Though it was only this past Saturday that it was announced the First Family’s new dog wouldn’t be heading to the White House until this Tuesday, the First Pooch made its arrival already!

It will be “formally” introduced to the family tomorrow by Senator Edward Kennedy, but it’s already in Washington and has already met the Obama girls, Malia and Sasha.

With a little lei around its neck, the Portuguese Water Dog (also known simply as PWDs) sat patiently as the President and daughter Sasha gave it a pet. The girls have already decided on a name as well: Currently named Charlie, the six-month-old pup will be renamed Bo. The Washington Post says the name was chosen because first lady Michelle Obama’s father was nicknamed Diddley.

Though the First Family said they would adopt a dog from a shelter, PWDs rarely end up in shelters, so instead they’ve said they’ll be making a donation to the D.C. Humane Society.

[image: newscom]

And I didn’t know it. Well, like I said at today’s meeting - it isn’t Perfect’s Anonymous…

September is National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month. B5 media’s Health and Wellness Channel (check out B5’s new design btw) is taking the moment to present our collective individual experiences with the Twelve Steps. Or, we’re going to do the research needed to offer our readers valuable information on the Twelve Steps relating to a number of areas in the human nature.

If you are a new reader here are the Twelve Steps according to Alcoholics Anonymous. There are over 2000 other variations relating to groups and gatherings and fellowships other than AA who have their own versions;

• Step 1 - We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable
• Step 2 - Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity
• Step 3 - Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him
• Step 4 - Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves
• Step 5 - Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs
• Step 6 - Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character
• Step 7 - Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings
• Step 8 - Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all
• Step 9 - Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others
• Step 10 - Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it
• Step 11 - Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out
• Step 12 - Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs

Read more

This strikes my “funny bone,” sorry…

I have no idea at all whether or not Lindsay Lohan has the disease alcoholism. From her actions she appears to, but that is her decision to make, not mine.

The consequences of her drinking and drugging are another story! Catch this -

“Lindsay Lohan is about to see dead people. The 21-year-old actress will soon be working at a morgue as part of her punishment for misdemeanor drunken driving, her attorney, Blair Berk, told a judge Thursday… Her two four-hour days at the morgue are part of a court-ordered program to show drivers the real-life consequences of drinking and driving. She must also spend two days working in a hospital emergency room.”

Now, if that wasn’t “bad” enough…

“Lohan was arrested twice last year on DUI charges and pleaded guilty in August to misdemeanor drunken driving and cocaine charges. She has already served 84 minutes in jail as part of the plea deal.”

Wow!!! A WHOLE 84 minutes in jail!!! What were they thinking???

“Biden Challenges Public Perception of Addiction”

“Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., is introducing legislation that portrays addiction as a preventable, treatable brain disease.”

Ya’ think?

“Eliminating word abuse takes away the notion that it’s willful misconduct. It’s inappropriate to term this ‘abuse.’ Ten percent of [the] population [are] unknowingly vulnerable to alcoholism when they drink. They can’t be held to be immoral for developing that illness.”

Word Abuse?

OMG - catch this! >>> “People think of an addict as a bum or a homeless person,” said Cynthia Moreno, executive director of the Association for Addiction Professionals. “Over 70 percent of drug addicts hold down very responsible jobs, have homes, and 2.3 children. They’re your average person.

Cynthia may have been talking to too many “functional” alkies or addicts.

Aw geez - it’s still all about will power, or control. Listen to this from Sally Satel, a psychiatrist at the Oasis Clinic in Washington, D.C.;

“I feel uncomfortable with calling it a brain disease. It’s not a constructive public health message. Of course drugs affect the brain, otherwise why would people use them? I’ve never met a clinician who treats people like if they have a brain tumor. Not one treatment requires brain surgery,” Satel said. “But that language can imply to the public that it’s a hopeless situation, when, in fact, all treatments expect a person to take control of things themselves. All doctors expect people to martial their free will.”

Yeah - everyone go out and “martial your free will” into not drinking or drugging. Yeah, that’s the ticket…

Alcohol goes everywhere. They spoke of the “most sordid spots on earth” and the Greenland Ice Cap in the Big Book. Now it’s apparently made it into space.

“Panel Finds Astronauts Flew While Intoxicated”

“A panel reviewing astronaut health issues in the wake of the Lisa Nowak arrest has found that on at least two occasions astronauts were allowed to fly after flight surgeons and other astronauts warned they were so intoxicated that they posed a flight-safety risk.

The panel, also reported ‘heavy use of alcohol’ by astronauts before launch, within the standard 12-hour ‘bottle to throttle’ rule applied to NASA flight crew members.”

Wow… (if its true and personally, I have no reason to doubt the claim)

To: Dr. Silkworth’s Birthday Celebration in W. Long Branch NJ, on 7/21/07

“Area 44 History & Archives Committee cordially invites you to the Fourth Annual Dr. Silkworth Birthday Celebration!”

One small excerpt from the invitation (I believe written by Barefoot Bill);

“He gave deep understanding and great encouragement to an infant society in the days when a lack of understanding or a word of discouragement might easily have killed it. He freely risked his professional reputation to champion an unprecedented spiritual answer to the medical enigma and the human tragedy of alcoholism. Without his blessing, our faith might well have died in its birth. He was a luminous exception to the rule that only an alcoholic understands an alcoholic.”

Read more, including directions, at the AA History Lovers Group at Yahoo!

It’s Theme Day again and the topic is “Mental Health” as May is Mental Health month. Just in time too - I could use a mental health day

When it comes to alkies, wow, do we have a seemingly never-ending supply of “stuff” to talk about relating to mental health! If you visit The Big Book Index or The Big Book Concordance under “M” you’ll see what I mean. Take a look at “Mental” and “Mind.” I’d waste a lot of space here re-printing the number of pages to be read. So I’ll narrow my focus (I hear ya’…)

Something Happens!

“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. The experience of any alcoholic will abundantly confirm this.”

Centers In His Mind!

“These observations would be academic and pointless if our friend never took the first drink, thereby setting the terrible cycle in motion. Therefore, the main problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind, rather than in his body.”

No Excuses Really Make Sense!

“If you ask him why he started on that last bender, the chances are he will offer you any one of a hundred alibis. Sometimes these excuses have a certain plausibility, but none of them really makes sense in the light of the havoc an alcoholic’s drinking bout creates.”

Fallacious Reasoning…

“They sound like the philosophy of the man who, having a headache, beats himself on the head with a hammer so that he can’t feel the ache. If you draw this fallacious reasoning to the attention of an alcoholic, he will laugh it off, or become irritable and refuse to talk.”

No Idea Why

“Once in a while he may tell the truth. And the truth, strange to say, is usually that he has no more idea why he took the first drink than you have.”

“Once this malady has a real hold, they are a baffled lot.”

The Fact

“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.”

Thanks to Billy C. from the AA History Lovers Group for permission to reprint this interesting information. The founder of the AAHL group, Nancy O. put a lot of effort into this and Billy is carrying the tradition on within the group.

Significant August Dates In AA History

Aug 1934 - Rowland H and Cebra persuade court to parole Ebby T. to them.
Aug 1939 - Dr. Bob wrote & may have signed article for Faith magazine.
Aug 1981 - Distribution of Alcoholics Anonymous passes 3 million.
Aug 1, 1943 - Washington Times-Herald (DC) reports on AA clubhouse, to protect anonymity withholds address.
Aug 3, 1954 - Brinkley S. gets sober at Towns Hosp after 50th detox.
Aug 8, 1879 - Dr. Bob born in St. Johnsbury, VT.
Aug 9, 1943 - LA groups announce 1000 members in 11 groups.
Aug 11, 1938 - Akron & NY members begin writing stories for Big Book.
Aug 15, 1890 - E M Jellinek is born, author of “The Disease Concept of Alcoholism” and the “Jellinek Curve”.
Aug 16, 1939 - Dr Bob and Sister Ignatia admit 1st alcoholic to St Thomas Hospital, Akron, Ohio.
Aug 18, 1988 - 1st Canadian National AA Convention in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Aug 19, 1941 - 1st AA Meeting in Colorado is held in Denver.
Aug 25, 1943 - AA group donates Big Book to public library in Quincy, MA.
Aug 26, 1941 - Bill writes Dr Bob to tell him Works Publishing has been incorporated
Aug 28, 1954 - “24 Hours a Day” is published by Richmond W.

Also in August…
Sales of the Big Book passes 3,000,000 - August 1981
1st meeting in Orange County, California held in Anaheim - August, 1941

Father Tom told me to dedicate the rest of my life to thankfulness on my first sober anniversary and I took him at his word. Which leads to a thank you to prairiegirl66 who “stumbledupon” A Dozen Steps and recommended it to her friends as a great 12 Step site/blog.

Very much appreciated prairiegirl!

She has a membership at stumble upon and offers some very interesting resources on these pages relating to recovery (especially, for me, those that mention Dubya :-)).

Check it out…

Prairiegirl - down below in my right sidebar, there are a bunch of good folks writing their hearts out on recovery. Please, when you have the opportunity, check them out also.

To a dear friend and a new friend…

This past Weds night, Larry W. from the Easy Does It group of AA here in Savannah, 17 years!!!

Today - JJ from someplace in Massachusetts, who suffers not only from alcoholism but from being a Red Sox fan (kiddin’ JJ), two years today!

JJ, I could only hope that your home group offers you a similar celebration to the one Easy Does It provided for Larry Weds. I would also hope that your home group has at least one Larry W. in it.

We have lots of JJ’s here in Savannah

I know you’re having a difficult time so… (pg. 86)

“In thinking about our day we may face indecision. We may not be able to determine which course to take. Here we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or a decision. We relax and take it easy. We don’t struggle. We are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while.”

A Sober, Clean Day To All,

Mark