What Do I Do to Stay Abstinent?
- Being totally desperate and willing to do whatever a qualified abstinent person said to do to get relief.
- Not waiting until I had self-esteem, faith, loved myself, or found a loving and kind sponsor that I bonded with.
- Following directions even when they were illogical, inconvenient, or expensive or given to me by someone I didn't admire.
- Making three GS connections a day (this is where graduate student poverty forced me to invent the GreyNet to avoid long distance phone calls from Kalamazoo, MI. Desperation to be abstinent may be the mother of invention.)
- Driving three hours to Chicago or two hours to Ann Arbor to GS meetings even though I was too busy with studying or too broke to buy the gas
- Starting a GS meeting in Kalamazoo even though it was often just me, copies of the GS, and my Big Book for weeks on end
- Working with newcomers after I had 90 days even though scores and scores (maybe even hundreds and hundreds!) never came back
- Going to the NYC Round Up, the Cambridge Marathons, and the Chicago Retreat (those were the only GS gatherings in my early years - now there are many to choose from) (again, despite being much too busy, much too afraid of financial insecurity, and terrified of GS people I didn't know)
- Listening to GS tapes in the car, as I walked around campus, and when preparing and eating my GS abstinent food, i.e., whenever I wasn't studying or in class
- Promising myself that I would eat tomorrow but since I had committed my food that morning, I would be abstinent today
- Chewing pack after pack of sugar free gum (that lasted a year) and drinking gallons and gallons of diet soda (that lasted years) whenever I wanted to eat
- Calling my sponsor on time everyday, calling in food changes, and calling with GS questions or dilemmas
- Throwing out all non GS foods and stocking up on emergency GS supplies
- Going to the grocery store to make sure I had the food I committed
- Going to AA meetings everyday in the absence of GS meetings even though I didn't think I was an alcoholic
- Eating huge meals
- Trying everything vegan on the greysheet at least once and constantly expanding my soy choices
- Napping after my meals to get through the tragedy of 4 ounces.