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.

Post from: Blisstree

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!

Post from: Blisstree

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.

Post from: Blisstree

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!

Post from: Blisstree

It’s An Individual Decision

“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.”

Post from: Blisstree

Anger and Wrong Thinking – Partners

Quote;

“A.A. is not interested in sobering up drunks who are not sincere in their desire to remain completely sober for all time. A.A. is not interested in alcoholics who want to sober up merely to go on another bender, sober up because of fear for their jobs, their wives, their social standing, or to clear up some trouble either real or imaginary. In other words, if a person is genuinely sincere in his desire for continued sobriety for his own good, is convinced in his heart that alcohol holds him in its power, and is willing to admit that he is an alcoholic, members of Alcoholics Anonymous will do all in their power, spend days of their time to guide him to a new, a happy, and a contented way of life.

It is utterly essential for the newcomer to say to himself sincerely and without any reservation, “I am doing this for myself and myself alone.” Experience has proved in hundreds of cases that unless an alcoholic is sobering up for a purely personal and selfish motive, he will not remain sober for any great length of time. He may remain sober for a few weeks or a few months, but the moment the motivating element, usually fear of some sort, disappears, so disappears sobriety.”

Again – “unless an alcoholic is sobering up for a purely personal and selfish motive, he will not remain sober for any great length of time.”

Can we see where we have begun to lose some of our effectiveness? In 1939-1940 the success rate had climbed as high as 90% in some places.

Post from: Blisstree

Who Said It Wasn’t Selfish?

Recently I saw someone “out there” attempt to debunk the saying that “alcohol is a drug.” Well, for the singleness of purpose of AA that could confuse folks and I understand.

But for my friends who have problems with drugs that is the type of arrogance that could send someone to their death.

Directly from the Basic Text of Narcotics Anonymous, page 18;

“Thinking of alcohol as different from other drugs has caused a great many addicts to relapse. Before we came to NA many of us viewed alcohol separately, but we cannot afford to be confused about this. Alcohol is a drug. We are people with the disease of addiction who must abstain from all drugs in order to recover.”

Drug addicts are worthy of all the consideration to live we can offer them.

Post from: Blisstree

Alcohol Is A Drug

I haven’t been able to find the exact pamphlet Ray speaks about but I did find this on AA’s web site: “Cooperating with Court, D.W.I. and Similar Programs.”

My first question to my readers is this – would you feel more comfortable not signing court papers brought to AA by those mandated by a judge?

What appears to be happening is that, in the long run, there are those who claim AA is a religious organization therefore the court mandating violaters to AA is unconstitutional. When an AA member signs a paper (the AA pamphlet notwithstanding) we are acting as an agent of the court. Some folks are attempting to call this AA’s official platform. We know that is not true but they do have a voice. Do we want to allow that voice to drown out recovery?

IANAA – and I know of no law that requires me, as a member of AA or as a simple citizen, to sign that paper brought to me in an AA meeting.

What do you think?

Post from: Blisstree

Are AA Members Agents of a Court?

If you take an unnecessary opportunity to reply to a post about Big Book Prayers to argue that AA is religious in nature then you no doubt are attempting to proselytize an alternative. Else, why argue?

Which means you’re working to try to win a useless argument where no argument had existed.

AA thrives on religious principles. Recovery thrives on religious principles. AA and recovery means that lives which would otherwise have been lost will now be saved.

You who argue appear to have something against the saving of lives. Why? Because you have a resentment towards religion. It just isn’t rocket science. Your resentments are unhealthy and misguided.

But that is just my personal opinion.

Post from: Blisstree

AA Religious In Nature?

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