i feel the need to express how i feel and felt about my life as a gay man.
i was brought up from birth as a jehovahs witness.
this has played a major part in my life and it has been a real struggle to get past.
BRAVO ! ! ! ! !
Texasman will you marry me?
BFD
Sure, babe. Soon as you can get here.
Oh but dadgumit, forgot....already have a BF.....unless maybe you'd be interested in a menage a trois? (wink)
REICHSFUEHRERCENSORS PLEASE NOTE: the preceding message was encoded partly in french specifically to avoid "giving offense to new seekers of Truth." Approved by me (signed) Joe Rutherford (hic)
somebody who's become a friend is an ex catholic....pretty knowledgeable on all the mainstream christian doctrines and history etc....now into wicca beliefs....not a actual member, but in tune with the ideas....mediation, incense, being close to the earth yada yada.
not real wound up with it, not pushing it on me.....and theres no way i would ever go there.....just not my style, and think i am over any organized religion at this point.. a good friend, good person.....he cant really explain why he's into all that except it feels good....but i'm a little uncomfortable.....sad to say i think it's a holdover from the jw fear and loathing of anything remotely "demonic"......i'm a good researcher, and in 15-20 minutes on the internet i know i could dig up all the lowdown on wicca beliefs/practices/history etc.....and i know without looking it up that its all just a made-up job like so many other groups we know.....but i hold back because i'm afraid if i knew more i'd feel really uncomfortable with my friend.....i know, i know that's so lame....lol.
just wondering if any of you have any experience with the wicca thing, and what you think about all that.
Excellent post, Sirona, you answered all the questions i wasnt sure how to ask, and all your points are well taken. I'll do more reading. Thanks much.
martina mcbride: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg4tohn9ulg.
well, word gets around in a small, small town .
they said he was a dangerous man .
Martina McBride: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hG4TOHN9ULg
Well, word gets around in a small, small town
They said he was a dangerous man
But Mama was proud, and she stood her ground
She knew she was on the losin' end Well folks, I've had a great weekend visiting with y'all, and catching up on "new light," hahaha. Which we all know is just "old light" flipped over and refried in the same old smelly grease. The more things change, you know....the more some things and some people stay just the same as they ever were. But I've ignored some pressing business and my partner too this weekend, it's time I was moseying on down the trail here.... Some folks whispered, some folks talked
But everybody looked the other way
And when time ran out, there was no one about
On Independence Day It's really strange how even after 31 years, I'm still getting new insights into what the JW experience really was all about, and how it affected me....and still does. Lots of nearly forgotten memories have flooded back. Tonight, it dawned on me that it was about this time of year that I finally made the big momentous decision to leave the borg....don't know the exact date after all these years, but maybe that's why I was drawn to this board at this time.....in a way, to celebrate the anniversary of my freedom....my own personal Independence Day...the day I really began to live as a free man. Wow, what a great coincidence..... Let freedom ring
Let the white dove sing
Let the whole world know that today
Is a day of a reckoning I've really enjoyed meeting some of y'all here....sort of like a virtual District Assembly, yeah....but without the mind-numbing talks and butt-numbing stadium seats! hahaha Your stories have moved me....and I've been able to share mine, something I never, ever get to do in real life....because "worldly" people just can't understand, not really, even my nearest and dearest....so I keep all that locked away in a deep, dusty vault way down inside, hidden where no one can see. Umm....er....excuse me....something strange is happening to me..... Texman's head does a 360. Eyes roll back in his head, face contorts. His inner black diva speaks: "Saaaay WHAT!?!? Hitler? HITLER?? Oh NO, he did NOT go there!!! Jeeezus, you mean it?? Oh no, no NO, babies, we are not EVEN going to sing verse one of THAT song! In 2008??? What you talking 'bout, this IS the new system right here and right now, and it's a brand NEW day, children, we are NOT sitting in the back of the straight bus NO MORE!!! (snap, snap, SNAP) Turn me loose, I'll show him JUST what he can DO with that plantation AT-TI-TUDE . . . " Texman, regaining consciousness, grips his chair, struggles to regain his composure. After a minute, his features relax and he resumes normal speech: Ahem. Sorry for the interruption. Must be catching a cold or something. As I was saying, I got to share my story....for whatever it's worth. Probably not much, but maybe, just maybe I was led here at this time because somebody out there I will never know, will take heart from something I said and shared....and find their own way out of the sad and sorrowful darkness, into the sunlight of true freedom....our "inalienable right"....as men and women all "created equal," in Jefferson's immortal words. Let the weak be strong
Let the "right" be wrong Talk about your revolution It's Independence Day To all my ex-jw brothers and sisters....for if you have escaped the slavery and tyranny of the watchtower, I feel you really are my siblings in victory over an abusive spiritual "parent".....more so than we ever were when we were in our chains.....big warm HUGS and all my very best wishes for a life full of laughter, love, and liberty. For my freedom is your freedom too, never forget that. Think of me next time you hear this song. And rejoice with me! Fare you well. Roll the stone away
Let the guilty pay It's Independence Day And to you Simon.....a very warm thought.
i feel the need to express how i feel and felt about my life as a gay man.
i was brought up from birth as a jehovahs witness.
this has played a major part in my life and it has been a real struggle to get past.
There isn’t anything left to say except I wish I didn’t have to go through all of this to get where I am today.
Oh man. I wish you didn't either. Our family circumstances were different, and my 'nervous breakdown' came years later, long after I'd left the borg.....but your story is my story, baby. And probly most gay people's story in that cult, more or less. We prayed the same prayers, on our knees begging Jehovah for help.....help that never, ever came. We cried the same tears. The same acid of despair ate us away inside, drip by drip.....that horrible inner pain that nothing and no one could ease.....because we knew we were so rotten....dispicable....sinful monsters.....beyond all hope of redemption.....even God hated us.....and we hated ourselves through and through.....we longed for death....and we knew we deserved to die.
Straight people who read these words of ours, many of them just don't get it. They will think we are just dramatizing....living up to some "weird stereotype" as someone has put it recently. But gay people know we are relating the simple facts as we lived them.....the horrors NO straight boy or girl ever has to face, has no concept of.....having no right to exist.....a waste of breath, a waste of flesh. Evil....filthy....sick....perverted....ugly....unmentionable....unnameable.....in the eyes of everyone else it seemed. And not just among the jw's either.....but throughout most of the rest of the population too, "worldly" though they might be. Straight people just don't get it.....until we speak the truth.
They think we celebrate Gay Pride because we think we're so special and better than everyone else.....just arrogant.....but you and I know that's not so.....oh yeah maybe we are a little more fabulous, haha (wink)....but we celebrate our Pride because......WE LIVED. We didn't die, after all......like all the world and even God Himself wanted us to, so we thought.....we lived, we survived.....and somehow, we prevailed against all the darkness that tried to take our lives from us......unlike so many gay kids who didn't.
Your story made me weep for them....for you....for myself. We have to keep telling our stories.....even when straight people tell us to shut up and go away.....because it is The Truth.....and it makes us free.....and them too, if they have ears to hear and eyes to see. Thanks for sharing this powerful story. Love ya man.....all the best.
howdy all, i just happened to be in your neighborhood and thought i'd ring your doorbell to tell you the good news about jehovah's kingdom, and if you don't believe every damn word of it you're going to die a horrible death real soon m*th*rf*ck*r thought i'd say howdy.. like it says on my profile, i wasted my vulnerable teen years in the watchtower bible and crap society, and it nearly killed me.
funny thing is, i wasnt coerced into it by my family, they were all worldly (well except for a very eccentric old great uncle that nobody liked or visited) and thought i was out of my fucking mind to join up with that jw shit.. which i was.
understandably, because my parents drank too much, there were truly horrible fights every night at home, a very bitter divorce when i was 10, and only child me was trapped in the middle of all that with no one to turn to.
NOTE from Texman55: Just posting "the rest of the story" here for convenience....my life after leaving the borg....originally posted under the thread "Re: For those with a personal relationship to God....How did you get there?" where someone who's in AA now was asking how others regained faith. Formatting sucks, sorry....but I type faster that way.
okay, I'll share some of my story and my thoughts.....take the parts that help you and throw the rest out, ok buddy? like it says in the Big Book, "the way of the spirit is broad" (which you know is completely the opposite of the "narrow gate" idea we were hit with in the borg) and I have found that to be true. Reality is, though i think there are some very bad spiritual avenues (jw-ism springs to mind and others), there are many that are equally good and helpful, but you and only you can figure out what works for you.
To make a very long story relatively short....grew up christian in the deep south...which means you end up being half baptist whether you want to or not....lol....but my parents were not churchgoers....dad never went, mom just once in a while....methodist church....lutheran sometimes because it was closer.....but I learned to pray and always wanted to be close to God, do the right thing, all that....I enjoyed church/sunday school/vacation bible school, but it was all a now and then thing.....not much formal encouragement from mom and dad.....they had their own problems.
Okay then from 14 to 21 or so was a watchtower slave. Nuff said on that, i've posted that story under "another new guy from tx."
Left the borg, gradually came to let go all their doctrines.....for 10 years was basically agnostic at best.....no regular prayer or bible reading.....now and then would hit a rough patch in life for whatever and would pray then to God for help.....but very shy about getting involved in anything "religious" again.....went thru too much pain in the borg.....besides, it might be - horrors - false doctrine!! lol
Okay, so at great cost and poverty and pain and sacrifice i finally finished the education I should have been getting when I was deluded by the watchtower craziness.....got a real job....eventually started wishing I did have some kind of spiritual home again.....and omitting a long story here, started praying and reading christian stuff from time to time.....eventually felt very definitely led to the episcopal church, which was a good fit for several reasons not worth going into right now.
Get this....even then, 10 years after leaving the borg.....I was still all wound upside with some leftover jw ideas....more than I realized.....even though I knew the wt stuff was all wrong, still.....it does take a long while for all that to get out of your system, man.....when I joined the EC, i secretly thought, I need to write the church headquarters and tell them how to structure their bishops' visits better and improve the organization......jw style.......hahahahahahahaha.....thank god i never got around to writing that ridiculous letter.
Well okay so now I'm back to mainstream christian belief....really and sincerely.....and it felt good, and i got a lot of comfort from the sacraments, the majestic words of the liturgy, the beauty of the ritual and architecture, etc etc......and if you dont know, the EC and anglican churches in general are pretty broadminded, there's no regimentation and there's room for different points of view.....all very cool for an exjw. But....
I soon realized I wasn't making lots of new friends as I'd expected (they dont love bomb you in the EC.....not unless you belong to the same country club, lol).....and that's because I was not willing to tell everybody at church I was gay.....I was out to my mom and friends, yeah, but this was small town south, 1980s.....still not cool at all to be publicly out to the whole world.....besides i had a job to keep hold of.....so I wasnt willing to really let people get close enough to know who I was....naturally you dont make many close friends that way.....but I got okay with that, I'd go to church once a week, pay my respects to God, receive the sacrament, and keep my personal life separate.....do my personal prayers at home. A lonesome feeling, spiritually....but hey I was used to it.
Yeah, some people at church might have been okay with my being gay.....but you never know, and I had suffered so much on account of my sexuality in the borg, didn't want to go through that again.
So life goes on.....then 6,7 years later between one birthday and the next, my lifetime partner (supposedly) decides to move on to greener pastures....and then my mom unexpectedly died.....i had no family left at all, left completely alone in the world....was hurting real real bad.....I started drinking heavily and daily.....never had a drinking problem before.....soon I realized I could not stop.....scary but I was caught in the trap.
Year or two later I was driving to get beer one night.....i remembered a line from al anon I'd attended briefly years before....none of which made any sense to me then.....but I'm driving and praying, God I'm powerless over alcohol and my life has become unmanageable. Not expecting any particular response right then....just admitting the fact....so I get to the store and go in to pick up my beer....and the compulsion was gone....just gone.....didnt buy the beer that night.....which if youre not an alcoholic you cant understand, sounds insignificant.....but if you are one then you know.....that was a true miracle. No angelic visions, no voices in my ear....just the simple absence of that compulsion. Far as I'm concerned that was God....it certainly wasnt me because I wanted that darn beer! lol But I didn't need it......a miracle, plain and simple.
Next night though, prayer didnt work....but I felt hope that something could break the chain....so started going to AA meetings.....every day, every day....read all the AA books I could get my hands on.....seemed great at first....but....guess what, turned out I was still a screwup just like I had been as a jw.....never could get more than 90 days sober.....usually not more than 30 days.....even joined a gay AA group.....i was in a bigger town by this time....but the program just did not work for me long term....not sure why.....just didnt. Other folks were getting sober, or been sober for years and years....but not me.
Now let me say this. Theres a lot of real wisdom in those AA meetings, and a lot of great lessons in the Big Book and the 12 step book especially, stuff I think everybody ought to read and reflect on, alcoholic or not.
But....I did come to see that even AA is like the jdubs in a couple of respects....one, they or at least the hardliners so to speak, really believe they have the one and only way to 'salvation' and you will most certainly die if you dont stay with their program....and two, if you dont stick with the program and succeed they too will drop you like a hot potato. Understandable.....a recovering drunk doesnt need the temptation of being around somebody who's drinking.....but still, you do get 'shunned' so to speak.
I should mention after I left the borg I spent 17 years, off and on, going to counselors and therapists for depression....that didnt really work either. Just a natural born screw up all around, thats me I guess, lol. So I was disgusted with the idea of therapy, not interested in going through all that again with the drinking issue.....besides i knew......counselors would just tell me to go to AA, so what would be the point.
So this rocks on another 3-4 years, trying and failing, trying and failing. Finally i quit going to meetings....discouraged....ashamed. But I did start having monthly chats with a sympathetic priest from church. Mainly he'd just listen and empathize. Didn't help me stop drinking but was nice to confide in someone who didnt judge or hammer me, just listened. He did encourage me to at least try to attend the Eucharist once a week for six months to a year, and I did.
I know you've been waiting patiently for the great big technicolor Readers Digest happy ending to this drunkalogue.....but sorry man, this is real life, there isn't one.....just this: towards the end of this six months I finally met a guy online from another state....we clicked....visited back and forth......going good.....then had a little falling out....broke it all off.....didnt phone for a couple months....I was disappointed but not about to cave, you know how it goes....when i was happier the drinking problem had got a little better - not fixed, just not so bad....now it got bad, I mean real bad.....as in I'd drink two quarts of booze and a suitcase of beer in one weekend.....then be so sick I couldnt go to work on monday, and maybe not even on tuesday....I knew if this kept on I'd eventually lose my job....and with no family or friends to take me in.....no savings, nothing.....pretty soon i'd be one of those skanky guys living under a bridge....though I knew I'd kill myself before I ever got to that point, wouldnt want to live on the streets.
Yeah I was way scared....desperate....had tried everything, nothing worked....story of my life....but I could see I was going downhill fast....so one day I get down on my knees with a dining room chair.....I prayed with all my might, please God help me, help me now, make me like I was before this drinking problem started....I could always just take it or leave it.....thats what i prayed for.....not to quit drinking forever and always....like a good AA.....just to be like I used to be. Not that I hadnt already been praying all this long time too....I had....but it was, okay God its now or never, please help.
No dramatic response.....sorry.....I know theres supposed to be a knock on the door here....a telephone call.....a book falls open.....a vision of light.....nope, none of that. RD would never buy this story, lol.....too dull. But over the next day or two, a quiet, very tiny little thought....completely unexpected.....call C---.....the guy I had broke up with. A tiny little thought.....I didnt see the point of it....even if it was from God or whatever.....but I called....we reconnected.....fell in love.....before the year was out I packed up and moved out here to be with him.
And before another year was out, I realized I was indeed back to where I had been....I could drink or not drink normally.....buy a suitcase of beer, drink 3 or 4.....the rest might sit there six months before I drank another. And here is the significant point: this was without me trying to stop drinking. Totally not trying to not drink. Somehow it just happened. Wasnt praying every day for it, wasnt reading AA or bible stuff, my partner didnt ask or demand it (tho he was never a big drinker himself).....I really did not try to stop drinking....it just happened that way. I didn't do that....I couldn't....it happened to me....gradually....easily.....without my conscious effort. Really.
So you see my prayer was answered....I became like I had been before.....though it took a while for that to dawn on me. I dont' know how. It just did.
So does this story have a point, youre thinking? I don't know, you tell me. A psychologist or an atheist might say, well something happened in your subconscious mind to change the drinking thing, that's all it was.
But of course nobody can see or feel the subconscious.....just like nobody can see or feel God....so I'm not gonna get into that question. Both explanations, lacking concrete proof, are equally plausible, I guess.
And no, life hasn't been 'happy ever after' since then.....as it happens just five short years later, my darling C--- dropped dead one day of an unexpected heart attack. His homophobic family was real ugly.....took the house, everything they could lay hands on, had to pack my stuff in the truck and leave in the middle of the night....life goes on and its never been a bed of roses. But for right now I do have all I need to live a quiet, modest life with most of the everyday middle-class comforts....and now a new boyfriend here, maybe longterm, we'll see.....things could be so much worse and are for so many people all around the world....so I'm learning to just accept that life is what it is on any given day, and be grateful for all the good things I do have....not worry so much about what I dont.
I was a little afraid after my partner died, like oh no is the drinking problem going to come back? but it hasnt....still just take it or leave it, most of the time leave it.....rarely even get a buzz on....just not an issue, i'm happy to say.
Dont go to church anymore.....would like to sometimes, but....guess you know the Anglican Communion is all torn up with the gay thing these days.....local church is ultra conservative.....so I'm not going there. But I have my little short morning, night and mealtime prayers I say every day....and though i've finally gotten to the point of wondering if the bible and the early christians werent also another misguided cultlike operation....still.....there's just a very quiet feeling here in my heart that Somebody up there....call him/her/it what you will....not sure the name really matters.....Somebody really does love me....is looking out for me.....and has been all my life....and though bad things happen sometimes in this life, there is another bigger and better life to come. Meantime the most important thing here is to live an unselfish life.....which i try and fail miserably at, natch....look at my track record, lol....always the screwup......but at least I try in my little tiny ways. but somehow even that's okay.....i hope.
Heard a biker dude, real rough background, say one time in the AA rooms.....i know i'm on the right path when i feel clean inside, and good things happen.
That's all I can say. Make of it what you will. Find your own way.....ask and ye shall receive.
somebody who's become a friend is an ex catholic....pretty knowledgeable on all the mainstream christian doctrines and history etc....now into wicca beliefs....not a actual member, but in tune with the ideas....mediation, incense, being close to the earth yada yada.
not real wound up with it, not pushing it on me.....and theres no way i would ever go there.....just not my style, and think i am over any organized religion at this point.. a good friend, good person.....he cant really explain why he's into all that except it feels good....but i'm a little uncomfortable.....sad to say i think it's a holdover from the jw fear and loathing of anything remotely "demonic"......i'm a good researcher, and in 15-20 minutes on the internet i know i could dig up all the lowdown on wicca beliefs/practices/history etc.....and i know without looking it up that its all just a made-up job like so many other groups we know.....but i hold back because i'm afraid if i knew more i'd feel really uncomfortable with my friend.....i know, i know that's so lame....lol.
just wondering if any of you have any experience with the wicca thing, and what you think about all that.
Thanks for sharing with me, everyone. I really have to apologize....I see now that my initial remarks were prejudicial, and I should have expressed myself more respectfully. I really am open to the possibility that there is something good in the Wicca stuff....I believe my friend to be a good person.....though I probably would still have to agree with whitman's comments on the whole, and pass on getting involved myself.
But to those who find it a souce of goodness and comfort, I respect your feelings and wish you well with that. I'm at a point in life where I believe there is a spiritual force for good in the universe that might be at work in many guises.....though I'm not sure anymore that what we call it is the most important thing....only that we cooperate with the good. And not for our own benefit alone, but also for our neighbors'. Well, peace y'all, and thanks again.
as some of you are aware i have been going to aa meetings since the new year.
the "god thing" linked to the aa was a real dilemma for me.. since this time i have researched well the jw doctrines and come to the realisation that to have a personal relationship with a higher power i do not need to believe in the witness doctrine.. i am at a point where i have been considering how i personally would interprate a higher power.. i have met someone within the aa who is an ex jw and have just had a conversation with him on the phone, which has got me thinking about this.. now he has said that his faith now has been built by replacing one brick at a time so to speak.
giving an illustration of his faith being like a building, he can replace an old brick with a new one until he gets a new building all of his own making.
okay, I'll share some of my story and my thoughts.....take the parts that help you and throw the rest out, ok buddy? like it says in the Big Book, "the way of the spirit is broad" (which you know is completely the opposite of the "narrow gate" idea we were hit with in the borg) and I have found that to be true. Reality is, though i think there are some very bad spiritual avenues (jw-ism springs to mind and others), there are many that are equally good and helpful, but you and only you can figure out what works for you.
To make a very long story relatively short....grew up christian in the deep south...which means you end up being half baptist whether you want to or not....lol....but my parents were not churchgoers....dad never went, mom just once in a while....methodist church....lutheran sometimes because it was closer.....but I learned to pray and always wanted to be close to God, do the right thing, all that....I enjoyed church/sunday school/vacation bible school, but it was all a now and then thing.....not much formal encouragement from mom and dad.....they had their own problems.
Okay then from 14 to 21 or so was a watchtower slave. Nuff said on that, i've posted that story under "another new guy from tx."
Left the borg, gradually came to let go all their doctrines.....for 10 years was basically agnostic at best.....no regular prayer or bible reading.....now and then would hit a rough patch in life for whatever and would pray then to God for help.....but very shy about getting involved in anything "religious" again.....went thru too much pain in the borg.....besides, it might be - horrors - false doctrine!! lol
Okay, so at great cost and poverty and pain and sacrifice i finally finished the education I should have been getting when I was deluded by the watchtower craziness.....got a real job....eventually started wishing I did have some kind of spiritual home again.....and omitting a long story here, started praying and reading christian stuff from time to time.....eventually felt very definitely led to the episcopal church, which was a good fit for several reasons not worth going into right now.
Get this....even then, 10 years after leaving the borg.....I was still all wound upside with some leftover jw ideas....more than I realized.....even though I knew the wt stuff was all wrong, still.....it does take a long while for all that to get out of your system, man.....when I joined the EC, i secretly thought, I need to write the church headquarters and tell them how to structure their bishops' visits better and improve the organization......jw style.......hahahahahahahaha.....thank god i never got around to writing that ridiculous letter.
Well okay so now I'm back to mainstream christian belief....really and sincerely.....and it felt good, and i got a lot of comfort from the sacraments, the majestic words of the liturgy, the beauty of the ritual and architecture, etc etc......and if you dont know, the EC and anglican churches in general are pretty broadminded, there's no regimentation and there's room for different points of view.....all very cool for an exjw. But....
I soon realized I wasn't making lots of new friends as I'd expected (they dont love bomb you in the EC.....not unless you belong to the same country club, lol).....and that's because I was not willing to tell everybody at church I was gay.....I was out to my mom and friends, yeah, but this was small town south, 1980s.....still not cool at all to be publicly out to the whole world.....besides i had a job to keep hold of.....so I wasnt willing to really let people get close enough to know who I was....naturally you dont make many close friends that way.....but I got okay with that, I'd go to church once a week, pay my respects to God, receive the sacrament, and keep my personal life separate.....do my personal prayers at home. A lonesome feeling, spiritually....but hey I was used to it.
Yeah, some people at church might have been okay with my being gay.....but you never know, and I had suffered so much on account of my sexuality in the borg, didn't want to go through that again.
So life goes on.....then 6,7 years later between one birthday and the next, my lifetime partner (supposedly) decides to move on to greener pastures....and then my mom unexpectedly died.....i had no family left at all, left completely alone in the world....was hurting real real bad.....I started drinking heavily and daily.....never had a drinking problem before.....soon I realized I could not stop.....scary but I was caught in the trap.
Year or two later I was driving to get beer one night.....i remembered a line from al anon I'd attended briefly years before....none of which made any sense to me then.....but I'm driving and praying, God I'm powerless over alcohol and my life has become unmanageable. Not expecting any particular response right then....just admitting the fact....so I get to the store and go in to pick up my beer....and the compulsion was gone....just gone.....didnt buy the beer that night.....which if youre not an alcoholic you cant understand, sounds insignificant.....but if you are one then you know.....that was a true miracle. No angelic visions, no voices in my ear....just the simple absence of that compulsion. Far as I'm concerned that was God....it certainly wasnt me because I wanted that darn beer! lol But I didn't need it......a miracle, plain and simple.
Next night though, prayer didnt work....but I felt hope that something could break the chain....so started going to AA meetings.....every day, every day....read all the AA books I could get my hands on.....seemed great at first....but....guess what, turned out I was still a screwup just like I had been as a jw.....never could get more than 90 days sober.....usually not more than 30 days.....even joined a gay AA group.....i was in a bigger town by this time....but the program just did not work for me long term....not sure why.....just didnt. Other folks were getting sober, or been sober for years and years....but not me.
Now let me say this. Theres a lot of real wisdom in those AA meetings, and a lot of great lessons in the Big Book and the 12 step book especially, stuff I think everybody ought to read and reflect on, alcoholic or not.
But....I did come to see that even AA is like the jdubs in a couple of respects....one, they or at least the hardliners so to speak, really believe they have the one and only way to 'salvation' and you will most certainly die if you dont stay with their program....and two, if you dont stick with the program and succeed they too will drop you like a hot potato. Understandable.....a recovering drunk doesnt need the temptation of being around somebody who's drinking.....but still, you do get 'shunned' so to speak.
I should mention after I left the borg I spent 17 years, off and on, going to counselors and therapists for depression....that didnt really work either. Just a natural born screw up all around, thats me I guess, lol. So I was disgusted with the idea of therapy, not interested in going through all that again with the drinking issue.....besides i knew......counselors would just tell me to go to AA, so what would be the point.
So this rocks on another 3-4 years, trying and failing, trying and failing. Finally i quit going to meetings....discouraged....ashamed. But I did start having monthly chats with a sympathetic priest from church. Mainly he'd just listen and empathize. Didn't help me stop drinking but was nice to confide in someone who didnt judge or hammer me, just listened. He did encourage me to at least try to attend the Eucharist once a week for six months to a year, and I did.
I know you've been waiting patiently for the great big technicolor Readers Digest happy ending to this drunkalogue.....but sorry man, this is real life, there isn't one.....just this: towards the end of this six months I finally met a guy online from another state....we clicked....visited back and forth......going good.....then had a little falling out....broke it all off.....didnt phone for a couple months....I was disappointed but not about to cave, you know how it goes....when i was happier the drinking problem had got a little better - not fixed, just not so bad....now it got bad, I mean real bad.....as in I'd drink two quarts of booze and a suitcase of beer in one weekend.....then be so sick I couldnt go to work on monday, and maybe not even on tuesday....I knew if this kept on I'd eventually lose my job....and with no family or friends to take me in.....no savings, nothing.....pretty soon i'd be one of those skanky guys living under a bridge....though I knew I'd kill myself before I ever got to that point, wouldnt want to live on the streets.
Yeah I was way scared....desperate....had tried everything, nothing worked....story of my life....but I could see I was going downhill fast....so one day I get down on my knees with a dining room chair.....I prayed with all my might, please God help me, help me now, make me like I was before this drinking problem started....I could always just take it or leave it.....thats what i prayed for.....not to quit drinking forever and always....like a good AA.....just to be like I used to be. Not that I hadnt already been praying all this long time too....I had....but it was, okay God its now or never, please help.
No dramatic response.....sorry.....I know theres supposed to be a knock on the door here....a telephone call.....a book falls open.....a vision of light.....nope, none of that. RD would never buy this story, lol.....too dull. But over the next day or two, a quiet, very tiny little thought....completely unexpected.....call C---.....the guy I had broke up with. A tiny little thought.....I didnt see the point of it....even if it was from God or whatever.....but I called....we reconnected.....fell in love.....before the year was out I packed up and moved out here to be with him.
And before another year was out, I realized I was indeed back to where I had been....I could drink or not drink normally.....buy a suitcase of beer, drink 3 or 4.....the rest might sit there six months before I drank another. And here is the significant point: this was without me trying to stop drinking. Totally not trying to not drink. Somehow it just happened. Wasnt praying every day for it, wasnt reading AA or bible stuff, my partner didnt ask or demand it (tho he was never a big drinker himself).....I really did not try to stop drinking....it just happened that way. I didn't do that....I couldn't....it happened to me....gradually....easily.....without my conscious effort. Really.
So you see my prayer was answered....I became like I had been before.....though it took a while for that to dawn on me. I dont' know how. It just did.
So does this story have a point, youre thinking? I don't know, you tell me. A psychologist or an atheist might say, well something happened in your subconscious mind to change the drinking thing, that's all it was.
But of course nobody can see or feel the subconscious.....just like nobody can see or feel God....so I'm not gonna get into that question. Both explanations, lacking concrete proof, are equally plausible, I guess.
And no, life hasn't been 'happy ever after' since then.....as it happens just five short years later, my darling C--- dropped dead one day of an unexpected heart attack. His homophobic family was real ugly.....took the house, everything they could lay hands on, had to pack my stuff in the truck and leave in the middle of the night....life goes on and its never been a bed of roses. But for right now I do have all I need to live a quiet, modest life with most of the everyday middle-class comforts....and now a new boyfriend here, maybe longterm, we'll see.....things could be so much worse and are for so many people all around the world....so I'm learning to just accept that life is what it is on any given day, and be grateful for all the good things I do have....not worry so much about what I dont.
I was a little afraid after my partner died, like oh no is the drinking problem going to come back? but it hasnt....still just take it or leave it, most of the time leave it.....rarely even get a buzz on....just not an issue, i'm happy to say.
Dont go to church anymore.....would like to sometimes, but....guess you know the Anglican Communion is all torn up with the gay thing these days.....local church is ultra conservative.....so I'm not going there. But I have my little short morning, night and mealtime prayers I say every day....and though i've finally gotten to the point of wondering if the bible and the early christians werent also another misguided cultlike operation....still.....there's just a very quiet feeling here in my heart that Somebody up there....call him/her/it what you will....not sure the name really matters.....Somebody really does love me....is looking out for me.....and has been all my life....and though bad things happen sometimes in this life, there is another bigger and better life to come. Meantime the most important thing here is to live an unselfish life.....which i try and fail miserably at, natch....look at my track record, lol....always the screwup......but at least I try in my little tiny ways. but somehow even that's okay.....i hope.
Heard a biker dude, real rough background, say one time in the AA rooms.....i know i'm on the right path when i feel clean inside, and good things happen.
That's all I can say. Make of it what you will. Find your own way.....ask and ye shall receive.
i just got back from an expo show and wanted to tell everyone about a product i bought i think is really cool.
i don't have a vested interest in it, i just want to share it with others.
it's a smoke free electronic "cigarette" it's a vapor that doesn't smell and gives you a nicotene fix.
hmm, interesting. Want to tell my fellow smokers there's a new product called "snus" put out by marlboro, camel, etc.......from scandinavia orignally.....like copenhagen but only about the size of a pea. You dont chew it, just put it between your teeth and gum. The great thing is, there's no spit! It just sits there, very clean.
I tried it on a couple of long airline flights a few months back.....worked just fine, really saved my butt I can tell ya. And nobody even knows its in your mouth, would be good for work too.....has a nice taste, not nasty at all.....try it. Not giving up my smokes for it, but a good alternative when needed.
as i think i recall, this happened in the fall of 1972. i was living in atlanta at the time, where it was a nonissue, there was a very pretty black girl who was very popular in the congo there.
but back in my much smaller hometown, there were still black congregations when i started studying in 1970....totally separate khs, totally separate circuit assemblies.
not sure if they had a separate co...probably not.. in fact my great uncle, the eccentric old guy nobody in my family had much to do with....been a jw for ages but not very popular in the kh either....had a little house directly across the street.....moody, cranky old cuss, but very independent thinker too in a weird kind of russelite way....he got df'd around that time and i think it had something to do with the integration issue.
good point, fatfreek....yeah youre right some of his ideas probly came from the old GA stuff....I found lots of old GAs at my grandparents hourse....no doubt they had come from him many years before. but both my grandfather and he were heavy on the natural food ideas, dont drink fluoridated water or cokes, boiled apples for breakfast and no sugar, no white flour, yada yada yada....they would have loved living in this day and time when its actually hip to be a health fanatic, imho.....though grandpa had never been a jw.....thank god or I might have had a whole family of jws to contend with....what a scary thought.....lol.
that's a great story on your other thread, man....thanks for sharing. you were a super good friend, i'm impressed.
i say this because i have been helped so much by the many posts that represent the way i feel about the wtbts.
it is good to know that there are so many people that feel this way.
i am currently inactive and dont comment but do attend meetings for the sake of the family.. my wife is still in and i have a daughter and one on the way.
Welcome! Leaving is hard I know, but at least I had no family ties....so in that sense it was a lot easier than your situation. Best of luck to ya.
btw I highly recommend Ray Franz' Crisis of Conscience....get it....you'll be amazed at what you learn.
