Frunobulax 57 (Danny S Recovered Alcoholic)

The Worse He gets - The Better His Chances

2012-01-21T09:04:00.001-05:00

'Categories' of the "Problem": *

Getting Better All The Time

To Wives gives an interesting perspective on the progressive nature of alcoholism:

The drinker’s prognosis becomes increasingly better as his alcoholism gets increasingly worse. The worse we get – the better off we are; we are closer to the solution - which only works for the real alcoholic.

What is also interesting is how some of the characteristics listed are the same ones many AAs use as qualification for being alcoholic in their drunkolgues, yet they do not even go far down the line, as when compared to the real alcoholic.

Alcoholism does not discriminate marital standing or gender. You do not have to be a married “husband” to fit the categories enumerated. You can be a wife, a husband, single, gay, bisexual, asexual, transsexual, divorced, engaged or any combination of the above. And some of you are, I am sure
.

Category #1 – Only a Heavy drinker

Characteristics:

Constant or heavy drinking on certain occasions
Slowed mental and physically (doesn’t see it)
Insulted if called “alcoholic”
Embarrasses you and friends (sometimes)
Sure he can handle it
Thinks his heavy drinking does no harm
Enjoys drinking
He is unbearable

Prognosis: – May become a true alcoholic but can stop or moderate at this stage.

Category #2 - Showing EARMARKS of the real alcoholic

Characteristics:

Show lack of control
Unable to abstain even when he wants to
Gets out of hand when drinking (thinks he’ll do better next time)
Has tried moderation or abstinence
Beginning to lose friends
Business is suffering
Worries about his drinking
Aware he cannot drink like others
Morning drinker/all day drinker (sometimes for nerves)
Remorseful after bouts
“This time it’ll be different

Prognosis: -– He is in danger

Category #3 - (Former Category 2)

Characteristics:

Friends gone
Has been to hospitals, sanitariums (rehabs)
Has seen doctors
Admits he cannot drink like others (does not know why)
Desperately wants help
Thinks he will figure a way to drink successfully

Prognosis: "May be in luck "

Category #4 - Complete despair

Characteristics

Been in institution after institution
Seems violent or insane when drunk
Drinks on the way home from hospital
Maybe DTs
Doctors shake their heads/recommend commitment
Defeat seems certain

Prognosis: Seems hopeless but is not.Often such men had spectacular and powerful recoveries.

Peace,

Danny S

*This article is 100% reconcilable with the Chapter “To Wives” in the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous.

(Article reprinted from Friday, February 10, 2006)

Light The Candles Anyway

2011-12-20T13:48:00.000-05:00

"Simple, but not easy; a price had to be paid. It meant
destruction of self-centeredness. I must turn in all
things to the Father of Light who presides over us all."

Dedicated to anyone who, for whatever reason, is not havingthe best of a holiday season, yet - or who is sure that this could be adistinct possibility.

The story of Chanukah or the Festival of Lights hasenormously profound lessons of interest to anyone in recovery,especially those who “practice these principles in all our affairs” – in otherswords Twelve Steppers - and to all who honor the traditions.

These arechalk-talk basics and I am not learned enough to give a historicallesson on the traditions of Chanukah – but if you are not familiar with it thenI do suggest you look them up. You might be amazed. No, you will be amazed. Youwill find that Chanukah is more than a family gathering or a celebration of amilitary victory over the Greeks.

The Greeks hadseized the Jewish Temple and spiritually defiled it by worshiping Greek godslike Zeus and contaminating it with slaughtered swine. When the Maccabeesregained control of their temple, they needed to sanctify it, which they coulddo by burning ritual oil in the Temple’s menorah for eight days. There was one problem.They only had a day's worth of oil prepared. What they did next next was amazing.

They did something that is so verycounter intuitive and beyond the consideration of mostly any alcoholic that it can be hard to believe. Yet they did it.

Had they behavedalcoholically or agnostically, no difference, the Maccabees might have said,"We must find a way to get enough oil” and then set about on some schemeto finagle it. They also might have given up lighting the candles at all,believing it to be a complete waste of time, because after all, "Thecandles can’t possibly last long enough”.

"They experienced a few distressing failures, but in those cases
they made an effort to bring the man's family into a spiritual
way of living, thus relieving much worry and suffering."

How might we have attempted to manage this situation ourselves? What might we have said? "Hey if we just light the candles for three hours a day . . . that's three times eight is twenty four . . . twenty four hour in a day . . . . that means that the candles will last until the eight day and by then we will have enough oil".

"See? We have managed to have enough oil". Geniuses we!

You can picturethat can't you? All the calculating; the manipulating; all the rolling up ofsleeves and energies spent – all the self-will and ambition. If you are analcoholic then this kind of worry, struggling with outcomes and maneuvering;fretting and fearful calculating sounds familiar to you; does it not?

The Maccabees didn’t do any of these things. This spiritual tribe of God-conscious people did not give-in to worry. They didn't maneuver. They did not struggle with trying to manipulate some pending ill fate of their imagination.

To struggle would have been very alcoholic of the Maccabees. Such agnostic, Godless thinking was not in their nature.

Every alcoholic has suffered from spiritual illness (agnosticism) but not everyone who is spiritually ill (agnostic) is alcoholic and these were a family of people, who culturally exhibited none of these traits.

Do you know whatthey did do? They took care of what had to be done in their present moment. TheMaccabees lit the fraekin’ candles, anyway; and herein lies aprofoundly spiritual Twelve Step lesson of Chanukah.

Many of us are nothaving a right Christmas season are we? Some of us aren’t, anyway. There isnot enough money. There are financial worries. There is not enough healthto go around. Maybe there is serious sickness or an illness in the family.Maybe relationships with others are not what we feel they should be.

"Imagine life without faith! Were nothing left but
pure reason, it wouldn't be life."

Our sense of well-being, the one we think we ought to have, feelssmothered.

Everyone tells us we must "Let go and let God" butno one seems to be able to tell us how to really do that.

We read, we read, wepray, we read, we share, we share, and not much changes except that we learn tosmile and to flash the AA grin; to "Fake it till we make it".

Some of us takewell-intentioned stabs at injecting Holiday Spirit into our veins; maybethrough some positive-affirmation placebos or gleaning sage ‘words of wisdom’from spiritual manuals, scripture or speaker-tapes. (Even blogs)

It seems at times that the beloved "Acceptance" page inthe Big Book has lost much of its old auto-suggestive power to at least providesome temporary relief from the sinking hollowness we feel when our gnawingsenses quietly tell us that something is very wrong. Whatever relief we areable to wrest from shopping, carols or Christmas music lasts no more than aminutes out of some excruciatingly long days.

There are timeswhen it seems that the Holiday season of our imagination, the one that existsonly in our past and in our fantasies and storybooks, ought to be ours.

TheChristmas and Chanukah season with all of its happiness and security; thesensual comforts that come with painted cookies, mistletoe smooches, fireplacesdecorations and time off from work or school come only as courtesy of the pastmemories stored somewhere in the recesses of our brain; or in some other life;or as we imagine in the lives of others.

All of this dreamland fantasy just gets poisoned by our ownworries, frustrations and all the unjust slaps in the face delivered in TheStream of Life. “Things just aren't the way they ought to be”, we think. Wesigh.

We look up toHallmark and cable-network Christmas specials’ and their smiling actors to findin them role models and guides to happiness. We watch "It’s a WonderfulLife" to try and suck good tidings off the flat-screen. Likebloodthirsty vampires we suck counterfeit life out of the cable-box, garglingand swallowing artificially sweetened, imitation flavored gratitude. Noneof it is real.

We are not George Bailey, and we do not feel like the “richestman in town”. These are lies to distract us from our actual, present condition;to keep us from seeing things and seeing us as we really are. It is only a movie . . . only a movie . . . . only a movie.

This is exactly this kind of selfish concern and our own self-absorbed thinkingthat keeps us in turmoil.

We are not mere victims of circumstances; we areactors in a play of Acts where we have appointed ourselves as Directors andcast ourselves for the lead role. Except that we haven't the rights to the script.

The crux of it isthis: We are impatient. We are playing God, placing our comfortsbefore others. Plain and simple. There is no such thing as someone who puts God and his fellows before himself who is unhappy, dissatisfied and wanting formaterial things. No such person. Just as there is no peace or order in the life of a spiritually ill narcissist.

"We, who have recovered from serious
drinking, are miracles of mental health."

The Maccabeeslighted the candles anyway and a miracle happened. We can do the same thing,not so much through lighting candles as through living as free from doubt asthey did. Amazingly, we get the same kind of result.

Jesus Christ, the most beloved Jew of all time, once said "Keep on, then, seeking first the kingdomand [God's] righteousness, and all these other things will be added toyou." (Matthew 6:33)

Many of us haveallowed preachers and clergy to lead us into believing this lesson has todo with handing over money to a church or to some ministry - even though we didnot have enough for ourselves. Scoundrelsknow how to use Scripture for nefarious purposes like this. No. It hasnothing to do with money contributions. It is much deeper.

It has to do with how we live once we turn our life and our willover to God; as we live a Twelve Step design for living.

Then we are doingthings to maximize our usefulness to God and to others and in doing so we growspiritually in understanding - to effect Gods Will in our own lives here onearth. Miracles really happen when we do this; real honest to goodness miracles –things that were not supposed to happen in a world where we might otherwise exist as little pathetickings and queens manipulating everything and everyone to suite us.

Then when folks catchon to us, as we sense their resentment toward us, we try to regain theirapproval - shutting down 'the play'; secretly judging and willing wresting back control. Weeven resort to praying for outcomes,believing ourselves to be the humble arbiters of goodness on a mystic planethat exists only inside our feeble minds. Thisis called worry. It is impatience; and it is lack of faith.

"If newcomers could see no joy or fun in our existence,
they wouldn't want it. We absolutely insist on enjoying life"

Fear grabs holdand we become unable to move; paralyzed by our own lack of courage to act and todo what we know in our hearts is the nextbest thing. We can call a sponsor or a spiritual guide and hear wise words.We might even believe we are divinely inspired; yet we still cannot act becauseour will is caught up in the trying. That is an ironic paradox.

Insteadof saying "that's right. I must do that!" if we could only take theleap of faith - that giant jump across the stream of doubt and simply observe, "Thatis right", leaving out the "I mustdo that” part. We would be amazed at how powerful our God given power to discernis.

If not, then evenif we do mange to do the next best thing;and it is the right thing, it willstill ultimately turn out to have been wrong.

We are dammed if we get what we want and we are dammed when we do notget what we want.

Only God's will isright, and in spending a considerable amount of time asking God for "theknowledge of God's will and the power to carry it out" then we ought to beready when we get it. Don’t you think?

This year we areonce again lighting the Menorah and celebrating Chanukah. It is a lesson for mychildren. It is a lesson for me and for my wife, Nancy.

"....as we became conscious of His presence, we
began to lose our fear of today, tomorrow or the hereafter."

Yes, as odd as itmay seem, we are a Christian family lighting a Menorah for Chanukah. (Oy Vey! What a miracle) No, we do notbelong to a Messianic temple and we have not joined "Jews for Jesus".Nothing like that. We belong to no spirituality clubs and we follow noreligious doctrine. Not even AA’s. AA hasn’t got one.

We are simply a familydoing our best to live God’s will; allowing Him to provide the discipline andinspiration that no other human can give and we cannot provide for ourselves. (OK. There is also a part deepinside that does it so that Nancy fries mountains of Latkes tonight.)

The Maccabees werenot faking it. They were making it - through faith. There is a way to 'faith it - without faking it'. Only when we are ableto give up fighting everything and anything are we like the Maccabees.

Please join us.You are not Jewish? So what! Be ready. Don't have a Menorah? One candlewill do. Go out and buy a candle. Get on your knees tonight and take the leapof faith. Celebrate living in the now, in the present moment, in Hispresence, as the Maccabees did. It is divinely magical. It issupernatural. It is simple. It is miraculous.

It is a realChristmas Spirit at its absolute best to be carried forward throughout theyear, each day, in each moment - the way Christ Himself, whose birthday we aresoon to celebrate, showed us it should be. If only we would stop trying tomake it happen and simply let it

Please, light thecandles anyway. You’ll be glad you did.

Make some Latkes too.

Peace, Love,
HappyChanukah and Merry Christmas to all
from all of us,

Danny, Nancy,Danny Jr, and Kristen Schwarzhoff

The Family of aReal Live Recovered Alcoholic

The Problem With “Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions”

2011-12-18T11:35:00.004-05:00

" . . .we hope these pages (BB) will prove so
convincing that no further authentication
will be necessary."

No one ever takes the Stepsout of the “Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions”- because no one can. Thedirections are not in there.

Have you ever heard someoneroutinely mixing what’s in the “Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions” with theBig Book presentation of the Twelve Steps, share about their Twelve Stepexperiences? Oh Lord, the confusion is frightening – especially if you considerthat a newcomer, seeking an answer to his alcohol problem - might be withinearshot.

AA does not propose that alcoholicslearn how to recover from alcoholism through “a spiritual awakening as theresult” of reading the “Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions”.

This book, writtena full twenty years after the AA spiritual Fellowship was founded, was notwritten for that purpose . . . .

. . . .while that Big Book, “Alcoholics Anonymous” has exactly that main purpose in mind.

"Alcoholics Anonymous" is arguably, the greatest “How To” volume published in the Twentieth Century. By 1958 when the "12 and 12" was published, millions had already been following direction out of that spiritually inspired work and recovered quite nicely, following thesimple directions in it, thank you very much.

But what about his responsibilities - his family and the
men who would die because they would
not know how to get well

So why would a sponsor give anewcomer reading assignments out of a different book, one that is not designed to help him recoverwhile diminishing the one book designed specifically to bring him the help he needs and for which he yearns? Is thatsponsor trying to kill him?

Not consciously. But there might be something inside that ‘sponsor’ that would love to.

The recovery landscape is strewedwith the bodies of dead alcoholics who attempt ‘intellectual’ approaches totreat their ‘spiritual’ disease. There are enough Big Book Hobbyists who do that - enough to keep ‘we who haverecovered’ busy putting out fires - but all ‘Twelve andTwelve Thumpers’ are just like that. The only way to understand the Steps well enough to explain them to another sufferer is to experience them.

People have been having spiritual awakeningsand experiencing spiritual, mental and physical healings throughout the centurieswithout the help of Bill W and his Fellowship idea. He was merely establishing his God aligned vision for the wholesale distribution of spirituality. That is all that AA really does.

It serves as a Wholesale Distributor of eons-old spiritual principles that evoke spiritual awakening and God consciousnesses and freedom.

Reading another man’s accounts withthem (As in “Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions”) leads un-recovered, cockyalcoholics into thinking they have really learned something about the Twelve Steprecovery process; enough to tell others all about it; when all they have doneis gleaned someone else’s hard earned experience with them - experiences theyought to be having themselves if they are to carry the “this” message out oftheir hearts and not merely spill it out their head.

How many times do we hear in a round robin style, 12 and 12, Open Discussion meeting, "I am not up to this step yet, but . . . . . " only to be subjected to a ten minute 'share-rant' purporting to be all about it?

There's no experience conveyed; just opinion about an experience the speaker has never had.

"There is no use arousing any prejudice he may have
against certain theological terms and conceptions
about which he may already be confused. "

A recovered alcoholic can go throughthe “Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions “and have profound appreciation for itand for its author. While an un-recovered alcoholic can only become confused,making complicated a simple process with which he has absolutely no experience.It is nauseating to hearing a “Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions" waivingknuckleheads spread their own befuddlement around to still suffering newcomersin AA meetings - talking about his “Whatit means to me" and “How I doit” as he regurgitates in the secondplace out of a book he never understood in the first.

This is the something inside them I referred to earlier. There is a spirit; anangry murderous entity, residing inside the ego of all unrecovered alcoholics, that unless expelled through spiritualmeans, will always seek to spread its special misery and death – even throughouta spiritual Fellowship that naively thinksit is immune to such diabolical assault. It is an intelligent attack frombeyond and only through maintaining the conscious contact with God - the kind proposedthrough the Twelve Steps - can we recovered alcoholics remain neutral, safe andprotected; not only from drinking butfrom all obsessive behaviors that Angerdemands.

The “Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions“is a wonderful book. It is also spiritually way over the heads of un-recovered,un-awakened alcoholics who are still somnambulant, intellectual zombie-slaves. (Although he won’t think so.) Yet can be profoundand interesting to someone who has“had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps" and would enjoy reading about Bill Wilson's mutual experiences and observations. (Or a non-alcoholic who likes to read and hasno capacity to recover from a malady he hasn't got, anyway.)

Newcomers, and quite a number ofold-timers too, need to know that there is not one single instruction for onesingle Step in the “Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions” .

No one ever takes the Steps out of the “TwelveSteps and Twelve Traditions” because noone can. The directions are not inthere.

The irony of Amy's death is that it took her “ indoctrination”
in rehab to kill her. At least in her No, no, no”
phase she lived and breathed. It was“Yes, yes, yes "
to secular solutions that guaranteed her ruin.
For 'real alcoholics' it always does.

The “Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions “is a retrospectivecollection of articles by Bill W offering his speculations and experiences in observing how AA members recover; and a presentation of the Twelve Traditions of the AA Society.

These are presented in short and interpretive literary format called essays; from the perspective of a recoveredalcoholic who has already done the Steps and been spiritually awakened - manyyears prior. (It was also a way to ingeniouslypiggyback the Traditions into the Groups through a simple cross-marketing, publishingtechnique. But that’s another story.)

I have been to wakes and funerals of real, true alcoholics who thought they might try “Working the Steps” through means other than the proven Big Book presentation, including the “TwelveSteps and Twelve Traditions”.

I also have cried and hugged their wives and mothers there - so I have no problem standing firm on my o n experience in this regard. Bitter experience shows that if you are a real alcoholic and you try to take the Twelve Steps out of a “Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions “you are probably going to die an excruciatingly tragic and painful alcoholic death. And if you live anywhere near where I live, I willprobably attend your wake.

I'll hug your wife and try to say something meaningful to your horribly hurt kids. It probably won't help them at all, you poor son of a bitch.

Peace and Love,

Danny S - RLRA

Real Live Recovered Alcoholic

Early AAs Were Sweet Genius'

2011-12-17T22:10:00.003-05:00

John Cadbury, spiritually a Quaker but also the founder of Cadbury LC, got into the chocolate business because of his temperance beliefs and activism in the "British Association for the Promotion of Temperance" .

Chocolatier and leading businessman during Britain's Industrial Revolution, Cadbury felt alcohol was a major cause of poverty and other social ills in England and saw cocoa and chocolate as alternatives to booze.

Even early AA's were aware of the relationship that foods like alcohol and sugar have to each other.

"One of the many doctors who had the opportunity of reading this book in manuscript form told us that the use of sweets was often helpful, of course depending upon a doctor's advice. He thought all alcoholics should constantly have chocolate available for its quick energy value at times of fatigue. He added that occasionally in the night a vague craving arose which would be satisfied by candy. Many of us have noticed a tendency to eat sweets and have found this practice beneficial." (133:3)

Hell, I know that works.

Supervised over the phone with my first AA sponsor, I once ate an entire Entenmann's chocolate cake staving off a craving for alcohol. It saved my ass!

At least it was better than facing the dilemma of drinking or chaining myself to the radiator. Chocolate (and EtOH) is a good inclusion for any serious Twelve Stepper's "twelve step call" kit.

Peace and Love,

Danny S – RLRA

Real Live Recovered Alcoholic

http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com

Suicide and Alcoholism - They Go Hand in Hand

2011-12-15T10:28:00.000-05:00

"He will be at the jumping-off place.
He will wish for the end."

Failing to offer the un-recovered alcoholic hope for recovery, is deadly.

The market would recover, but I wouldn't. That was a hard thought. Should I kill myself? (BillW. in his story, p6)

When presented with the idea that he might never recover,Bill Wilson's spiritually diseased mind immediately delivered to him the thought - a solution to his problem. That thought sounded like a question, "Should I kill myself?"

This prospect that Bill might never recover brought him to the brink of acondition that is common to real alcoholics. We know it today as Suicidal Ideation.

Many alcoholics who have thought of suicide, move on to an attempt - fully intending to succeed. Any psychologist knows well that the very first indicator of Suicidal Ideation is usually hopelessness.

Now why on earth would we want to tell an alcoholic that hewill never recover; that he has no hope of ever recovering; that no alcoholic ever recovers - when this is clearly a harmful idea to the real alcoholic - asBill was. Why?

Though Bill narrates his own 'stinking-thinking' quite a bit in the Big Book his morbid thoughts never came to fruition; thank God. Bill did indeed recover before then. "We have recovered" isthe life saving idea that holds hope to the, yet-to-recover alcoholic desperate for a solution - sometimes any solution. Sometime a final solution.

When a real alcoholic stands at the gates of death are we going to push him through or are we going to tell him the truth, that "We, OF Alcoholics Anonymous, are more than one hundred men and women who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body."

"Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death."

As Doctor Silkworth observed through his experiences in working with alcoholics, "Many times alcoholics are situations which arise out of the phenomenon of craving which cause men to make the supreme sacrifice rather than continue to fight." (The Doctors Opinion)

The supreme sacrifice. That is death by ones own hand - for seeing that once an alcoholic takes any alcohol at all into his body it is impossible for him to stop.

Something happens to the real alcoholic that does not happen to anyone who is not alcoholic.

It doesn't happen to hard drinkers. Not to non-alcoholic drug addicts. Not to sex addicted coin collectors. Not to sugar addicted plumbers.

The inability to stop only happens to the "distinct entity" described in the magnificent spiritual text, story and "How To" book, “AlcoholicsAnonymous: The Story of How Many Thousands of Men and Women Have Recovered fromAlcoholism”. That entity we call alcoholic.

"The verdict of the ages is that
faith means courage.
All men of faith have courage. "

If those of us who have discovered and embrace the spiritual solution offered through the Twelve Steps would grow some onions (That's "Get a set of balls" to less sensitive readers) we could lose much of the secular, still "recovering" type of treatment center jargon that has leeched into a once effect spiritual Fellowship.

"Never recover" and "Always recovering" may not mean too much among non-alcoholics, even among those who have a drinking problem - but to those fitting the AA description of the true alcoholic it is extremely harmful. It is not the display of humility some imagine.

Instead it is bold, secular posturing within a fellowship that prefers spirituality - tantamount to spitting into the face of Truth. It is not an AA concept. Never was.

"Recovering" it is not merely a harmless matter of semantic choice.If you think it is, then you definitely have not yet learned the Big Book's "our description of the alcoholic" is - and it is a deadly pity that you think you do.

Peace and Love,

Danny S – RLRA

Real Live RecoveredAlcoholic

http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com

Dr. Bobs Nightmare

2011-12-12T13:13:00.000-05:00

His Dream Comes True

The Perfect Storm

Whatever Dr. Bob's many problems were there was one singleissue that he shared with Bill Wilson. That was the commonality that ignitedtheir relationship and allowed the two to plant what was germinated betweenBill and Ebby in Brooklyn into a firm soil of fellowship.

Alcoholism was their common ground.

Not moneyproblems. Not marriage problems. Not drug problems. Not work issues. Alcoholism– that two-fold condition, symptomatic of spiritual disease; combining mental obsessionwith physical craving forming the deadlySyndrome* we know as Chronic Alcoholism.

"Of far more importance was the fact that he was thefirst living human with whom I had ever talked, who knew what he was talkingabout in regard to alcoholism from actual experience." ~ (Dr. Bob on BillW's approach) THE DOCTOR'S NIGHTMARE

BINGO! Bob understands Bill's description of the alcoholic. It is identification, without which not much is ever accomplished.

James Patrick Kinnon

Addicts trying to get clean in a fellowship designed for andby alcoholics have an impossibly tough time. They are told to “look for the similarities”and to “ignore the differences” between alcoholism and drug addiction - butthis only widens the chasm as it divides and decimates the Unity of the AAFellowship.

Yes, there are some similarities between drug addiction andalcoholism. Bill W recognized this difference between suffererswhen he referred to addicts as “first cousins” to the alcoholic.

It is not the similarities that prevent the necessaryidentification and makes it impossible for addicts to recover in AA. It is the dissimilaritiesthat prevents the one-alcoholic-talking to another effect that makes AA style of "working withothers". so enduring and effective in convincing sufferers to acceptpractices and principles amounting to a spiritual remedy to alcoholism.

This is why there are separate fellowships for those suffering from distinctseparate problem.

This is why in 1953 a guy named Jimmy K, a dually 'addicted' alkie-addictwho had recovered through AA recognized that non-alcoholic addicts were not finding the solution through AA - and so he founded NA.

Unless we are aware of the differences, and able to makeclear, “the distinction between the alcoholic andthe nonalcoholic” (44:0) then we can never properly help those who suffer and triage them toward appropriate sponsors in appropriate fellowships who can help them; because only thosesponsors who share their common problem with their prospect will also be ableto share with them the common solution. The ‘program’, when followed as delineated in the Big Book, is justtoo drastic and difficult to be any other way.

Peace and Love,

Danny S – RLRA

Real Live Recovered Alcoholic

*Alcoholism never referred to as a 'disease' by the co-founders of AA. It is more properly classified as a 'Syndrome'. ~ DJS

Cruelty To Drug Addicts

2011-12-11T13:46:00.001-05:00

How wonderful it is that non-alcoholic addicts are welcome to attend open meetings* of Alcoholics Anonymous.

These meetings are designed for ANYONE, alcoholic or not, wishing to learn about alcoholism.

When they arrive, usually misdirected by their misguided ''Addictions Counselors", the hope is that our non-alkie 'first cousins' can be met with love, patience and knowledge about the malady we call alcoholism; and have explained to them the

" . . . distinction between the alcoholic and the nonalcoholic" (44:0)

and why it is that cannot become members. Directing non-alcoholic addicts to a spiritual fellowship where they can obtain help for their addiction is an act of love.

The lives of addicts and the life of the AA fellowship depend on this kind of loving, sane, tolerance.

Non-alcoholics drug addicts are dying in AA trying get clean in a fellowship designed for alcoholics only.

Don't we owe our drug addicted cousins the truth!? That they will die in AA?

But mere attendee at an AA meeting does not make on a member. Being alcoholic and joining does. Leading on non-alcoholic addicts and letting them believe they can become members of AA without first fitting AA's "Our description of the alcoholic" (60:3) is just plain cruel.

Advocating that thereis anything in AA Tradition or literature which says that non- alcoholics canbecome members as, as longs as they have a desire to stop drinking , anytime they say so, is very disingenuous- and selfish.

Addicts are dying in scores because of it. How dare we!

Bill W probably had a reliable handle on the Singleness of Purpose issue, wouldn't you say?

"I see no way of making nonalcoholic addicts into AA Members. Experience says loudly that we can admit no exceptions, even though drug users and alcoholics happen to be first cousins of a sort.

If we persist in trying this, I'm afraid it will be hard on the drug user himself, as well as on AA.

We must accept the fact that no nonalcoholic, whatever his affliction, can be converted into an alcoholic AA member."

~ Bill Wilson The Language of the Heart, p. 223

Peace and Love,

Danny S – RLRA

Real Live Recovered Alcoholic

*(Non-alcoholics are not supposed to attend Closed Meetings; these are for alcoholics only)

Doing It The Way The Co-founders Did It

2011-12-08T13:49:00.000-05:00

The Big Book directions start at page 1 and go to page164. Nothing too radical about that.

Itseems everyone should know it.

And yet .. .

. . . .thereis a strange and off-beat culture within the fellowship -a cult-like body of pseudo-AA, near-12 Step thumpers ; but not quite 12 Step thumpers, that proposes newcomers stop following the directions at page103; just shy of the “all our affairs” part of Step Twelve.

No, this is not a jest.

That means overtwenty percent of the Big Book is summarily dismissed - totally sliced out and not considered part of the Twelve StepProgram by this body of bogus Big Booker, declaring hard-line Big Book 'thumper' status - but whose highlighter-stained fingers must be crossed behind their backs. (In spiritual terms that means they are 'full of shit'.)

If we read those 60 'dismissed' pagesand begin to put all of step twelve into practice it becomes clear why thiscorner-cutting idea might have evolved in the Fellowship. It’s feakin’ demanding! Itis humbling and it is drastic. Its just not easy to do.

As Fred the Accountant noted, " . . . .the program of action, thoughentirely sensible, was pretty drastic”.

It sure is. It's drastic, its difficult but its effectiveand fasts acting. It is also simple but there is asick sinister need to muck it up and complicate itby sabotaging the newcomers ability to follow through so as tocreate dependencies between people.

Shhhhhh! Listen. Quiet. That whirring sound you hear in thedistance? It is the co-founders of Alcoholics Anonymousspinning under the dirt.

For the convenience of those who wish to do as the co-founders ofAA did, who believe that revisingthe Twelve Step Program through omission is not an option, hereis a breakdown of how the Big Book is constructed and how the stepsare presented. It should be helpful.

Breakdown of the Book “AlcoholicsAnonymous”.*

1) Front Matter: 33 pages total: i-xxxii

(Roman numeral pagination of "Front Matter"is standard practice in book publishing.)

Title Pages, Copyrights,Table of Contents, Preface,Forwards (4), References (The Doctors Opinion)

2) Body: 164 pages (Arabic)

Step One – 1-43 (43 pages)

Step Two – 44-57 (11 pages)

Step outlined - 58-60 (“theshade” summary - 2.5 pages)

Step Three –60-63 (4 pages)

Step Four -63-72 (10 pages)

Step Five -72-75 (4 pages)

Step Six –76 (< 1 page)

Step Seven –76 (< 1 page)

Step Eight –76 (< 1 page)

Step Nine –76-84 (9 pages)

Step Ten -84-85 (2 pages)

Step Eleven –85-88 (4 pages)

Step Twelve - 89-164 (75pages)

Personal Stories (forty-three personal experiences)

Titles, TOC (165-170)

Part I, (171-276)

Part II, (277-436)

Part III, (437-560)

3) End of Book

Appendices, (561-575) I-VII (1through 6)

Pamphlet list (576)

Why skimp when we can do it the way the co-founders did and get what they got! It works.

ANSWER THE "ALL OUR AFFAIRS" multiple choice question to see where YOU stand.

Peace and Love,

Danny S – RLRA

Real Live Recovered Alcoholic

* Updated from the 'leave behind" I use in my Twelve Step and Meditation Workshops

Rescued From Stress

2011-12-08T11:04:00.001-05:00

"The first thing apparent was that this world
and its people were often quite wrong" (65:2)

‎"The first principle of success is that you should never be angry." ~ "Alcoholics Anonymous" p 111

Eliminate anger and all our problems drop away. The Big Book co-authors demonstrated their understanding of this spiritual Principle when they said, “If we were to live, we had to be free of anger." (66:2)

We may infer from this that unless we are liberated from anger, we will die.

'Being' free from anger is not the same as ‘getting’ free from it – and therein lies the trap into which so many of us fall. Getting free implies effort and that effort invokes self-will. Being free implies that freedom comes to us as we become liberated - without effort; without the use of our own will.

"This is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him?
God save me from being angery. Thy will be done."

Anger, suppressed negative emotions, hatred – call it anything you wish - feeds the ego-self, contaminating the spirit, the mind and eventually the body – to the point of mental insanity, physical sickness and finally death. And all the way down we slide living through bedeviling misfortune we are sure we do not deserve - wondering, "Why God?!"

God does not cut us off - we sever spiritual flow ourselves by playing Him and we do that each and every time we improperly meet a situation with resentment. It leaves us rudderless, frightened and desperate for answers.

From the annoying mosquito in the room to the deadly car bomb exploding in the busy square - when we respond with anger, annoyance or frustration . . . that is judging and playing God in the process – which sets us apart from Him. That is where all the pain and suffering comes from. That's why we drank. That's why engage in any sensual distraction.

As we suffer anger's unpleasing effects; anxiety, depression, and physical ailments related to food and sex, we might search for solutions in hopes of restoring health and appearances. Armed with the discovery that stress is what is killing us we feel enlightened and seek to rearrange or manage the stresses that are around us.

The idea that we might somehow manage anger becomes an appealing idea. Don't waste your time.

"The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us.
They may be the dubious luxury
of normal men, but for alcoholics
these things are poison."

Clinical means for controlling emotions such as Anger Management is a deceptive lie to which many of those still suffering from spiritual illness fall prey.

Just look at today's cable TV programming and self-help infomercials and you will see 'experts' attempt to address the subject. They do not tell us how to become resilient to stress. They don't know how. They can only treat effects; not causes.

Instead they propose that the negative effects of stress ought to be reduced through diet, exercise, behavioral modification, self-hypnosis (Sometimes disguised as spiritual meditations) – even "rough" sex is suggested as a technique to vent hostility and channel negative emotions out of us. (And into others) without ever getting to a real answer to our problems.

Drugs like anti-depressants and hormonal therapies are available to the totally lazy or those already physically incapacitated by the debilitating effects of out of control emotions.

Human-aid 'treatments' are all temporary solutions to a permanent problem.

Stress, appearing as resentment, anger, bitterness, isn't going to go away. Not in this lifetime it isn't. It will always be waiting on the doorstep, posed and ready to crop up inside. Not only is a favorite Bible passage "This too shall pass" not written in the Bible, but as it turns out, isn't even true. Not within the context, we would like to believe, anyway. It is our legacy as humans to endure and learn patience.

Stressful events will change as surely as the seasons will, but they will always be replaced by new events with new stresses - new seasons continue to stream on in the passage of time. Stresses are always upon us and we are never without the heat of a summer or the cold of a winter.

You, as well as your husband, ought to
think of what you can put into
life instead of how much you can take out.

Not only is a favorite Bible passage "This too shall pass" not written in the Bible, but as it turns out, isn't even true. Not within the context, we would like to believe, anyway.

In this world of "feel good' pseudo-spirituality it can come as a shocker to realize that this too shall never pass.

The best for which we can ever hope is that we learn a style of living that makes us resilient to it inevitable force upon us.

That resiliency can be found in Step Eleven of The Twelve Steps which suggests a solution that is much simpler than any of the human aids provided by the psyche mechanics who may hold impressive degrees and paper pedigrees but who are meddling in matter they are ill equipped to understand or control. Their own intellects and ambitions form barriers to real helpfulness.

There is not so much psychology to it. There is no magic mantra or relaxation discipline. There is no magic recovery group, sponsor, pill or knowledge.

There is simply letting go of it. Stop fighting anyone and everything. Give up anger. That’s all there is to it. Simple. Not easy - but it is vital. If you will try the meditation exercise I make available to anyone you will see just how simple it is. http://stepelevencomesalive.blogspot.com/

Peace and Love,

Danny S - RLRA

Real Live Recovered Alcoholic

http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com

RecoverING Alcoholics Can Move Forward

2011-12-06T10:07:00.001-05:00

"For us, material well-being always followed
spiritual progress; it never preceded."

They Can Recover

"We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things,because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths." ~ Walt Disney

Yes, there really is a recoverING period, howevershort. Every recoverED alkie has experienced one. Even straight, Big Bookthumpin’, fully recovered ‘fanatics’ of Twelve Step spiritual awakening haveexperienced the “ing’ in recovery. It is a temporary experience, not to be embraced for long - but it is mostcertainly real.

It is as spiritual gestation period thatprecedes spiritual awakening.

When someone genuinely makes that vital decision to accept the spiritual Twelve Step solution proffered through the Big Book, "Alcoholics Anonymous" there is an initial flow of power, feltor not - right around Step Three; then it begins to befelt as a definite flow of Spirit - usually between steps Seven and Ten.

Frequently, by the time amends have been completed this sense of "new life" is quite strong*. By the time steps Ten and Eleven are in full dailyswing, there is no doubting the presence of this New Power. The inverse is alsotrue since when Steps Ten and Eleven are “letup on”, like the electric flow through astep down transformer, this Power diminishes eventually trickling down tonothing. Recovery unravels and it’s back to the psychic sleeping chambercomplete with bedeviling fear, depression, anxiety and even a relapse back to EtOH could be in the making. The Stream of Life is once more overwhelming – just as itwas before, even if it is now without a liquid solution.

RecoverED can last a lifetime. RecoverING should bejust a matter of days.

That's how it was with Bill Wilson - like it is with all of us who actually follow the directions delineated in the spiritual "How To" book, the Big Book, "Alcoholics Anonymous" and resist the egotistical temptation to water it down or to thicken and gum it all up with our own additives.

RecoverING is that short period of convalescence marked by sobrietybut rarely with much serenity or peace . . . . yet.

Just because someone says theyare “recovering”, wears a shit eating grin and sports $150 dollar Nikes doesnot mean that they are. Unless they are also deep into the process, have completedinventories and are proactively immersed in completing amends - it is not verylikely.

There are several places in the Big Book, “Alcoholics Anonymous”which refer to that genuine recoverING stage of the alcoholic seeking the solution throughthe Twelve Step method. Here is one**:

"If he is, and is still trying to recover, he will tell youabout it even if it means the loss of his job. For he knows he must be honestif he would live at all" (146:3)

It is always wonderful working with alcoholics during that briefstage when they are "trying torecover" even when they 'relapse'. Remember, AA's number one co-founder, was loaded to the gills as he was beginning his recovery. He drank right through the first several Steps.

As Bill Wilson endured his New York style Bridge and Tunnel Recovery treatment - getting loaded in Brooklyn - detoxing in Manhattan - he did all of it right through his first Three Steps.

On the heels of his Step Twoexperience where he "came to believe” that God would remove the obsession to drink, he experienced his miracle of healing. Bill's sanity was restored he began his spiritual journey and never drank again - all right from the from the discomfort of a hospital detox bed.

There was no “Go back to Step One” for having relapsed. There wasno “You’re not ready” or “Get some sober time under your belt before I can workwith you" coming from Ebby Thacher.

Hell, no. Ebby had chasedBill’s scrawny, gin soaked ass up the West Side of Manhattan to the detoxfacility and continued to work with him bedside. There was movement forward through a step process thatthose two men did not even yet realize was in development ; just asBill was in development – recovering.

As Walt Disney said, “We keep moving forward...”

When wedo. .. we do! We progress. There is growth. It is a faith thing, a“lamp unto my feet” experience. (If I may borrow from the Christian scriptures to make a point.)

Of course Disney was not talking about anything as vital as the life and death urgency arising out of chronic alcoholism. He was talking about 'moving forward' for the sake of satisfying human curiosity.

Even ol'Walt was aware that new paths are constantly openingfor those of us who move forward and do not balk.

Forus it not the ambitious path to material achievement; instead it is a spiritual path leading to the discovery of God. Not even relapse is justifiable enough reason forbalking. If anything, it ought to be fuel for acceleration. Wenever sit on our thumbs. We launch. We are rigorous. It is dishonest to findexcuses for not proceeding; for delaying and making slow tedium out of a spontaneous spiritual event that happens to us; not by us.

Any proposal suggesting anything less than full recovery - is just plain Mickey Mouse.

Coming Tomorrow: We canpredict who is and who isn’t going to make it. Yes we can!

Peace and Love,

Danny S – RLRA

Real Live Recovered Alcoholic

http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com

* Balking on the completion of amends quashes this experience. Trust me. If you aren't completing amends - usually OK'd by some similarly stalled AA sponsor - you are screwing yourself out of this awakening experience as surely as your sponsor has screwed himself out of it too.

** Another is: "Our women folk have suggested certain attitudes a wife may take with the husband who is recovering" (122:0)

Dirty Deeds

2011-12-01T12:28:00.001-05:00

Step One - Done Dirt Cheap
Rockin' and Prospectin'
reprinted from 12steprealityblog.blogspot.com - 2009

Went to see AC-DC last night at Gillette Stadium. Not only were the seats right up front on the field of the stadium but the best part of the evening was on the trip driving up. The opportunity to twelve step someone cropped up.

Took him through Step One right in the car.

The drive from The Peninsula of Doom to Foxboro, Massachusetts - one and a half hours. Perfect - maybe even a little roomy, time-wise, for a Step One.

Here is how it went:
Talk about being in good physical shape . At age fifty four Angus Young has got more energy than many twenty five year olds I see working at the Cape Cod Mall; whose bellies cast ecliptic shadows over size fourteen Nikes. Why are there so many fat, I mean seriously obese people . . . on Cape Cod anyway? I mean really. I have never seen anything like it. (More on that after I lose five or ten myself.)

The Scottish born guitar icon took his Black lacquered SG to . . . . oh wait . . . .this is about alcoholism, not a rock show review, right.
Sorry. . . .I had to explain to Charlie what I know about alcoholism – what is looks like and how obsession and craving form a syndrome we call chronic alcoholism; how alcoholism manifests as a symptom of spiritual disease yet i snot the disease itelf. I know allot. Have to. It's part of what "carrying this message" is all about. I also know from experience that the best way to do this is conversationally – the one-drunk-talking-to another method. Not off a handout. Not out of a guidebook. Not out of an essay like those published in the 12 & 12. Not even writing to a blog readership either. (This blog is not Twelve Step work)

It is illustrated in the Big Book that one-on-one is the only way - and I have found it to be so too. Everyone I know who is in this deal tells me this is their experience as well. 'Mass' sponsoring like at some Holy Roller healing bazaar, but from a podium, bullshitting ones self that this is the way to "carry the message", is not how the co-founders describe “Working With Others" in their book.

Lecturing to him about allergy and obsession alone cannot do it either – and that isn’t very conversational. He’ll feel preached to.

Taking a tutorial stance is OK in some instances as long as the reception room door leading to the real solution has been unlocked first. So I start giving examples in my own life where I could not stop once I started and couldn't “not start” even though I needed to “not start”.

That's what I did with our friend Charlie on the way to see AC/DC.

Guess what happened?

He couldn't match my experiences! Not in the slightest. Charlie did not drink to anesthetize the pain of his own resentful, judgement agnosticism - as all true alcoholics do. No. Charlie drank in order to raise the liquid courage to do something else he really felt bad about:

SMOKING CRACK!

He never continued drinking once he got the crack. The prognosis? Charlie is not an alcoholic. Not because I told him he wasn't - but because he could see that he isn't. I merely showed him how to make "the distinction between the alcoholic and the nonalcoholic." (44:0) as my Big Book tells me to do.

Now if I was charging him money for this I wouldn’t want to let him go at this point – not before I got to swipe his credit card anyway or clean out his checking account – or maybe even get his timid, not so swift but loving grandma to take out a loan on her house to pay me ten or twenty or forty grand for a month of share-sessions, piss tests and poster making.

If you have ever witnessed a 'sales close' during the admittance of a treatment center you would instantly recognize the comparison with the "in-take" and the manager’s office at the local car dealer. Not much difference.

I can tell you of instances where folks - one woman in particular comes to mind - who was run through the local facility, Gosnold, here on Cape Cod not once or twice but three times that I know of and possibly even more after relapsing immediately upon release and exiting Gosnold's treatment facility. Unconscionable! The greed and arrogance of the people running that facility is astounding. It ought to be investigated by the Massachusetts Attorney General's office. Why was she rerun through time after time after time - probably even against the facilities own written and apparently scoffed policies?

The answer is simple; she was not out of money yet!
More importantly, she was desperate enough to be willing to pay it. Desperate people do desperate things and too often there is someone standing at the ready, waiting to exploit the foibles of simple, human failing. ANYONE can become a certified alcoholic or drug addict if they just show up, write a check and suffer a few months of easy multiple choice testing. The average addictions counselor. dealing in matter of life and death is not a highly skilled, trained or experienced person. Few are. Thus kind of stuff is not limited to The Peninsula of Doom either. It is all over over the country. If the check does not bounce no one is going to tell them any different. I have NEVER heard of anyone getting a refund from ANY treatment center because the administrators and counselor discovered that they were not real alcoholics and therefor could not help them. And I am quite certain I never will.

If I were a money charging "addictions cousleor" what I would do now is tell Charlie,

"Charlie I can still help - and you can still pay- because even though I only have the solution for and the experience with alcoholism and you are not an alcoholic but a drug addict . . . . guess what? ALCOHOL IS NOW A DRUG. We can still do business! Yippee Ai Oh Ty Ay! Now lets start running that short stack of credit cards you have there. . . K?"

Well there is some difference. If you relapse after the treatment people deliver their goods to you the treatment center will not give you a refund and will incredibly tell you it’s YOUR fault -- whereas the car dealer will be forced by their own good business practices, not to mention the Attorney General's office, to make good on the product sold. Treatment Centers will even exploit your desperate state by informing you of this beforehand.

Can you imagine a car dealer telling you, "Now listen Mr. Jones after you pay for this vehicle we will do all we can to see that you get it but frankly, you may never actually take delivery - and even if you do it the car might just up and disappear one day. If it does,there are no refunds."

You would have to be puh. . . ritty desperate to engage in the transaction with a disclaimer like that one, wouldn't you? I believe that is called adding insult to injury or maybe in this case the reverse: Injury THEN insult.

You know . . . there is nothing like desperation – the flames of raw and terrorized emotions tearing through a life and family as hot and deadly as flames and smoke through a South Bronx tenement.

Then again I am not twelve stepping Charlie to screw him out of his money, am I ?

So what does Charlie think about this ? Well, Charlie is very perceptive. Finally, after a couple of countless AA meetings and decades of bull-doodie, POP-AA indoctrination, he figures then that he is not a real alcoholic - not the kind described in the Big Book, anyway. Not the true alkie conveyed by "Alcoholics Anonymous the eponymous spiritual volume for whom the Twelve Step Program was designed and painstakingly delineated in that book.

Charlie also recons he cannot stop going to AA meetings because it has become a social thing for him. He has no other friends who aren’t taking substances like EtOH or drugs and Charlie feels that he needs to secure himself among people who even though some of them may relapse once in a while, at least they are living inside periods of being clean and sober.

He just rotates them in and out of his social circle as they use - cleanup - use - cleanup and he says that he is able to remain clean and sober himself - by association.

Maybe he does. But now it seems our pal Charlie has got as AA meeting addicting to rise above. Now I guess we'll have to get together again to make sure Charlie knows the difference between an "Opened" and "Closed" meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Hey! I'm Twelve Stepping at a fraekin' AC/DC concert here - I should remember everything?

Peace,

Danny S - RLRA
Real Live Recovered Alcoholic

Human Resources VS Spiritual Resources

2011-11-21T11:18:00.001-05:00

"In 2003, it is estimated that over two million have recovered throughA.A." ~ (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions p.15, Foreword *)

Assumingthat this number is an accurate estimation (let’sgo with it for now) this can be roughly translated into perhaps 30,000alcoholics who recover each year. Through AA.

That is30,000 spiritual awakenings usingthe Twelve Step procedure straight out of the Big Book, “Alcoholics Anonymous”(This doesn’t even count NA, CA or any of the other Twelve Step Fellowshiprecoveries.)

Consideringthe number of those who show up for a round of AA meetings and to some extent, "keep comingback, this is a mere bag-of-shells.

Virtuallyevery single person ‘coming in’ to the AA fellowship will receive a liberaldousing out of a giant jug of watered-down recovery formula. They will be soakedfrom head to toe with inflammatory theories about 'never' recovering and "anybody can do it”. The fact is that their own Big Book will clearly tell them of how ahundred men and women alcoholics did indeed recover using avery special set of procedure. They also reveal that in their experience, not everybody can do it.

What iseven more astounding is that nearly all of those who do recover will also havebeen told from the start that they ought not so much as entertain the notion that any alcoholic can ever recover. Can you imagine sucking the hopeout of a suffering individual that way? Yet it is being done as we speak. They will have been told that anyonewho tells them otherwise, an arrogant,delusional, egotist of some sort.

Face it.Some folks are totally committed to neverrecovering; remaining in aperpetual state of ‘alwaysrecovering’ - spittingup and gurgling on that deadly mantra of fellowship bile manufactured by somediseased gland hidden deep in the folds of their soured gut.

Thesemembers of the First Church ofApplied Rehabology aren’tliars, so don’t think them to be insincere. They say they will never recoverand they deliver on their promise. They never do recover. It is their truth.

Yetmillions of alcoholics will have done just that if they accept "the principles and procedure that had helpedus".

Unwillingness to recover and failure to recover is a truth too.

Rejecting,altering, rewriting the principles and procedures conveyed in the magnificentspiritual text, story and “How To” book, “Alcoholics Anonymous” - the "never recover” idea becomes an enduring truth for somany folks. It can be discouraging to see so many ‘Fellow-shippers’ most ofwhom will not even still be around in a few years, others who areold-timers - hovering about in an abstinent limbo state of sobriety called“recoverING” - while at the same time being slowly pushed into early graves byever-degrading spiritual conditions.

Emotional,physical, and mental health deteriorates even as ‘sobriety dates’ are celebrated. We all want what ‘they had’ (theco-authors) but do we want what these folks are getting?

Some willchase inventory highs, sponsorship rotations, latch onto new gurus in and outof the fellowship - while others will simply zone out like AA zombies, taking upservice positions, bleeding deaconry roles, or turn uber-sponsorship machinists. A frightening number will sport Big Book,worn out from much study and memorization. (Yeah, that’s right, some of us Twelve Steppin’ Big Bookloons are really just being fashion conscious when we wear those 4^th editions under our arms. Sorry toburst your bubble)

Like a counterfeit “UL APPROVED” sticker on a cheap, defective lampcord, many of these and other recovery packages will have received a stamp of “SPIRITUAL”on it. When eventually the ink wears away what remains are the originalcontents of the package. They will be proven to have been nothing more that “Human Resource”. So does remain the anger, fear the anxiety and all the bedevilingsymptoms of mistreated spiritual malady.

Itis much harder to help one whose misery has been complicated by mistreatedspirituality than it is working with the untreated individual.

"Itwas a statistical fact that alcoholics almost never recovered on their ownresources." ~ (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p.22)

The"resources" Bill is talking about here are human resources; thoseprovided through human "will". It doesn't matter if the will is ours, our sponsors, our group, or the collective will of the worldwide fellowship, if it’s human, it alwaysstatistically fails when it comes to recovery. What has always works is when some of us get away frompeople as a resource and discover the ‘inner’ resource found in Godconsciousness.

The only people worth listening to are the people who tell younot to listen to people and even then only long enough until you stop listeningto them too – then go inward to find.

Ifwe all did that, we would all be connected to our Creator and we would be free.We would be free from alcohol certainly but then also free of the anxieties,fears - even the emotionally induced physical ailments all of which stem fromdependencies upon other human beings. Self would lose itsstranglehold over us and we would be accountable to no one - except to a lovingGod expressing His will through our ever-growing conscious contact with Him.What a purpose for living that is.

Peace and Love,

Danny S – RLRA

RealLive Recovered Alcoholic

http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com

It’s A Wonderful Life

2011-11-12T10:02:00.001-05:00

If you read the Big Book with opened eyes itbecomes clear that the spiritual solution AA really proposes is a kind of “Catch and Release" program of action; principles that deliver freedom - not a jail sentence.

A person ought to do asmany fourth and fifth steps as is necessary. But the question must be asked, "Why? Why was it necessary?" I do not do any more fourth or fifth steps. Don'thave to. Oh, if it became necessary I would. In a heartbeat. But the prayer/meditationlife works real well and progresscontinues on a daily basis.

You will never find one iota of support orsuggestion in the Big Book for multiple fourth and fifth steps. Not a hint.

Multiple inventories are an invention in the AA Aftermarket. An Add-on. A revision. It's made up.

You will find allindications of the exact opposite - thatit is a one-time proposition. For this reason all the insistence upon thoroughness and fearlessness. The idea that you can always get it right next time -or the time after that, or the time after that- is extremely dangerous and only helps a newcomer cultivate laxity when doing hisinventories.

I’ve seen it time aftertime. “Ah, if I don’t get it now I have a whole lifetime of this inventory stuff”. I suspect we will always see it too. As long as there are would-be Big Book sponsors re-writing their Big Books, improvingand ramping up The Twelve Step process, tapping 12 X 12s and books like "Sober Living".

There probably will alwaysbe Twelve Step revisionists gleaning recovery tips off rehab circulars crankedout by troops of “Board Certified", relapse-ready counselors and middle-of-the-road fellowship cronies. Complicating work for the sake of ego-accomplishment is is one of the oldest tricks-of-attraction in the book - and it is found in religionstoo.

The real alcoholic maynot have all the time in the world. Death may be stepping up onto his frontporch right now.

The time when a man ought to consider going backwards with the Twelve Step "treatment" is when he has failed to enlargehis spiritual life and his progress has waned. He’ll know it. His kids will knowit. His life will be bedeviled with more crap than a doggie-run behind the McDonalds’at the I-95 rest area. We should never encourage abridged 12-step work just becausefor some it may be inevitable.

Progress is advancementand it means moving forward.

A grade school child can tell you that going from12 to 4 means going backwards. It isa reversal of progress.

The Steps are ordered, in sequence, for a reason. Butas I said, a man ought to do as many 4ths and 5ths as he need do. The questionis, “Why did he need to? Something is wrong and it is good to have it tendedto.

When one meditateseffectively, he will effectively be doing fourth and fifth steps all throughhis waking hours. His dependency will have been transferred off of sponsors, worksheets,notebooks and all such human aids. His reliance will instead be placed upon hisGod.

He will be able to pass his spiritual confidence onto others through hisown walk in the Sunlight of the Spirit.

It takes courage, which means not doubting that this is possible.

It is proposedin the Big Book, "Alcoholics Anonymous" - as it has been proposed through theages.

I never turn down aperson who needs to go backwards – who needs to do another inventory. That would be like a doctor-refusing antibioticto a dying patient just because he didn’t follow the original prescription as first written.Like the empathetic physician, I do show them that there is a way towardprogress and that means doing it asprescribed. Full dosing. No tampering.

In the field of recovery/spiritual awakening, the key to spiritual progress toward perfection it is in effective, mediation.

Not every co-founder of AAfound it. Following their lives after the publication of The Big Book abundantly confirms that fact. However, Bill W found it - a little late but he discovered truth. Jesus was born with it. Mosesfound it. Many, many others have found it. I found it. It's what allows me to write the way I do.

Very many do not, nor dothey even know what ‘it’ is that they are they missing. They will tend to project their own arrogance upon anyone who does.

It is a very reliableindicator: A person attempting this 12-step lifestyle, who has not yet beenable to stay on the spiritual path, will need to perform multiple 4th & 5thsteps. It is also a reliable indicator of obstinacy when one idolizes suchhuman imperfection rather than mean to improve upon them. That idea is so not in the Big Book – spiritual progress toward perfection is.

Thank God for do-overs,for sure! - but let’s not veneratespiritual failure, let’s not worship the journey – let’s not see arrogance inthose who have been blessed. Rather let’s be grateful when we can live throughour errors and then move in the direction toward improvement – toward perfection.

When we actually followthe directions, they do lead along a path of spiritual progress. If this is wrong, come visit me in myearly grave. View my disease ridden, relapsed corpse and hold me up as a rottedexample of how not to do it.

Until then, I inviteanyone to come look at my life; to see what potential God-consciousness canbring upon a man and his family. See my credentials. They are the fruits of a certainspiritual lifestyle – filled with mental, emotional, physical health and stable,loving family relationships -- sans most of the issues many others still have. I livefree from fear. Free from anger. Without doubt.

Sometimes I feel like Georgefraekin’ Bailey . . . . at the end ofthe movie. It is A Wonderful Life. Gosh darn it.

Allof the titular “Promises” in the Big Book no longer seem as vague as they oncedid. They seem more to have been predictions and more; as they are currently being fulfilled. It is not luck. It is grace. I wish these blessingson everyone . . . even scurvier little spiders.

Peace andLove,

Danny S – RLRA

Real Live Recovered Alcoholic

Spiritual Backsliding

2011-11-03T12:29:00.002-04:00

How Do Recovered Alkies Spell 'Trouble'?

"We were having trouble with . . . .(see page 52)"

Maybe it is true that there is no cure for alcoholism via the Twelve Step formula. That's what the co-founders of AA tell us anyway.

If they are correct - and they always seem to be - then it must also be true that those of us who have recovered really only have a daily reprieve. Failing to maintaining our spiritual condition results in clemency being withdrawn.

That picture being drawn makes it really easy see how letting up on the spiritual program of action sends us immediately toward a breakdown of communication with God.

And boy, does that spell trouble. As our consciousness wanes so does our ability to handle stress. More aptly put: We begin to lose our gift of resiliency to resentfulness.

Impatience, anger, negativity and emotionality all flood back into our lives and we will once again resort to sensual solutions. Food, sex, chemicals like nicotine and antidepressants and yes, even alcohol begin to reestablish their perversely obsessive sway over life as we dive back into the troubled waters of awareness-distracting activities.

Even service, sponsorship, work or religion - things normally considered to be constructive activities can be abused - serving as ego-stimulating substitutes for the less-acceptable indulgences.

That is because any regression of our spiritual health also spells the progression of spiritual illness. We go backwards. (For many of us, "backsliding" will include not meditating.)

Lack of moment -by-moment awareness sets us up for failure.

Once backsliding begins we reinstate our former tendency toward dishonesty and internal excuse making causing us to once again repress the little things – just like we always had done prior to awakening - stuffing them so deeply they remain far and away from our consciousness. It is automatic.

There they will sit to fester - infecting the psyche - twisting our minds, our behaviors and finally mangling our bodies with emotionally caused diseases until we are at last dead.

Not a single drop o' the cratur necessarily. Resentment and subsequent self-centeredness is just as deadly.

" It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action
and rest on our laurels. We are headed for trouble if we do"(Step10).

Therefore it is preferable to handle those seemingly inconsequential events in the moment, as they happen, in real-time – while they are still current. Since these things are the food for ego-self, our dark-nature seeks to draw them in. It craves it.

Repression only leads to a miserable lifetime of fighting against the self for domination. Strangely, we become addicted to the struggle. Fighting self becomes our new obsession.

We avoid backsliding through daily prayer and meditation. It is the only way, until the day we walk on water, if that day could ever come. We can extend awareness throughout each day remaining conscious of God's vision for us. Through awareness comes the vision and power to carry it out; or to put it into Scripture language, that is how Gods kingdom comes "on earth as it is in heaven".

Peace and Love,

Danny S – RLRA
Real Live Recovered Alcoholic
http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com

What Do We Have To Do?

2011-10-29T19:25:00.002-04:00

You have seen "the musts" list. Here is another list for you - right out of magnificent spiritual "How To" book, “Alcoholics Anonymous" While going through the Big Book compiling for this article it looked as though it might be termed "to-do" list.As the list came together it became clear it was not a to-do list at all.

It’s a list all right - except not all of its items are things that we have to do. Some are things that simply have to happen without our actually doing them. They come as gifts. This came as a relief since the Twelve Step design for living adheres to the spiritual precept that ‘of ourselves we can do nothing’; that it is God who does everything and the only act of will we humans can ever safely perform - as if it were our own will - is whatever will be necessary to bring us to Him.

For now let’s just call this a list of Had To's. Events that have to happen or else we cannot ever live happy, whole lives under the guiding grace of Gods vision for us.

We “Had to”:

Be free of anger.
Stop doubting the power of God.
Quit playing God.
Find a power by which we could live.
Fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing.
Believe in a Spirit of the Universe.
Abandon antagonism toward spirituality.
Allow the destruction of self-centeredness.
Fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics.
Have God's help
Stop fighting anybody or anything.
Place all outcomes in God's hands.

As with all great spiritual undertaking, it’s easy to agree with what need be. The tricky part arrives at just how to activate such wondrous depositions.

The priest says, "Repent. Stop sinning". The spiritual advisor says, "Forgive your mother!" The doctor says, "Stop drinking alcohol". The girlfriend says, "Stop hitting me”. The wife says, "Stop cheating on me”. The child says, "Stop getting angry at me". You tell yourself "Stop scarfing down those Dunkin' Donuts" The obsessed man knows he is doing wrong - knows he has to stop - finds he cannot and succumbs to the next mental blank spot, again and again. He is a slave to his own self.

There is an enormous distinction between knowing what we have to do and being able to do.

Many of us find we are unwittingly lodged in between the two; straddling what we know has to happen in order to live and what we are able to make happen through sheer will - which is nothing.

Yes, the serenity prayer is alive and well in both the third and fourth dimensions.

Even when we are told, "how” we still are stuck in the quandary of how to do the how. There is no shortage of spiritual pundits - on TV, on the internet, on bookstore shelves who present wondrous declarations that amount to clever do’s and don’ts of spirituality. the most attractive of those even revealing some of the whys – yet virtually none of them ever reveal how. They don’t know.

Astonishingly, that how to answer lays waiting for every alcoholic right inside the first one-hundred and sixty four pages of his own Big Book.

A man knows he must stop rewarding his brain with the addictive and deadly drug, nicotine. He knows how to eliminate the drugging from his life. Just stop smoking. And yet he continues to make excuses for it and continue to dose himself.

He knows how to do away with the drug: He already knows that he should simply stop inhaling that smoldering tobacco rolled into his cigars or cigarettes. He says “I can stop when I want to.” and that “One day I will” and yet remain unable to ‘want to’ stop - he's without enough verve to actually give up the habit. He may even believe such admission to be a spiritual revelation of sorts.

Can you picture a Jesus, or a Buddha or Gandhi, passing on their guidance with a big ol’ stogy poking over their lips?

Our man is still caught up in his obsession and smoking is not the choice his ego tells him it is. It a compulsory solution to his God separation problem. The need for chemical anesthetic like nicotine is a clear symptom of spiritual malady and he is still spiritually bereft. Only after his spiritual growth has been fully activated will his drugging cease.

He will not have to quit smoking – smoking will quite him, as his need for the relief for his conflicted conscience falls away.

(This is not to say that a smoker cannot have been spiritually awakened – only that the nicotine addicted are spiritually underdeveloped sometimes even entirely stagnated in their spiritual growth. Ongoing conscious contact has become blocked. Given time they may come around.)

The same is true for the mentally defective, still-drinking alcoholic. He wants to want to stop drinking but he doesn’t know how to break that tiny knot in the string of recovery - the sequence of enlightened actions that brings him the Power to wanting to want to.

Spiritually activated alkies don’t quite drinking -- drinking quits us – as the need for its anesthetic effect upon the well-hidden, secret pain of suppressed anger is removed.

Allow one final example: Everyone knows that he must stop playing God; that we will fail at it - life sucks - then we judge. But so few ever discover how. It isn’t biting your lip, restraining pen and to tongue, getting mesmerize by reciting page 417 of the Big Books over and over.

It isn’t even trying to live up to the Prayer of Saint Francis. Heck, AA co-founder Bill Wilson found himself in doo-doo up to his lily-white Dumbo ears, plunging into deep depression - going that route. He nearly killed himself trying that method.

The Book and the Steps do not fix anybody. They are merely the enabler. The Book delivers a set of actions that includes self-searching, the reduction of unearned self-esteem and the admission of faults that too much self-esteem causes.

We don’t merely “Believe in a Spirit of the Universe” just because we say we do. Spiritual pledges are not worth the paper they are printed on – becoming hypnotic mantras. Drugs, themselves.

No, instead we automatically come to believe in Him; without trying. We cannot willfully cast off anger (suppressing resentment, setting ourselves up for a lifetime of repeated fourth steps an amends making) Instead we become resilient to resentment as we find ourselves miraculously cut free from that hideous, anger-craving ‘thing’ – called Self. That happens only when we develop an objective state of grace through meditation.

Putting the cart before the horse, trying to install our own awakening; acting out the part through Big Book soldiering and being collectors of pithy spiritual platitudes only make us good actors with learned lines.

Once a person has come to grips with his past and straightened it out, he becomes enabled. He can receive the vision and the power of his Creator.

He can see that the ongoing, Twelve Step lifestyle as proposed in his Big Book - centers not on error and reconstruction but on living as a reconstructed being in conscious contact with God.

That means being in a state of awareness morning, afternoon and night. It does not center on me fixing “me”. It doesn’t center on “my” activities that keep “me” in a constant state of repair and disrepair, with “my” inventories, and consults, and meetings, and studying and always searching and struggling to get Mo' spiritual. . . Mo' spiritual . . . . Mo' spiritual. That is self-centered no matter how you slice it, and believe me many of the folks I work with have knife skill that would send Masaharu Morimoto to Seppuku.

If I were the devil I would have you believe that a truth, which answers all problems – even before you ask - is beyond your reach. I would teach you instead to worship intellect and that studying and searching for the unattainable path is superior to ever finding it. I would have you going from guru to guru, from philosophy to philosophy, - sponsor to sponsor, from one self-help scheme to another - always searching; never finding what you seek, glorifying in the hunt itself. As your problems continued to mount, you would be besieged with bedeviling hurdles, becoming more and more anxious and depressed and physically ill with each passing month and year. Yet I would give you credit for all your hard work, for all of your ‘inventories, and all of your reading and studying and learning - so you could taking pride in the ‘search’, eschewing the ‘find’. I would have you believe that if you ever thought you had found the path to God that it was a lie, and that only the misguided were capable of such arrogance. I'd have you despising and dening truth under a pious cloak of trying to discover it for yourself. Yes, I’d be that cunning.

For your humble narrator the search for the path has been a success. The Twelve Step process worked!

There is no more playing the spiritual nomad, always looking for an ever better way. The path leading to discovery lies before me and the journey toward perfection has begun. I know intuitively what it is I have to do and there is no giving in to doubt. The reparations have been made, forgiveness has come. Usefulness, purpose and calmness – that quietness of mind through emotional freedom - is real serenity It’s a reality available to all.

The fruits of life being lived well are emotional, mental, physical health and a family/personal life that is free from anger, self-centeredness, doubt, and judgment - worrying about outcomes, scheming, planning and fighting for control over the future.

The future is God’s. We either share in His vision of it in the present, or not. If we decide to depart from it - we die. We have that choice; the only real choice that any human has ever been given. If we choose Him it is because we have been freed from self’s anger.

Then we can patiently live out His will on earth, as it is in Heaven.

Peace and Love,

Danny S – RLRA

Real Live Recovered Alcoholic

“A Cold Ginger Ale and a Hot Blond . . . .please”

2011-10-18T15:44:00.001-04:00

Many people think that after six months of sobriety, Bill Wilson managed to escape succumbing to a first drink obsession by making phone calls in the lobby of the Mayflower Hotel.

Not exactly.

If that were true then Bill would have to had been suffering from an illness only a phone call could conquer. Given the ubiquitous nature of todays cell phone technology, we'd all be recovered by the grace of Samsung.

To make sense of what really happened, let’s look into the sequence of the event as well as the event. The progression of not only what happened but when it happened says it all.

Bill Wilson is pissed. He’s upset. The deal has fallen apart. The Investment banking team, of which he is a member, has returned home defeated; but by God he’s going to stick around till Monday and singlehandedly pull it back together again. He can smell the commission. He needs the dough. Shear will and his ambition for success overrides rational thinking.

But Monday is days away.

"Let's see, I can find a good lay to keep me busy . . . . . no drinks . . . . . . a bottle of ginger ale . . . . . one drink .... no three drinks! Yes, that's the ticket! "

It happened that fast. Not just one drink. Three of them.

But then just as fast - in an instant - in a twinkling of the eye, Bill Wilson finds himself not in swirlpool of negative depressing thought - but in the present moment. In a moment of clarity - a presence of mind that comes as a gift, Bill is able to take pause. It is there in that present moment of "Now" where he considers, “What about my responsibilities - my family and the men who would die because they would not know how to get well, ah - yes, those other alcoholics"

He intuitively reacts, "I will phone a clergyman"

THEN (Now notice the "order" of events)

1st) "His sanity returned"

2^nd)"He thanked God."

Finally) "Selecting a church at random from the directory, he stepped into a booth and lifted the receiver."

Can you see it? Bill didn’t have a problem that could be conquered by getting busy on the phone. He had a problem – an obsession needing fulfillment - that only God could remove. Of himself, he could do nothing. Once he reawakened and thought of others rather than his own self-centered predicament he was saved from his own bondage of self.

Bill Wilson has the distinction of being Recovered Alcoholic #1 in the AA fellowship. He also bears the distinction of running the first cold call telemarketing campaign of record in the United States and it was by going through his call list that one “connect” was to the Reverend Walter Tunk who led him to Dr. Bob.

When Bill W inaugurated his little cold call session to find and help another alcoholic, his 'healing' - his state of recoveredness, was already in place. He was a recovered alcoholic – no longer subject to the insane obsession to drink, prior to placing one finger in one hole of that rotary dial public phone. His decision to drink three ginger ales was nullified even BEFORE the power to carry the message to Dr. Bob was sanctified. Prior to that he was another white-knuckling drunk trying to figure out how to get ahead, make money, get laid and fuel the whole trip with three drinks (and "no more") in an Akron hotel bar.

The obsession to drink was not lifted because Bill distracted himself through working with others. The obsession was lifted so that he could work with others. There's a difference.

All he had to do was pull his head out of his own butt and turn his thoughts toward someone he could help, even if that someone was some nameless, suffering soul, presently passed out under the kitchen table - he had yet to meet.

Can you feel the amazing power behind this idea, behind the significance of this story in the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous"?

Once we recover, charity becomes entirely altruistic; a genuinely inspired gift that is a reflection of the power to help others in ways that require no planning, no premeditation or any act of ambitious will. This is true charity and it starts inside us. But first we heal.

'Work with others' as the motivating force in staying sober? That was not how the co-founders saw it at all. That's how Hollywood saw it in "My Name is Bill" but should we rely on Warner Bros. Studios for our AA history knowledge? If you have ever tried to stay sober simply by 'working with others" - without having had the desire to drink first removed - you fast found out why. And if that is how you stay sober now - you will eventually experience an awful reality.

To the co-founders of AA, helping other alcoholics was integral and vital but as an incentive it was a secondary consideration - not the primary motive.

“ These men had found something brand new in life. Though they knew they must help other alcoholics if they would remain sober, that motive became secondary. It was transcended by the happiness they found in giving themselves for others.” (159:2)

That is true altruism a selfless, benevolent spirit that displaces the old. And there isn’t anything ‘self’ ish about it.

Peace and Love,

Danny S – RLRA

Real Live Recovered Alcoholic

http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com

"Talking Cure" for Alcoholism?

2011-10-16T12:38:00.003-04:00

I am taking the weekend off. The following is a reprint of aletter from “Broad Highway”* from a coupleof years ago.~ DJS

Danny,

This was recently thrown at me as justification for newcomers talking about their problems in meetings:

“In addition to these casual get-togethers, it became customary to set apart one night a week for a meeting to be attended by anyone or everyone interested in a spiritual way of life. Aside from fellowship and sociability, the prime object was to provide a time and place where new people might bring their problems.” (BB, A Vision For You, pgs. 159-160)

I was wondering if you may know some history behind this statement or have an insight as to why they wrote this. Is this really evidence that we should use AA meetings to share our problems or is there something else going on here that I don’t understand?

Thanks,

Brad

___________________________________________________________

Hi Brad,

Some key phrase there Brad. "set apart"and "one week night" and "in addition to".

To say that "a time and place where new people might bring their problems.” is talking about dumping our problems in our AA meetings is doing more than stretching it quite a bit. Twisting it into knots might be more accurate. Shame on whoever did that!

People love to cherry pick bits and pieces of text and skim over entire presentations of ideas in order to manipulate and support their lack of experiences in favor of opinions don't they?

The co-authors of the magnificent Big Book do not suggest that people ought to be doing this in the AA meetings. They are in fact recognizing the need to keep that stuff out of the meetings. They wanted to set up a night once a week - "In addition to" , and "set apart" from the regular "get together".

If they wanted that "talking cure" stuff in their "get-togethers" do you think they would have proposed something else to "set apart" "in addition to" and "once a week"? Of course not. Recognizing their value however, there problem gatherings were established separately and apart from the standard meeting.

There is no way to read the paragraph in its entirety and come away with the idea that the co-authors proposed "problem sharing" as a function of AA meetings.

Actually there is little in the Big Book that tells us what to be doing inside meetings at all! That is because the AA Fellowship was not meeting oriented. It was Program oriented, focusing on the Twelve Step method of reconnecting to God. It was not centered on Fellowship

Even so, we know from history studies what it is they were doing in those meeting' and it sure as hell wasn't talking about their problems.

There is no psychology for alcoholism. There is no "talking cure for any obsessive behavior caused by spiritual disease - let alone one inexorably linked to a physical malady to boot.

We aren't going to be talking our way out of this one. There is no way to counsel into repair a broken human mind, body or spirit. Millions have willfully tried. No one has ever yet done it.

You can talk an alkie into feeling better by shooting him up with high doses of "self-esteem". The intoxicating effects of that expensive 'drug' wears off just as quickly as any food or chemical substance will. You could even 'slow drip' him with the stuff over a months time. But as "bed # 28" is made to feel better he is really getting worse; underlying causes and spiritual disconnectedness from God continue to mount. You are slowly killing the man sending him into his future misery. Failing to address spiritual illness, and denying him the pain he needs to cry out to his Creator, he remains as unable to cope with his world as ever.

He is now more subjected to all of his insane obsessions than we was before despite all attempts to 'retrain' him like a dog; to "fake it" till he "makes it" for a brief interlude. Until he financially re-qualifies for another one more stint in the First Church of Applied Rehabology.

It is good to talk. Talking is necessary especially when spirituality comes and inner painful inner truths about one's self come to light; and there is plenty of time and place for it. Sitting in a car at the beach is cool. Over coffee and burgers at the dinner is ideal. Many an alcoholic has received a Big Book style prospecting "approach" and been introduced to Step One in the parking lot of a church.

Later Bill W wrote this:

“Sobriety—freedom from alcohol—through the teaching and practice of the Twelve Steps, is the sole purpose of an A.A. group,” he wrote in the February 1958 issue of the A.A. Grapevine. “Groups have repeatedly tried other activities, and they have always failed."

Why not leave those "other activities" like group therapy, Behavior Therapies and counselling where it belongs - in the psychologists office. Even talking about the Big Book and becoming experts at inventories and procedures is worth only little while living it is everything.

Kooky, caffeine, nicotine and anti-depressant dependent folks in church basements, who think that is OK - as long as they haven't had a drink today; playing amateur psychiatrist and junior counselors and Big Book authoritarians are not what AA meetings were ever supposed to be about.

They were places for un-recovered, sufferers to connect with recovered ones in a ccentral place - where they could be shown how and where to find God.

Hope that works for you, Brad.

Peace and Love,

Danny S - RLRA
Real Live Recovered Alcoholic
http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com

* THE BROAD HIGHWAY - Questions & Answers About Alcoholism
http://thebroadhighway.blogspot.com/

Finally Licked

2011-10-14T13:56:00.001-04:00

These days many newcomers fresh out out "treatment" have become fully indoctrinated members of the Rehab "Avant-garde". They "Avant-garde" a clue about recovery or the Twelve Step fellowship.

When faced with the opportunity of working with a recovered alcoholic who has a solution (and a Big Book) many of them say "OK" without fully realizing just what they are getting themselves into.

No matter. If we know what we are doing we let our prospect know just what it is he infor. We bring him up to speed.

Many end up running for the hills or seeking out chickenshit sponsorship they find more conducive to their prejudices-- spiritual and otherwise.

The fellowship is full of middle-of-the-road players who are willing to toy with the full implications of spiritual awakening and growth and yet something lurks inside them that will not allow them to go all the way – to fully let go.

If we skip this part of theinstructions found in the book, the typical drunk is apt to agree to just about anything he thinkswill provide him with hope for some relief. (Often just to get back into the"Big Bed.")

By outlining thedrastic proposals ahead of him, should he accept, the chance forfailure greatly is greatly decreased.

If we look at Fred the Accountant, we see their finally camea moment when he was ready and when asked two fateful question, "Do you think you are alcoholic" followed by "Are you really licked this time".

Once he could answer "Yes" to both propositions they got Medieval on Fred's ass. He tells us “They piled on me heaps of evidence to the effect thatan alcoholic mentality, such as I had exhibited in Washington, was a hopelesscondition. They cited cases out of their own experience by the dozen.”

By the dozen! Piling on is not Kosher in major league football but it certainly was necessarily when "working with others" - at least as far the co-founders of AA were concerned. This is a time for those"drunkologues!" (In an eyeball-to-eyeball approach to a puking drunk- not in a meeting)

"Drunkologues" are stories ("What we werelike") that clearly illustrate the mental obsession and physical cavingcombination - the vicious cycle. This is a hard hitting, powerful approach.There' s no time for bullshit and it requires energy and commitment plus theability to recall a preponderance of evidence out of our own historiesillustrating that we are real alcoholics. More importantly it requires that wehave had a spiritual awaking as the result of these steps and recovered fromchronic alcoholism. Otherwise what do wehave to pass on?

We aren't here to show what wonderful AA raconteurs we are.We are agents of God - saving lives, passing a spiritual message that solve allour problems if lived.

"Still Recovering" sounds noble and appealing insome circles - but false humility won't cut it here.

Too many of us truealcoholics have developed a keen bullshit detector and will never followthrough with the drastic actions working with anyone who has failed to make avisceral connection - that he has truly walked on our shoes.

Once Fred admitted defeat, what did they do? The summarized, the spiritual answer and program of actionwhich a hundred of them had followed successfully. They outlined the WHOLEPROGRAM right before his eyes and ears – then and there. Not the first three steps. Not how manymeetings they should attend. All 12 steps. Right at the outset. There is notimid, scraping overture to get someone to start going to meetings and settingup cupcakes with the hope of later bait/switching him into a spirituallifestyle. That may work for suggestible, hurting, hard drinkers but itexperience shows again and again that this approach never works for the realalcoholic.

These co-founders, approaching Fred and other, were straightforward about God and the extreme measures involved right at start of theirmeeting a prospect. This is not aproposal of chicken-shit, paling around with suspected membership candidates.It is about building credibility by through the power of identification -explaining common symptoms of chronic alcoholism - not talking about ourfavorite sports teams

Where is this “outline” of the “spiritual answer” and“program of action”?

If you cannot do it from memory then it is outlined on pages 59 and 60 of the Big Book.

Pull it outand read it to him. Start to finish. Explain to him what is involved. Thatis an outline!

Sponsoring unqualified, unwilling prospects is a waste oftime when our energies might be better spent with a real alcoholic who iswilling to pay the high price. Freedom is costly.

It is only fair that a man ought to be able to answer “Yes Iam willing to go to any length” knowing what “any length” means. He might thinkit means meeting once ask for a 12 X 12 reading or a friendly Q and A chatabout a few Big Book chapters over coffee. He is dead WRONG!

Peace and Love,

Danny S – RLRA

Real Live Recovered Alcoholic

As Sick As Our Secrets

2011-09-30T20:52:00.002-04:00

Grudge - 1. secret malice or will based on past offense or grievance.

The Winston SimplifiedDictionary – 1938

Grudges kill alcoholics. From a single grudge, repressed and tucked away, even in childhood, comes all of our spiritual illness. First comes the resentment --- then it makes us sick; first spiritually then mentally and physically, until we are dead.

"the wrong-doing of others, fancied or real, had power to actually kill." (66:3)

All sickness, all disease, all ailments and troubles throughout all of mankind - come from this one thing and it doesn't matter if it is real of the invention of a paranoid. It could even be a mistaken thought.

When we respond judgmentally to cruelty, injustice and unfairness in the world we die a little bit more; we move closer to our deaths, getting sicker and more miserable and unforgiving - all the way to the grave.

". . . they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false."

If we would never resent then we would always be well, spiritually, physically, mentally.

Out of resentment comes all form of spiritual disease and sickness. Not some. All.

Yet in spite of this clear understanding we still hear crap like "Take your time before starting the Steps", "Don't do a Fourth Step too early" and "It isn't race".

Oh yes it is a race! It's a race too many of us loose. Why would anyone suggest delaying a spiritual awakening? I mean a spiritual awakening is the only thing keeping a real alcoholic free from his next obsessive jaunt, isn't it? So, put off healing? Until when?

Here's the chronology we are up against:

Resent (including grudges)
Judge (Play God)
SPIRITUAL SICKNESS (God separation)
Guilt (Relentless Pain)
Obsession (Relief through repetitive Food/Sex/Drug abuse)
DIE

Resent . . . . then die. It is simple to understand once we realize the truth. So is the solution.

The Twelve Step solution to this problem is fast. It is also effective. It allows us to awaken and that awakening sets us on that simple, narrow path where we can experience permanent answers to all our problems, even alcoholism all without effort. Seeing resentment for what it is - a killer emotion - always comes out of true spiritual awakening. This is a profound understanding that signals us and tells us we've had one.

Peace and Love,

Danny S – RLRA
Real Live Recovered Alcoholic
http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com

Self Delusion Is a Tricky Little Bastard

2011-09-29T14:04:00.002-04:00

We have to be free of poisonous anger or else we cannot live and yet "Bondage of self" guarantees a continuing slavish existence. Freedom from self-will is the answer. But how?

Self doesnot like its handiwork to be exposed. It wants to exist under the radar of consciousness while supplying us with “self”delusion.

Being an alien identity, a parasite – the “not me” masquerading as “me”(even mimicking am imposter voice of Reason inside) - is a lying, deceiver living off the morass of hate it helps to evolve. Once we return to our true state of ‘being’ through detaching from that false‘self’ we can then stand back and watch it – we are able to see this lying‘thing’ for what it is. It can be a frightening vision.

Until we own up to this horrible reality we will always remain attached and unaware of the manipulation that the world,its people and circumstance around us exert upon us.

Through the stress of theworld, dark forces seeks to control us and when we respond we become immediate and inexorablylinked to evil through our stressors” an unforgiving spirit in us can only dothe same back to them – through our own wrong responses.

It never fails.

We cannever respond in any way other than wrongly, with impatience, and hostilityuntil this slavish existence – this “bondage of self” is how the co-authorsreferred to this phenomenon – is severed.

Those recovered men and woman werereally onto something in their day.

Had more of them stuck with what wasrevealed they might had come to better ends than they did – even so what a giftto receive this snapshot of their transformed lives upon their initialawakening as the result of these steps. My experience also includes being freedfrom self-delusion (“bondage of self” – same thing).

It is verypossible to stand back of this nightmare; to be from free of self-delusion.

It ispossible because there is a way to separate from that lying, alien identity('self', 'ego' call it what you will). When we practice it, it is the meditationexercise above - we become immediately free from the self – even lying delusionself tells us when it says there can be no freedom from lying delusions. That’sthat too is a lie. (This is where the “cunning” in alcoholism comes from; as itcombines with “baffling and powerful”.)

Tricky little bastard that “thing’ called ‘ego’ is.

When selfisn't fed it shrinks and it grows weak within us. The Sunlight of the Spiritshines on it and it dries it up like scat in a field. Letting that Sunlight into illuminate and reveal its deceptions is all we ever need and 'bondage toself' is a thing of the past.

It is truethat if we were to live, we have to be free of anger. But freedom is not something that we can willfully install ourselves. It must be 'gifted; by a loving God.

There is no such thing as anger management.

Management of anger is an insidious lie.

It isanother one of the many fee based solutions that so many us fall for; really a non-solution; atrick’ that panders to a ubiquitous human problem for which no man can provideany true solution. Only God can.

There is a solution. It just isn't going to be bought, studied or 'counseled'. The real solution to anger (and all of the flavors of ‘resentment’) evades all attempt to humanly fix. When we are thrown clear during a fearless and though Step Fourinventory – then we remain free through ardently practicing Step Eleven meditation.

The simple, ancient practice of separating from the ego 'thing' inside brings us to a place where we are unceasingly aware of all you have justread in this article. That place is arrived at within the realm of inner God consciousness – not ‘self’ consciousness thatmany of us foolishly seek when we still secretly consider ourselves to be Him by playing Him.

Peace and Love,

Danny S –RLRA

Real LiveRecovered Alcoholic

http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com