that. Later in their recovery, some will read and listen to a trained expert.
It’s all about credibility. An alcoholic is so used to lying and being lied to that it would be almost impossible to trust someone who was not an alcoholic or addict too.
Iam new to being a writer but I am not new to being an active alcoholic who now has been sober, not just dry, for almost 46 years. I have “been there, done that, and have the t-shirt to prove it.”
What is the difference between being sober and being dry?” Dry means that all that was done was stopping drinking. Of the 12 Steps in the AA Program, ONLY the 1st half of the 1st Step mentions anything at all about alcohol.
All of the rest of the steps are about our thinking. Change your thinking, change your life! You may wonder what you should change. I had to change almost everything. As I was changing, I became freer with every difference.
So, to have me believe you know what you are talking about, you should show me how you know this. This needs much more than just studying this in a lecture hall or college classroom.
OK, so what’s next after showing your “credentials?” I would suggest not running on with a drunk-a-log. I don’t care to hear about how your mother or father abused you when you were 6.
What I do want to hear now is where you are now and just how you got there. If you explain this to me, then I can choose for myself whether I want to really try to escape this misery and dread that fill me now.
Don’t leave something out just because you believe that it is too personal. What is personal to you is also personal to someone else. For every thought and experience that you had, there is someone else who has also thought or done it and will listen to you with interest to see how it worked for you.
To sum it up, what do others want to learn from you? If you can show that you have risen from where they are now and that you are now happy, joyous, and free, they want to know how you did it.
Why do they want to know how you did it? Because they are now relating to you and want what you have. Now you simply continue showing them how you did it and let them choose. Do NOT tell them how to work their program.
If you write about sobriety this way, you WILL connect with other alcoholics who want to know what you now have and what you did to get it. If you don’t take yourself seriously but do take your program seriously, others will read. Thank you, God!
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