“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!

Post from: Blisstree

It’s An Individual Decision

“Our AA Traditions are those attitudes and practices by which we may deserve, as a movement, a long life and a useful one. To this end, none could be more vital than our Tenth Tradition, for it deals with the subject of controversy – serious controversy.”

Sounds familiar… try to remember that Bill wrote this in July, 1948.

“On the other side of the world, millions have died even recently in religious dissension. Other millions have died in political controversy. The end is not yet. Nearly everybody in the world has turned reformer. Each group, society, and nation is saying to the other, ‘You do as we say, or else.’ Political controversy and reform by compulsion have reached an all-time high. And eternal, seemingly, are the flames of religious dissension.”

Sixty years ago and still the end is not yet…

“Being like other men and women, how can we expect to remain forever immune from all these perils? Probably we shall not. At length, we must meet them all. We cannot flee from them, nor ought we try. If these challenges do come, we shall, I am sure, go out to meet them gladly and unafraid. That will be the acid test of our worth.”

If you’re an anti, don’t expect us to run…

“Our best defense? This surely lies in the formation of a Tradition respecting serious controversy so powerful that neither the weakness of persons nor the strain and strife or our troubled times can harm Alcoholics Anonymous. We know that AA must continue to live, or else many of us and many of our fellow alcoholics throughout the world will surely resume the hopeless journey into oblivion. That must never be.”

You can beat up on Bill’s character all you want. He’s dead and can’t defend himself. We’re still here and will. You lose so others may live. We’ll embrace your controversy as a way of cementing our future.

Post from: Blisstree

At Peace Among Ourselves

Today’s reading from the Daily Reflection is part of the change in thinking which ends that old reward system, replacing it with something much more rewarding.

“The Reward of Giving”

This is indeed the kind of giving that actually demands nothing. He does not expect his brother sufferer to pay him, or even to love him. And then he discovers that by the divine paradox of this kind of giving he has found his own reward, whether his brother has yet received anything or not.

My God is happy with me simply because I try to help another without requiring anything in return.

I never have to brag again about doing something good for someone. Try it – help someone, even an “earthling,” and then keep your mouth shut about it or it doesn’t count…

Post from: Blisstree

The Reward System of Old Dies

1.   I will not help you to stay and wallow in limbo.

2.   I will help you to grow, to become more productive, by your definition.

3.   I will help you become more autonomous, more loving of yourself, more excited, less sensitive, more free to become the authority for your own living.

4.   I can not give you dreams or “fix you up” simply because I can not.

5.   I can not give you growth, or grow for you.  You must grow for yourself by facing reality, grim as it may be at times.

6.   I can not take away your loneliness or your pain.

7.   I can not sense your world for you, evaluate your goals for you, tell you what is best for your world;  because you have your own world in which you must live.

8.   I can not convince you of the necessity to make the vital decision of choosing the frightening uncertainty of growing over the safe misery of remaining static.

9.   I want to be with you and know you as a rich and growing friend;  yet I can not get close to you when you choose not to grow.

10.  When I begin to care for you out of pity or when I begin to lose faith in you, then I am inhibiting both for you and for me.

11.   You must know and understand my help is conditional.  I will be with you and “hang in there” with you so long as I continue to get even the slightest hint that you are still trying to grow.

12.   If you can accept this, then perhaps we can help each other to become what God meant us to be, mature adults, leaving childishness forever to the little children of the world.

[Found, among other places online, at the West Baltimore web site]

Post from: Blisstree

Twelve Qualities of Sponsorship

There are those “out there” who seem to have a need to place themselves in a position of authority regarding who may or may not be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Thankfully Bill W. had the foresight to know such could happen. A copy of what he wrote in the Grapevine is posted at the Silkworth site.

Briefly – what happened in the early days was groups setting all sorts of impossible rules and members passing all grades of judgments they weren’t qualified to pass. (Sadly, this is still occurring today but I won’t mention where.) Eventually something comes to pass…

“After a time fear and intolerance subside. The group survives unscathed. Everybody has learned a great deal. So it is that few of us are any longer afraid of what any newcomer can do to our A.A. reputation or effectiveness. Those who slip, those who panhandle, those who scandalize, those with mental twists, those who rebel at the program, those who trade on the A.A. reputation-all such persons seldom harm an A.A. group for long. Some of these have become our most respected and best loved. Some have remained to try our patience. sober nevertheless. Others have drifted away. We have begun to regard these not as menaces, but rather as our teachers. They oblige us to cultivate patience, tolerance, and humility. We finally see that they are only people sicker than the rest of us, that we who condemn them are the Pharisees whose false righteousness does our group the deeper spiritual damage.”

God levels the playing field. Not you or I.

[Copyright © The A.A. Grapevine, Inc., August 1946]

Post from: Blisstree

We Who Condemn Them Are The Pharisees

From pages 123-124 of Alcoholics Anonymous;

“Now and then the family will be plagued by spectres from the past, for the drinking career of almost every alcoholic has been marked by escapades, funny, humiliating, shameful or tragic. The first impulse will be to bury these skeletons in a dark closet and padlock the door. The family may be possessed by the idea that future happiness can be based only upon forgetfulness of the past. We think that such a view is self-centered and in direct conflict with the new way of living.”

Post from: Blisstree

Spectres From The Past

From today’s Daily Reflection;

“Never since it began has Alcoholics Anonymous been divided by a major controversial issue. Nor has our Fellowship ever publicly taken sides on any question in an embattled world. This, however, has been no earned virtue. It could almost be said that we were born with it. … ‘So long as we don’t argue these matters privately, it’s a cinch we never shall publicly.”

To note quickly – had I not discovered that someone lacking the courage personally to offer a rebuttal to my face about crosstalk, I’d never have been in an arguing state of mind about it. I won’t apologize for standing for something I believe in – it would have been more adult if cowardice not been a part of that equation. If you can’t say it to my face, don’t say it behind my back.

“Do I remember that I have a right to my opinion but that others don’t have to share it? That’s the spirit of ‘Live and Let Live.’ … Do I remember that my opinions come from my experience? If I have a know-it-all attitude, aren’t I being deliberately controversial?”

What naturally happens? We step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate.

Post from: Blisstree

The Spirit of “Live and Let Live”

Juliet H. tells us;

“I am practicing the spirit of the Tenth Tradition as long as I am sharing my experience, strength, and hope, and not my opinions. By practicing this, I’ve been able to strengthen my relationships in and out of the rooms…”

It is important for me to take note of what Juliet says next;

“One of the sayings I’ve heard in the rooms for many years is, ‘We go to meetings to give, not to get.’ For me, the difference between being a ‘giver’ and a ‘taker’ is the quality of what I bring to meetings with me.”

Lets try to live in the answer and this problem will go away. If you see someone in meetings who has nothing better to offer than “unsolicited advice and a know-it-all attitude” lose the fear of reminding them of our Traditions, especially the Tenth.

Juliet doesn’t close with this (and I’d strongly suggest her entire piece be read) but what she says next is wonderful;

“Am I sharing my experience, strength, and hope, or am I sharing my opinions? If I’m sharing my experience, strength, and hope, I’m sharing about how the principles I’ve learned in AA – such as service, unity, reaching out for help, acceptance, faith, or humility – have helped me to live life on life’s terms just enough to stay sober for a few twenty-four hours. If I’m sharing my opinions, it sounds different, even to my ears. It sounds more like, ‘You should do this to stay sober,’ rather than, ‘This is what I did to stay sober.’”

Gratitude…

Post from: Blisstree

Practicing The Spirit of the Tenth Tradition

Referencing comments from the crosstalk topic and conference approved literature, there is a quote from one of my older posts that Glenn C. put together at Hindsfoot;

“I am trying to avoid sounding overdramatic about this issue, but an A.A. which no longer follows the traditional A.A. program laid down by the good old-timers, will lose its heart and spirit, and its power to transform human lives and lift lost souls out of the miry pit where they had lain them down to die. The good old-timers took what they received from God and passed it on to us. We in turn must take their message and pass it on to the next generation of newcomers, or we will have failed to carry out the task which God assigned us.

How could it conceivably be “against the rules” in A.A. to read what these good old-timers wrote, and the books that they advised newcomers to read? Let’s start using some simple common sense. The authentic tradition of the good old-timers — the ones who were proved to be channels of grace by the hundreds of lives they saved — is the most accurate touchstone we possess for judging the worth of our message and our practices today.”

I trust what those old bast**ds gave me because it has worked for almost 19 years. Someone with 25 years may see it differently and that might be okay except that their concerns seemed to have been based in unfounded fears (my perception of someone else’s perception).

I can’t apologize for what I believe in and has saved my life and probably my soul, so I won’t. I will not allow myself to be a part of the removal of AA’s heart and soul because I refused to use simple common sense. And I will continue to champion what I was taught, what was unconditionally passed on to me.

Post from: Blisstree

Heart and Spirit

From Mel’s article “Open-Meeting Bores”

The challenge? AA … “is greatly imperiled by the great blanket of boredom that stifles many meetings from coast to coast.”

Mel’s research and conclusion: “Having arrived at the conclusion that boring meetings and groups were caused by boring members, I began to look for some means of identifying just who these members really were. Surprisingly, they were the same fellows I have seen in my own bathroom shaving mirror from time to time.”

The first in Mel’s cast of boring characters;

“First there is Drink-by-Drink Dave! And I don’t care how new in AA you are, you have met him! Dave is a well-meaning soul, and I love him like a brother, as do all the other folks at the meeting. But there are some of us who would rather face the electric chair than hear once more about all the drinking that Dave did in Panama or in Albuquerque, or in Los Angeles, or when he was drafted into the Army. Dave seems to feel that he has to prove how severe his alcoholic problem was, and that this proof can be established by demonstrating not only the continuity of drinking but the quantity as well. It is not unlike Dave to pause in the middle of a talk to ponder whether he was drinking whiskey or wine the morning he woke up in Denver without any shoes. ‘Let’s see, I think I was drinking whiskey that time! No, wait a minute, I think it was wine! Yeah, by gosh, it was wine!’”

I.E. – I can bottom you! Thanks Mel.

Post from: Blisstree

Mel B Introduces Drink-By-Drink Dave