I’m going to take a few liberties with some of A.A.’s literature…
From pages 32-33 in the 12&12;
“To clergymen, doctors, friends, and families, the loveaholic who means well and tries hard is a heartbreaking riddle. To most L.A.’s, he/she is not. There are too many of us who have been just like him/her, and have found the riddle’s answer. The answer has to do with the quality of faith rather than its quantity. This has been our blind spot. We supposed we had humility when we really hadn’t. We supposed we had been serious about religious practices when, upon honest appraisal, …read more

The solution…
The sentence that ends page 32 and begins page 33 in AA’s 12&12 would no doubt have pi**ed me off had I read it when I was drinking.
“Few indeed are the practicing alcoholics who have any idea how irrational they are, or seeing their irrationality, can bear to face it.”
Call me an irrational alcoholic? Oh heck no! I might have been willing, as it says, to term myself a “problem drinker,” but the suggestion I was mentally ill would have sent me over the top. Add to it that my family was not equipped to say more than I …read more

From the AA History Lovers Group at Yahoo!
1. We did not need to consider another’s conception of God. (46:2)
2. God does not make too hard terms with those who seek Him. (46:2)
3. We found that as soon as we were able to lay aside prejudice and express even a willingness to believe in a Power greater than ourselves, we commenced to get results, even though it was impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend that Power, which is God. (46:1)
4. The Realm of Spirit is broad, roomy, all inclusive; never exclusive or forbidding to those who earnestly …read more

Most of us don’t realize to what extent we are defiant.
I first published this two years ago and I’d like to refer to it again. It feels very appropriate considering some of the folks who’ve displayed their own recently…
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It surprised me when I discovered how defiant I had been toward God in my drinking days and for quite some time after He helped me sober up.
Small, simple things like, “no, I’ll do it my way, thank you.” Do you have any idea how often and to what degree we do this?
There’s an old “story” I wish I could relate about …read more

And thereby making defeat rightly accepted needing not to be a disaster…
From The Language of the Heart, page 270;
“It is always worthwhile to consider how grossly that good word acceptance can be misused. It can be warped to justify nearly every brand of weakness, nonsense, and folly. For instance, we can ‘accept’ failure as a chronic condition, forever without profit or remedy. We can ‘accept’ worldly success pridefully, as something wholly of our own making. We can also ‘accept’ illness and death as certain evidence of a hostile and godless universe. With these twistings of acceptance, we AAs have had …read more

This is one of our passages that has meant quite a bit to me. Once it was pointed out to me that I was a powerful negative thinker this is one of many tools that turned my thinking around.
Page 418;
“I can do the same thing with an A.A. meeting. The more I focus my mind on its defects – late start, long drunkalogs, cigarette smoke – the worse the meeting becomes. But when I try to see what I can add to the meeting, rather than what I can get out of it, and when I can focus my mind …read more

Because it makes me feel better! That’s right, its about me…
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 …read more

Ladies and gentlemen – if you’re new to recovery and have been told to pray your troubles away, take heed, please. God is not a puppeteer. God doesn’t pull our strings and automatically extract us from the situations we place ourselves in. God does not do for us what we can do for ourselves!
When we were drinking (or using or whatever) and we prayed, how often were our prayers answered to our satisfaction? Now that we’re early into recovery, without having practiced the Twelve Steps, how much do you think our praying has changed?
So, if you’re feeling disconnected after a …read more

As a reminder;
The Tablemate was an early A.A. set of beginners lessons entitled ‘Alcoholics Anonymous: An Interpretation of the Twelve Steps,’ put out in the form of a little pamphlet. It was (and still is) the most successful set of A.A. beginners lessons ever devised.
And I’m drawing content from the Hindsfoot site, laboriously prepared by Glenn C. and others… We now move into Discussion No. 2: The Spiritual Phase
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Step No. 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Our drinking experience has shown:

I had been clearly defiant to those around me when I was a child (not drinking), later on once I had begun to drink, and as an adult because by then I was a walking, talking attitude case.
I didn’t see it, they did. And they told me. When they told me, it pi**ed me off. Then I became more defiant. Eventually, some mere mention of it would twist my gut into instant anger.
Had they also mentioned that I was defying God I think I might have really lost it. He was my last and only hope – but – He …read more