What is Recovery today?

Along the sober path and at various stages of my sober life, this question has had varied meanings. Asked of me just last night I was able to answer very concisely. In our basic text it states that we have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. I believe that this hopeless state of mind and body is the mental obsession (the mind) and the physical compulsion (the body). It has been not only my experience but also my belief that we can recover from alcoholism, however we will always suffer from that much deeper issue the book refers to as the internal condition.


We are brought into the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous with a soul sickness, a deep and profound longing for God. However, we are unable to reach out to the spiritual nature of AA without first removing those things which stand in the way of our connection to our "power greater than ourselves", the first and most obvious of these things is Alcohol.

We remove this block by first building a life changing foundation which helps us to not take a drink a day at a time, through the process of the 12-steps we have a guaranteed spiritual experience that carries with it sufficient force to remove the obsession to drink. Coupled with that is a profound personality change that launches us into recovery.  Before long the drink problem has been removed and it is on now to those other things which stand in the way of our relationship with God, we through the 12-steps will identify these items in 4 and 5 and ask for them to be removed in the coming housecleaning steps.

It is this ongoing maintenance of our spiritual program along with the willingness to continue to grow along a spiritual path that keeps the internal condition at bay. Let's not forget that the sudden return of the internal condition as a result of a failure to grow often leads to a drink as we cannot live in that place without help.

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Posted in alcoholics anonymous, aloholics, God, life, mental obsession, soul, spiritual, spiritual malady

Night Fell!

The Night Fell...

 There is a thickness to the night which I haven't felt in years. Reminiscent of those early days of recovery in which there felt to be no safe place, I seem trapped by recent events. The horror of my loved one's recent suicide attempt, the realization of the gravity of the act and the circumstances leading to it, is staggering.

I often find myself awake late hours, distraction brings static which in turn brings a soft relief to what is the inevitable time alone with my thoughts.

I am 9 years sober, I have been to some great therapists in my day, I am spiritually fit and aware of what is happening to me. None of this takes away the chill that runs through my spine when the phone rings...because the phone rang, 3 times the phone rang that day, and it was always someone who wouldn't call me..."There's been an accident!"

No, there had been no accident, there had been a plan and the only accident was God's grace and mercy which saw that plan fail. However the damage was done, at least the lasting emotional trauma. The dreams are there, the haunting images and the sounds...all very real!

We are taught to love through action and forgive. I have been shown, by the fellowship I call home and the people who surround me. I have been taught a nearly involuntary reliance upon God in times of need. I seem to turn to him without thought or provocation, rather instinctual. It is there in the quiet of the night that I find solace in him, it is there as the demons seep in that I am meet with the warmth and light of the spirit.

I no longer suffer from a mental obsession, it was rather startling to me that I had passed into a new phase of recovery one in which the thought of drinking and the thought of not drinking were both nonexistent. Early in my sober life the thought of drinking was prominent, especially when things in my life became trying or troubling...However, as I stayed sober I became aware that these thoughts would come much later and then not at all...but there had always been a thought about drinking or not drinking, whichever the case, alcohol was at the front of my mind.

Humility is …

"Perpetual quietness of heart.

It is to have no trouble.

It is never to be fretted or vexed, irritable or sore; to wonder at nothing that is done to me, to feel nothing done against me.

It is to be at rest when nobody praises me, and when I am blamed or despised, it is to have a blessed home in myself where I can go in and shut the door and kneel to my Higher Power in secret and be at peace, as in a deep sea of calmness, when all around and about is seeming trouble."

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Posted in alcoholic, God, humility, love, mental obsession, sober, spiritual, suicide

Are you an Alcoholic?

"The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Our so-called will power becomes practically nonexistent. We are unable, at certain times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink."

page 24 The Anonymous Press Study Edition of Alcoholics Anonymous

For many of us the question of our alcoholism remained a deep mystery well into our first year of recovery. Trapped in the notion that someday things might be different, we continued to hope for a different diagnosis, all the while be bombarded with blunt truth about ourselves and our condition. At some point, for me it was near 7 months, we will find ourselves defenseless against the truth, we will either admit we are the real thing or we will leave, the battle cannot wage on forever.

Experience has taught me that the quickest way to the truth is by presenting the facts and matching them with your experience in active addiction. Alcoholism is a three part illness which consists of the following:

1. The Spiritual Malady
2. The Physical Allergy
3. The Mental Obsession

In this post I will summarize the coming 3 part series where I will shed light on these. Anyone of these can become detrimental to a normal person, but when combined together in the alcoholic these traits become deadly. It is important for an alcoholic to understand the true nature of the illness. Having a firm grasp on these concepts will not only aid in your own sober life, but will prove vital in helping the new comer to find their place amongst us.

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Posted in alcoholic, alcoholism, defenseless, mental obsession, physical allergy, spiritual malady, truth