There are a lot of old phrases that meant quite a bit to folks like me that I rarely hear anymore. This is one of them.

Do you take offense to such a saying? If you do, the odds are good that you’re early in sodryety. An oldtimer explained it to me;

You have two ears and one mouth for a reason. Everything you know about staying sober is on the first page of the Big Book, therefore when you open your mouth (at days, weeks, or months dry, no, not sober) you’re more than likely spreading your disease than helping anyone. The reason you have two ears and one mouth is so you can listen twice as hard as you speak. Listen to learn, learn to listen.

He was right…

Have a saying you haven’t hear for quite some time? Please, leave it in the comments

Post from: Blisstree

Take The Cotton Out Of Your Ears

You were given cause to think, develop an answer based in the Twelve Steps, and respond accordingly. Did you?

Or, did you believe that the oldtimer was okay, didn’t truly need your help, wasn’t looking for an answer that would not only help him/her but others as well?

Or, did you make one up because you really had no idea what to say but needed to be heard anyway?

What do you think about this?

“How I work my program is none of anyone’s business!!! How anyone else works their program is none of my business!!!”

First Things First – can we please make it THE program??? My program got me drunk…

Secondly, there’s this thing called “open-mindedness” that has no doubt saved my ass many times, thankfully. I have to be willing to listen to those who’ve been there – done that, and are able to pass on life saving experience to me to use! How I work the program has GOT to be someone else’s business on occasion and better be! Or, I might be drinking, or, more likely, dead.

Post from: Blisstree

Oldtimer Manipulates Meeting Topic!

“All of A.A.’s Twelve Steps ask us to go contrary to our natural desires… they all deflate our egos. When it comes to ego deflation, few steps are harder to take than Five. But scarcely any Step is more necessary to longtime sobriety and peace of mind than this one.”

Today, I’d very much like to offer my thanks to Sean A. from L.A., who said this on a tape I listened to – (paraphrasing) “Some days I’m a shining image of Alcoholics Anonymous, some days I just don’t drink.” My state of mind this morning lends itself to simply just damn well not drinking today!

Why would that be? Okay Big Book Bob McG. – where are you? I can hear you now, “Aw, things aren’t going Mark’s way… sniff.” Miserable Ole’ Goat (wish I knew how you are, love ya’ and thanks to you too!)

Go against my natural instincts eh? Ego deflation huh? God is simply not delivering my demands in my time! You gotta problem with that?

Yeah, here’s a dose of reality to seriously consider (which is truly what I’d like to relate to y’all). I get angry. Wallah! That’s right, even after 17 years. And it all boils down to – ego!!!

I’m working at making changes and they’re not happening fast enough. Actually, they seem to not be happening at all, rather, they’re moving more in a backwards direction. I will not let life abuse me anymore!!! Unfortunately, I don’t know a balance between being passive or explosive about how to deal with it. How about you?

Maybe I need more ventilation…

Post from: Blisstree

Contrary To Our Natural Desires

Page 72:

“The best reason first: If we skip this vital step, we may not overcome drinking. Time after time newcomers have tried to keep to themselves certain facts about their lives. Trying to avoid this humbling experience, they have turned to easier methods. Almost invariably they got drunk. Having persevered with the rest of the program, they wondered why they fell. We think the reason is that they never completed their housecleaning. They took inventory all right, but hung on to some of the worst items in stock. They only thought they had lost their egoism and fear; they only thought they had humbled themselves. But they had not learned enough of humility, fearlessness and honesty, in the sense we find it necessary, until they told someone else all their life story.”

We are masters of self-delusion! Consider this;

Did we not, for years or even decades, swear we didn’t have a drinking problem? Didn’t we also swear that the next time it would be different? Didn’t we also swear that we could stop anytime we wanted to? Didn’t we also swear we were hurting no one but ourselves?

Masters of self-delusion! Egotistical!

How egotistical is it to think that we might be able to hide some putrid fact of our lives from God? Pretty damned egotistical, if ya’ ask me… yet, somewhere, in our minds, it lurks that if I don’t have to share it with another human being, no one will know – and I won’t have to work on that. Delusional…

Post from: Blisstree

Why Can’t I Just Admit It To God?

To be used as a guide for a Fourth Step – Liabilities and their definitions.

Resentment – “When we are angry or bitter toward someone for an extended period of time over some real or imagined insult, we are feeling resentment. It is a hostile or indignant attitude in response to an alleged affront or personal injury.”

False Pride – “is either feeling better than or less than someone else. Feelings of superiority include prejudice about race, education or religious beliefs, and sarcasm – putting someone else down to make us feel better about ourselves. Feelings of inferiority include self-pity – dwelling on one’s own problems, and low self-esteem – the lack of self-worth or self-respect.”

Envy – “wanting someone else’s possessions.”

Jealousy – “being suspicious of another’s motives or doubting the faithfulness of a friend.”

Selfishness – “concern only for ourselves, our own welfare or pleasure, without regard for, or at the expense of, others.”

Laziness – “means lacking the will or the desire to work. Procrastination, which is postponing or delaying an assigned job or task, is a form of laziness.”

Dishonesty – “theft or deception. It includes taking things that don’t belong to us, cheating people out of what is rightfully theirs, and lying to or witholding the truth from others.”

Fear – “is being afraid of losing something we have or not getting something we want. It manifests itself in many ways including phobia, terror, panic, anxiety and worry.”

Post from: Blisstree

Liabilities

I am absolutely amazed this morning as a direct result of last night. Perhaps there is a small condo being erected in my gray matter

Having been given the opportunity to chair our group’s discussion meeting last night along with some time to consider a topic, I couldn’t decide between bringing up pride or tolerance. I chose pride. Wow…

Why do I say wow? It came to pass that it became a good meeting (and who am I to judge?) but, having begun with a few words about the personal difficulties that I’m having with those who are being misled into prideful feelings in recovery, I watched and listened to one of the most “distant” discussions I’ve heard in an A.A. meeting in years! A discussion about good and bad pride. A long list of justifiable pride. A lot of proud people!

Not until the sharing came to about the eighth or ninth person, Ed, did I hear anything like I had heard from the oldtimers who taught me. Right there I need to fetch myself up. I have a pride in what the oldtimers taught me. I don’t want my memory of those people to be violated by the BS I hear today, and I miss them. I am incredibly grateful for what they did for me. And I’ll do whatever it takes to pass it on the way they gave it to me. (Lots of “I’s” in this paragraph lol).

Strangely enough, my best friend in A.A. was so upset by what he heard that he let loose a volley out of the Big Book on this group at the end of the meeting (Yeah – he’s a Big Book thumper). Consider – not once was “false” pride mentioned. Out of approx. 35 folks, no one talked of a Higher Power! But about 25 did reiterate that they are a proud member of A.A. Proud of things like cleaning their apartment, being employed, dressing properly, exercising, etc. You know, all those things the oldtimers told me I ought to have been doing right from the jump street of my life because that’s the way God had made me. Doing them now was nothing to be proud of because I hadn’t been doing them for – a looooong time – and the fact I was now doing them was an Act of Providence!

Well, well then, where does this lead me? The literature!

In no particular order – pg. 25 in The Big Book. This is for those who will tell us to trust the process, but they’re a proud member;

“There is a solution. Almost none of us liked the self-searching, the leveling of our pride, the confession of shortcomings which the process requires for its successful consummation.”

Pg. 83 – “We should be sensible, tactful, considerate and humble without being servile or scraping.”

From the 12 and 12 – Fourth Step. “the Seven Deadly Sins of pride, greed, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth. It is not by accident that pride heads the procession. For pride, leading to self-justification, and always spurred by conscious or unconscious fears, is the basic breeder of most human difficulties, the chief block to true progress. Pride lures us into making demands upon ourselves or upon others which cannot be met without perverting or misusing our God-given instincts. When the satisfaction of our instincts for sex, security, and society becomes the sole object of our lives, then pride steps in to justify our excesses.”

“So when A.A. suggests a fearless moral inventory, it must seem to every newcomer that more is being asked of him than he can do. Both his pride and his fear beat him back every time he tries to look within himself.”

Aah Ha! From my memory – some of the most spiritual people in history have made self-searching a way of life! I’ll be darned – if this is true then what’s happening is self-searching is being blunted or stopped.

Have you ever noticed that the discussion of the Seven Deadly Sins in the 4th Step is continued in the 6th Step? “No one wants to be so proud that he is scorned as a braggart, nor so greedy that he is labeled a thief. No one wants to be angry enough to murder, lustful enough to rape, gluttonous enough to ruin his health. No one wants to be agonized by the chronic pain of envy or to be paralyzed by sloth. Of course, most human beings don’t suffer these defects at these rock-bottom levels.”

The 6th Step goes on to say “We who have escaped these extremes are apt to congratulate ourselves. Yet can we? After all, hasn’t it been self-interest, pure and simple, that has enabled most of us to escape?”

Pride = Self-congratulation.

The Seventh Step! Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

“the attainment of greater humility is the foundation principle of each of A.A.’s Twelve Steps.”

“Much of the everyday talk we hear, and a great deal of what we read, highlights man’s pride in his own achievements.”

“Our crippling handicap had been our lack of humility.”

“That basic ingredient of all humility, a desire to seek and do God’s will, was missing.” I wonder just how many proud people have a desire to seek and do God’s will?

“Refusing to place God first, we had deprived ourselves of His help.”

“A great turning point in our lives came when we sought for humility as something we really wanted, rather than as something we must have.”

A Sober, Clean and Humble Day To All,

Mark

Post from: Blisstree

The First Deadly Sin