His chalk talks taught me so much and I’ll take them with me and pass them on where I can. To paraphrase one very important thought that works so well for me;

“There is one undeniable fact about my past – I can’t change it. I can only commend my past to the mercy of God. There is also one undeniable fact about my future – I have one, I just don’t know how long it will be. I can only commend my future to the providence of God.”

From the Ashley web site and Fr.’s biography;

Father Martin’s Legacy

In the words of the late Mike Deaver, former White House Chief of Staff under President Ronald Reagan, “Father Martin changed my life and changed me. When I came to Ashley, I had been with presidents and kings and popes and prime ministers, but Father was the most powerful person I had ever met, and he still is today. You see, Father has the power to change people, to make them better, to make them whole again.” Father Martin’s legacy is Father Martin’s Ashley.

Post from: Blisstree

Father Joseph Martin 1924-2009

I hope this helps – “AA’s Service Manual”

“This is AA’s Service Manual – an outgrowth of the “Third Legacy Manual” which served the movement so well beginning with Bill W.’s first draft in 1951. All of the basic service principles and procedures outlined in that document have been retained. In the interests of convenience and completeness the material has been edited and rearranged.

The Conference Report and Charter Committee is responsible for reviewing and approving the updating and revision of The A.A. Service Manual/Twelve Concepts for World Service. This revision was approved by the 1999 General Service Conference.”

If that isn’t enough try the pamphlet “The Twelve Concepts for World Service – Illustrated.”

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AA’s Service Manual

From the current online Grapevine issue – “A Child of Woodstock”, additional validation of many years of my adult life. Similar thoughts had been expressed to me well after the divorce when I had seen my ex for the first time in many months. She didn’t appear to be the person I had known and I brought it to my sponsor. His explanation was quite close;

“What is relevant here, as I began to realize slowly in AA, is that it was alcohol that made our marriage possible for all the years we stayed together. We drank as our parents did, and liquor flowed into the fissures between us. It erased our reality. It cloaked our deep estrangement from each other and ourselves. It made deception and inauthenticity livable.”

My wife rarely drank and didn’t drink alcoholically (then). Alcohol had a profound and direct influence on her humanity through her family before me. I added new chapters.

The words that ring true for me in this lady’s sharing are the erasure of reality, deception and inauthenticity. Alcohol definitely does that, from my personal experience. The paths were not identical yet our reality wasn’t real, we deceived each other and we weren’t able to be authentic with each other. She might not see it the same way. The point is the level of damage alcohol brings to a relationship that had hope and wonder. Alcohol created hopelessness and bewilderment. Which, despite the amends, will always be part of that first “life.”

I must continue to remember that my God has graced me with a gift beyond my wildest imagination. He transcends all the earthly troubles. I am grateful.

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Alcohol Erased Their Reality

Ordered my sandwich and soda and had a seat with him. It’s funny but I know he didn’t like me when we initially met but we’d grown on each other. We made small talk briefly then I asked him where he’d been going to meetings.

He isn’t. He went out again and now meetings are a source of mental irritation for him. Additionally, someone who he had hooked up with who has considerable time and was helping him had now turned on him, refusing to be his friend anymore. (Granted, one side of the story.)

The point is – do we now shun those who drink after becoming friends with another human being?

Since I’ve been gleaning from Mel B. lately, this is what Mel has to say on the subject;

ALMOST every drinking problem is also a human-relations problem. Some alcoholics, it’s true, have the gift of amiability. Drunk or sober, they have few enemies or strained relationships.

Most of us, however, don’t have it so good. Drunk or sober, we rub some people the wrong way. We also come into the orbit of people who antagonize us. What can we do about it? Does the AA program offer a workable way of dealing with these human-relations problems?

“The program contains an implied answer, even if it doesn’t supply one directly. The answer is: Handle any human-relations problem by creating the right attitude towards the people involved; take personal responsibility for seeing that the antagonism is cleared up, at least from your side of the fence. This method is essentially what is conveyed in AA’s Eighth and Ninth Steps, although sometimes we lose sight of our reasons for carrying out these suggestions.”

I believe ostracizing a fellow because they drank is truly arrogant. Not a “quality” I wish to have as much of anymore and exactly what could keep someone away from recovery, perhaps until they die. Wrong to the Nth degree!

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Ostracized? I Don’t Think So!

I know we’ll continue to hear this in meetings – ““I was a functioning alcoholic – I had a job, went to work, made money,” etc. etc. And I know those folks will hold fast to that belief. So be it.

Dr. Bob knew…

Pages 175-176;

“I developed two distinct phobias. One was the fear of not sleeping, and the other was the fear of running out of liquor. Not being a man of means, I knew that if I did not stay sober enough to earn money, I would run out of liquor.”

What Bob did was exactly what I did – substituted.

“Most of the time, therefore, I did not take the morning drink which I craved so badly, but instead would fill up on large doses of sedatives to quiet the jitters, which distressed me terribly.”

I had found a different “sedative” but it worked the same.

Then;

“This routine went on with few interruptions for seventeen years. It was really a horrible nightmare, this earning money, getting liquor, smuggling it home, getting drunk, morning jitters, taking large doses of sedatives to make it possible for me to earn more money, and so on ad nauseam.”

Yeah, functional.

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Dr. Bob, Phobias and Functionality

“In other words, the AA founders were not zealously committed to the task of convincing any person that he might be an alcoholic, or of citing scientific proof that he could never be a controlled drinker. This was something the individual would have to decide for himself, even at the cost of getting drunk again. Is it irresponsible to tell an alcoholic to try drinking again if he thinks he can get away with it? Not really, because any person who believes that he can drink will probably do it no matter what is said to him. Our experience has certainly shown us that alcoholics do not usually respond to logic or intellectual arguments.”

Challenge my logical arguments? Certainly not when I’m drinking and you’ll probably elicit, at the least, an inward, instinctual, response today.

But the truth remains – I can’t personally get you sober or drunk nor can you me. Those who take the time and make the effort to blame AA or its members for their arriving home drunk, were simply looking for whatever excuse they could find to fulfill their obsession to drink alcohol.

As Mel also says (true of me): “When I was drinking, I would have listened to any person, no matter how sleazy his credentials, who told me I could keep on drinking.” No matter how sleazy!

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It’s An Individual Decision

from AA History Lovers at Yahoo! Groups;

March 1936 – AA had 10 members staying sober. At end of 1936 A.A. had 15 members.
March-May 1938 – Bill begins writing the book Alcoholics Anonymous. Works Publishing Inc established to support writing and printing of the book.
March 1940 – Mort J. came to LA from Denver; started custom of reading Chapter 5 Big Book at Cecil group.
March 1941 – Second printing of Big Book.
March 1941 – 1st Prison AA Group formed at San Quentin.
March 1946 – The March of Time film is produced by NY AA office.
March 1949 – Dr. Bob considers idea of AA conference premature.
March 1951 – American Weekly publishes memorial article for Dr. Bob.
March 1, 1939 – Readers Digest fails to write article on AA.
March 1, 1941 – Jack Alexander’s Saturday Evening Post article published and membership jumped from 2,000 to 8,000 by years end.
March 3 1947 – Nell Wing started work at Alcoholic Foundation 415 Lexington Avenue.
March 4, 1891 – Lois W is born.
March 5, 1945 – Time Magazine reports Detroit radio broadcasts of AA members.
March 7, 1940 — Bill and Lois visited the Philadelphia AA group.
March 7, 1941 — Boston newspaper reported that any drunk who wanted to get well was more than welcome at the AA meeting at 115 Newbury St., at 8 PM Wednesdays.
March 9, 1941 – Wichita Beacon reports AA member from NY who wants to form a group in Wichita.
March 10, 1944 – New York Intergroup was established.
March 11, 1949 – The Calix Society, an association of Roman Catholic alcoholics who are maintaining their sobriety through participation in Alcoholics Anonymous, was formed in Minneapolis by five Catholic AA members.
March 14, – South Orange, NJ, AA group held an anniversary dinner with Bill W as guest speaker
March 15, 1941 – 1st AA group formed in New Haven, Connecticut. Not reported in paper until Oct 1, 1941.
March 16, 1940 – Alcoholic Foundation & Works Publishing move from Newark to 30 Vesey St in lower Manhattan. First headquarters of our own.
March 21, 1881 – Anne R, Dr Bobs wife, is born.
March 21 1966 – Ebby dies.
March 22, 1951 – Dr William Duncan Silkworth dies at Towns Hospital.
March 22, 1984 – Clarence S, “Home Brewmeister” , dies.
March 23, 1936 – Bill & Lois visit Fitz M, “Our Southern Friend”, in Maryland.
March 25, 1898 — Jim B (”The Vicious Cycle”) was born.
March 29, 1943 — The Charleston Mail, WV, reported on Bill W’s talk at St. John’s Parish House.
March 31, 1947 – 1st AA group formed in London, England.

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Significant March Dates in A.A. History

“What really is behind a temper outburst? A temper explosion is not something that just blows up out of nowhere, a storm without a cause. It is actually a surface manifestation of inner hostility, of the emotions we often call ‘resentments’ in AA. I’ve learned that I am subject to moments of rage only if I allow myself to wallow around in a swamp of resentful, self-pitying thoughts. It is easy to become outwardly angry, for example, when I have spent several hours thinking about past mistakes, or going over how badly someone treated me in the past. I can also become angry over rejections or setbacks, or just about anything that threatens my security. I find, too, that considerable surface anger can be generated by reading or hearing things that arouse my indignation.”

I can identify with this completely.

That “split-second” fuse they told me about when I lost my temper existed because I gave the thing that I resented so much continuous, hopeless, thought. I couldn’t change it yet I thought somehow, some way, I could do something about it. Like, my father. Didn’t change him in the least. Nor did it change all those bosses. And it never changed my wife. Never changed the finances or the electric company either.

Working on changing my thinking changed something – me. I’d love to wish I could go back and fix all those things but my thinking has changed. Today I understand I can’t change the past and there’s a good reason for that.

“Be still and know He is God.”

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Anger and Wrong Thinking – Partners

From pages 32-33 in the 12&12;

“To clergymen, doctors, friends, and families, the loveaholic who means well and tries hard is a heartbreaking riddle. To most L.A.’s, he/she is not. There are too many of us who have been just like him/her, and have found the riddle’s answer. The answer has to do with the quality of faith rather than its quantity. This has been our blind spot. We supposed we had humility when we really hadn’t. We supposed we had been serious about religious practices when, upon honest appraisal, we found we had been only superficial. Or, going to the other extreme, we had wallowed in emotionalism and had mistaken it for true religious feeling. In both cases we had been asking something for nothing.”

Interested? Curious? Loveaholic?

“The fact was we really hadn’t cleaned house so that the grace of God could enter us and expel the obsession.”

Are you obsessed with another person?

“In no deep or meaningful sense had we ever taken stock of ourselves, made amends to those we had harmed, or freely given to any other human being without any demand for reward.”

Think about this. Are you interested in helping a member of the opposite gender? Are you “all about” helping that person you so deeply care for? Why? Once you’ve done a bit of digging, do you find that you’re helping with the hope of having your help “returned?” Or, can you honestly say that you’re helping strictly for the welfare of the other person, expecting nothing in return?

“Few indeed are the practicing loveaholics who have any idea how irrational they are, or seeing their irrationality, can bear to face it. Some will be willing to term themselves ‘problem loveaholics,” but cannot endure the suggestion that they are in fact mentally ill.”

Co-Dependents Anonymous is a wonderful fellowship. They even have a program of recovery!

“They are abetted in this blindness by a world which does not understand the difference between sane loving and loveaholism. ‘Sanity’ is defined as ’soundness of mind.’ Yet no loveaholic, soberly analyzing his/her destructive behavior, whether the destruction fell on the dining-room furniture or his/her own moral fiber, can claim ’soundness of mind’ for him/herself.”

“God will restore us to sanity if we rightly relate ourselves to Him.”

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The Loveaholic and Step Two

Mike left a comment today, the gist of which was that some folks were reading letters from a prison inmate at a meeting, looking, in some apparently misguided way, for help for the inmate. The inmate was not attending the meeting. The folks offering the readings also offered comments on the inmate’s daily living challenges. At an AA meeting. Then looking for feedback from the meeting.

Of course this felt awkward, even angering some. My first thoughts ran along the line that this was somehow a violation of our Fifth Tradition.

Then I read “The Language of the Heart” page 133 where Bill W. mentions that, “by 1937, some of us realized that AA needed a standard literature. There would have to be a book. Our word-of-mouth program could be garbled, we might be destroyed by dissension over basic principles, and then our public relations would surely go to pot. We’d fall flat on our obligation to the alcoholic who hadn’t yet heard unless we put our knowledge on paper.”

It dawned on me! How can we read this inmate’s letters in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous??? They aren’t AA approved literature!

Therefore it makes it very easy. This is a deceptive violation of anonymity. And anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions. Sorry, but you’ll have to stop reading these letters in the meeting…

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Actually It Boils Down To Simplicity