Why don’t I tell you the truth? If I told you the truth you’d feel angry at me. Your feelings would be hurt and I’d be the one who hurt them. You wouldn’t like me anymore. I need to be liked. My insides are judged by your outsides. You don’t like me therefore I’m no good.

So I tell you you did a wonderful job with your drug talk in AA.

Thanks to Robyn, there is a very clear explanation of it which I will quote partially;

“In the past, I would have been more comfortable to welcome this non-alcoholic addict and attempt to sponsor him in AA. It makes me feel better to be all-inclusive, to say all are welcome, to play the good Samaritan to one and all. I would have chosen my comfort over his welfare and the welfare of AA.”

Do we all get that? I am actually choosing my comfort over someone else’s welfare.

I’ve seen it happen. An AA member strongly (sometimes obnoxiously) suggests to someone with a drug problem that they go to Narcotics Anonymous – and a few of us take offense! How dare they do that?

Because its the best thing for that person! Now they’ll be able to identify and understand. Now the help they receive will be rightly targeted.

It will work the same way for any other Twelve Step need.

Here is another quote to pay very strong attention to;

“AA is not all-inclusive, nor was it ever intended to be. We developed from a narrowing of the broad objectives of the Oxford Group to focus on helping alcoholics only. We are still strong, the Oxford Group is not.  Many fine organizations have come and gone because of their inability to stick to one thing they do well. Many organizations have failed because they lacked the humility to realize their limitations. Tradition Three states “our membership ought to include all who suffer from alcoholism.” Members may have as many “related disorders” or problems as they wish, but to be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, one must have alcoholism and a desire to stop drinking.”

The Oxford Group? Who knows of an Oxford Group meeting anywhere tonight? Do we understand now???

“There are many fine Twelve Step programs out there whose singleness of purpose makes them best equipped to help the non-alcoholic addict, gambler, co-dependent, etc. My failure to realize this and direct these persons to the program they need is selfish and ego-rewarding, choosing what feels good to me over what is right for them.”

Post from: Blisstree

Selfish and Ego-Rewarding

“Drugs are a part of my story. Sorry if I offend anyone but I have to talk about them. I’m an alcoholic because that’s what I picked up first and that’s what I picked up last. Everything in between was an ‘accelerant.’”

NO! That’s not why you’re an alcoholic dammit! You’re an alcoholic if you’ve lost the power of choice when it comes to drinking alcohol!

Add to that – if your drug of choice was powdered cocaine AA is NOT the place for you! If I were a grateful member of Narcotics Anonymous this stuff would truly irritate me… Why is NA being treated like it is? I’m just now beginning to wonder how many addicts are hiding in AA because they’d have to get honest in NA. Then they’d have to go to work for real on the Twelve Steps.

BTW – I’m also sure that Hickey House is a fine organization as is the founder. Personally I thank God outfits like them do some of the “front line” work against alcoholism. But if you’re telling your story from the podium of a meeting in Alcoholics Anonymous could you at least attempt to mention AA at some point in your story?

Okay friends, the rant is coming to a close

There is one thing left though. If you’re next in line to that same podium why, oh why, do you stand up there and tell this misguided young person that they just carried a wonderful message? Have any of you considered that a real alcoholic newcomer might have been sitting in this room this evening and left with a totally inappropriate understanding (if there was any understanding) of AA? I heard nothing about staying away from the first drink. What did that newcomer hear?

Post from: Blisstree

Well, Yeah Dood, This Time You Did Offend Me

I know that some will argue the word “probably.” Sad.

Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas:

(a) That we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives.

(b) That probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism.

(c) That God could and would if He were sought.

Can you deny that you are a human power? Then how can you admit to having the disease alcoholism yet maintain that you have some power to relieve yours or anyone else’s alcoholism?

Post from: Blisstree

Three Clear, Pertinent Ideas

Mary Christine asked me this question and I’ll offer my personal opinion FWIW;

“Just mpo but – first things first – where better a forum for the disease itself to speak but at an AA meeting?

2nd – again, my personal opinion, I think we have allowed a generation or so of folks to grow up without what our sponsors did. I.E. too many either think it is wrong to step on feelings with the truth or too many are afraid of hurting others’ feelings and not being liked from that.

We’ve become too PC.”

Yes, that’s right, we’ve become politically correct i.e. we’ve gotten soft.

Someone actually sat in a meeting yesterday on “chronic relapse” and shared they chose not to drink or use cocaine yesterday. And not one single soul offered that person the truth. Twenty years ago some oldtimer would have spoken up unafraid to tell the truth.

Therein is another story – oldtimers. Those that aren’t here.

Post from: Blisstree

We’ve Become Too Soft and Alcoholism Speaks

“Alcohol, now become the rapacious creditor, bleeds us of all self-sufficiency and all will to resist its demands. Once this stark fact is accepted, our bankruptcy as going human concerns is complete.”

All will to resist its demands!

Resist – “to attempt to counter the actions or effects of someone or something.”

I.E. I cannot counter my alcoholic obsession. It calls and I cannot say no. I am powerless.

With you and God I have the ability to withstand for now, for today. Oh, and I’m not getting the ability, by myself, to counter the obsession, back again – ever! Its gone!

All will. Look, I just don’t have a choice in this matter with alcohol. Were I to put it in me, once again I couldn’t say no to the next… whatever, drink, bottle, gallon, makes no difference. Even when I don’t ingest it I am still powerless because I don’t have the ability to walk up to an active drinker and convince them to stop killing themselves. Alcohol clouds their judgment and responsible senses. I can’t stop them. I am powerless.

The next time you become so smart you share in a meeting that you aren’t powerless over alcohol today because you didn’t drink any, use your imagination and consider the parents of a child killed in a drunken accident and how they would have loved to have had some power over alcohol like you do.

Post from: Blisstree

Rapacious Creditor – Powerless – No Choice

Tell me how powerful it feels to be on one end of the phone with a good friend who has had time sober yet has returned to drinking. How powerful can I be when his first words to me are “I wish I was dead” and I can immediately tell he’s ocified.

Where is the power over alcohol when this person tells you he knows he’s an a**h***, that he’s messed up his marriage but he begins to blame her for his problem. Meanwhile his spouse is across the country doing whatever she can to help make her mother’s last days comfortable and worthy of living.

How much power does anyone have when the drunk on the other end of the phone begins to repeat what he just said again and again?

Please, tell me how much power over alcohol you have when you anticipate this morning’s next phone call once you’ve put together that rehab stint your friend was willing to go to last night? Is this fear the result of power over alcohol? The fear that he’s feeling somewhat better and can, once again, handle this on his own?

Power over alcohol is an illusion. Why not stop telling people you have power over alcohol because you didn’t ingest any today? You sound like a Profundity Pusher.

Post from: Blisstree

So – You Have Some Power Over Alcohol eh?

There are far more than Twelve Promises written in the Big Book “Alcoholics Anonymous.”

This is a listing of only those relating to the First Step (please, some may be a stretch – utilize, don’t analyze);

First Step Promises:

1. How many thousands of men and women have recovered from alcoholism. (Title page).

2. Who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. (foreword 1st edition xiii)

3. To show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book. (foreword 1st edition xiii)

4. We are sure that our way of living has its advantages for all. (foreword 1st edition xiii)

5. Our earliest printing voiced the hope -that every alcoholic who journeys will find the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous at his destination (foreword 2nd edition xv)

6. It also indicated that strenuous work, one alcoholic with another, was vital to permanent recovery (xvii)

7. A.A.’s had to hang together or die separately. We had to unify our Fellowship or pass off the scene.(xix)

8. Today the remarkable unity of A.A. is one of the greatest assets that our Society has.(xix)

9. It is our great hope that all those who have as yet found no answer may begin to find one in the pages of this book and will presently join us on the highroad to a new freedom. (xxi)

10. …recovery begins when one alcoholic talks with another alcoholic, sharing experience, strength, and hope. (xxii)

11. We who have suffered alcoholic torture must believe that the body of the alcoholic is quite as abnormal as his mind (xxiv)

12. We are sure that our bodies were sickened as well. (xxiv)

13. We work out our solution on the spiritual as well as an altruistic plane. (xxiv)

14. Once a psychic change has occurred, the very same person who seemed doomed, who had so many problems he despaired of ever solving them, suddenly finds himself easily able to control his desire for alcohol, the only effort necessary being that required to follow a few simple rules. (xxvii)

15. There are many situations which arise out of the phenomenon of craving which cause men to make the supreme sacrifice rather than continue to fight. (xxviii)

16. I was soon to be catapulted into what I like to call the fourth dimension of existence. I was to know happiness, peace, and usefulness, in a way of life that is incredibly more wonderful as time passes. (8:2)

17. I would enter upon a new relationship with my Creator; that I would have the elements of a way of living which answered all my problems. Belief in the power of God, plus enough willingness, honesty and humility to establish and maintain the new order of things, were the essential requirements. (13:5)

18. For if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others, he could not survive the certain trials and low spots ahead. If he did not work, he would surely drink again, and if he drank, he would surely die. Then faith would be dead indeed. With us it is just like that. (14:6)

19. It is a design for living that works in rough going. (15:1)

20. The joy of living we really have, even under pressure and difficulty. (15:2)

21. There is scarcely any form of trouble and misery which has not been overcome among us. (15:2)

22. I have seen hundreds of families set their feet in the path that really goes somewhere; have seen the most impossible domestic situations righted; feuds and bitterness of all sorts wiped out. I have seen men come out of asylums and resume a vital place in the lives of their families and communities. Business and professional men have regained their standing. (15:2)

23. There is, however, a vast amount of fun about it all. I suppose some would be shocked at our seeming worldliness and levity. But just underneath there is deadly earnestness. Faith has to work twenty-four hours a day in and through us, or we perish. (16:2)

24. Most of us feel we need look no further for Utopia. We have it with us right here and now. Each day my friend’s simple talk in our kitchen multiplies itself in a widening circle of peace on earth and good will to men. (16:3)

25. …there exists among us a fellowship, a friendliness, and an understanding which is indescribably wonderful. (17:2)

26. Our joy in escape from disaster does not subside as we go our individual ways. (17:2)

27. The feeling of having shared in a common peril is one element in the powerful cement which binds us… The tremendous fact for every one of us is that we have discovered a common solution. We have a way out on which we can absolutely agree, and upon which we can join in brotherly and harmonious action. This is the great news this book carries to those who suffer from alcoholism. (17:2)

28. An illness of this sort-and we have come to believe it an illness-involves those about us in a way no other human sickness can. (18:1)

29. For with it (the alcoholic illness) there goes annihilation of all the things worth while in life. It engulfs all whose lives touch the sufferer’s. It brings misunderstanding, fierce resentment, financial insecurity, disgusted friends and employers, warped lives of blameless children, sad wives and parents-anyone can increase the list. (18:1)

30. Most of us sense that real tolerance of other people’s shortcomings and viewpoints and a respect for their opinions are attitudes which make us more useful to others. Our very lives, as ex-problem drinkers, depend upon our constant thought of others and how we may help meet their needs. (19:4)

31. The alcoholic reacts differently from normal people. We are not sure why, once a certain point is reached, little can be done for him. We cannot answer the riddle. We know that while the alcoholic keeps away from drink, as he may do for months or years, he reacts much like other men. We are equally positive that once he takes any alcohol whatever into his system, something happens, both in the bodily and mental sense, which makes it virtually impossible for him to stop. (22:3)

32. The main problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind, rather than in his body. (23:1)

33. At a certain point in the drinking of every alcoholic, he passes into a state where the most powerful desire to stop drinking is of absolutely no avail. (24:0)

34. The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Our so-called will power becomes practically nonexistent. We are unable, at certain times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink. (24:1)

35. There is a solution. (25:1)

36. We saw that it really worked in others. (25:1)

37. We have found much of heaven and we have been rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence of which we had not even dreamed. (25:1)

38. The central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that our Creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous. He has commenced to accomplish those things for us which we could never do by ourselves. (25:2)

39. A new life has been given us or, if you prefer, “a design for living” that really works. (28:2)

40. All of us, whateverour race, creed, or color are the children of a living Creator with whom we may form a relationship upon simple and understandable terms as soon as we are willing and honest enough to try. (28:3)

41. The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. (30:1)

42. We alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking. We know that no real alcoholic ever recovers control. All of us felt at times that we were regaining control, but such intervals-usually brief-were inevitably followed by still less control, which led in time to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. We are convinced to a man that alcoholics of our type are in the grip of a progressive illness. Over any considerable period we get worse, never better. (30:3)

43. To be gravely affected, one does not necessarily have to drink a long time nor take the quantities some of us have. This is particularly true of women. Potential female alcoholics often turn into the real thing and are gone beyond recall in a few years. (33:3)

44. The actual or potential alcoholic, with hardly an exception, will be absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self-knowledge. (39:1)

45. That if I had an alcoholic mind, the time and place would come-I would drink again. (41:2)

46. I saw that will power and self-knowledge would not help in those strange mental blank spots. (42:0)

47. The program of action, though entirely sensible, was pretty drastic (42:0)

48. Most alcoholics have to be pretty badly mangled before they really commence to solve their problems. (43:1)

49. The alcoholic at certain times has no effective mental defense against the first drink. Except in a few rare cases, neither he nor any other human being can provide such a defense. His defense must come from a Higher Power. (43:3)

50. If he is an alcoholic of the hopeless variety. To be doomed to an alcoholic death or to live on a spiritual basis are not always easy alternatives to face. (44:2)

51. We had to face the fact that we must find a spiritual basis of life -or else. (44:3)

52. Our human resources, as marshalled by the will, were not sufficient; they failed utterly. (45:0)

53. Lack of power, that was our dilemma. We had to find a power by which we could live, and it had to be a Power greater than ourselves.(45:1)

[edited to bring this post into 2009]

Post from: Blisstree

First Step Promises

From “The Language of the Heart,” page 263;

“There are, nevertheless, certain occasions where reckless truth-telling may create widespread havoc and permanent damage to others. Whenever this seems possible, we are likely to find ourselves in a bad jam indeed. We shall be torn between two temptations. When conscience agonizes us enough, we may well cast all prudence and love to the winds. We may try to buy our freedom by telling the brutal truth, no matter who gets hurt or how much. But this is not the usual temptation. It is far more probable that we shall veer to the other extreme. We will paint for ourselves a most unrealistic picture of the awful damage we are about to inflict on others. By claiming great compassion and love for our supposed victims, we are getting set to tell the Big Lie – and be thoroughly comfortable about it, too.

When life presents us with a racking conflict like this, we cannot be altogether blamed if we are confused. In fact our very first responsibility is to admit that we are confused. We may have to confess that, for the time being, we have lost all ability to tell right from wrong. Most difficult, too, will be the admission that we cannot be certain of receiving God’s guidance because our prayers are so cluttered with wishful thinking. Surely this is the point at which we must seek the counsel of our finest friends. There is nowhere else to go.”

We don’t see the damage we are about to do because we are wrapped up in ourselves and delusional. That’s why we need the counsel of others before we act.

Notice the challenge of not distinguishing right from wrong?

Post from: Blisstree

Prayers Cluttered With Wishful Thinking

“The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Our so-called will power becomes practically nonexistent.”

Yet even today we had folks sharing in meetings that they had been given the power of choice back because they’re sober!

The reflection goes on to say: “My powerlessness over alcohol does not cease when I quit drinking. In sobriety I still have no choice – I can’t drink.”

Still they bring it to meetings and insist they have a choice because they didn’t consume alcohol today. The disease regains a foothold… until

“The choice I do have is to pick up and use the ‘kit of spiritual tools.’ When I do that, my Higher Power relieves me of my lack of choice – and keeps me sober one more day.”

What part of that is unclear?

“If I could choose not to pick up a drink today, where then would be my need for A.A. or a Higher Power?”

Indeed… what part of “my Higher Power keeps me sober one more day” do you not understand?

Post from: Blisstree

The Battle Continues

“Most of us have been unwilling to admit we were real alcoholics. No person likes to think he is bodily and mentally different from his fellows.”

It is no longer unbelievable, to me, the lengths some of us go to to delude ourselves into being something other than a real alcoholic. I believe that is the true reason behind all the contradictory profundity that is heard in AA meetings all over the world. That, and some level of attention need seemingly inherent in every alcoholic.

“Therefore, it is not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could drink like other people.”

And we’ll continue to “work” at these vain attempts even while professing to be in recovery yet at the same time denying the simplest of facts inside the rooms – God doesn’t give me more than I can handle – how ridiculous…

“The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.”

You made a choice not to drink? Now that you have a few months, or even a year or two “dry,” now you have developed the ability to choose whether to drink or not?

“Physicians who are familiar with alcoholism agree… there is no such thing as making a normal drinker out of an alcoholic. Science may one day accomplish this, but it hasn’t done so yet.”

Scientist are ya’?

[Re-posted from last January]

Post from: Blisstree

Science Hasn’t Done So Yet