An AA Education...

Spiritual experience of the more educational variety gains a whole new perspective when long time slipper meets the rehab of their dreams and becomes an AA guru....

Or so the story goes...If you Google Treatment Facilities the the list is long and exhaustive, if you simply switch to an image search the game changes and you are pleasantly greeted with a whole host of aerial shots of Waste Water Treatment Plants.

What do these two things have in common with one another?

I say they have more in common than what you might think. Both bring in the dirty, the beaten and the unusable and through a process that is baffling to most spit out something that is of use to society.

That process is God, and it must not be confused with some sort of change brought about through an increase in educational status by way of group therapy or lots and lots of reading. I am a product of treatment, it was and will continue to be the most expensive trip to an AA meeting I ever take. They filled my head full of knowledge, they attempted to take me through some steps and teach me about triggers and reasons why I drank and how to avoid those thing in the future, but at the end of the day, despite all of the fancy names and top notch people and good food, they took us to an AA meeting, because they are no better at treating alcoholism than the local Denny's.

The reason we drank was alcoholism, we drank as the result of an internal condition, which looks to the professional community to be a lot like bi-polar...though it is not, and this internal condition can only be treated by means of a spiritual experience. The ground work can be laid at one of these facilities, they dry out a drunk, pump them full of vitamins and good food, get them rested and into better health and then they bring them to us...why? Because for as long as society can remember, there has been nowhere to send a drunk, until AA came along they looked us away to rot in institutions.

We must be careful in our meetings that we don't allow ourselves to be misled by the professional community and their attempts at healing alcoholism. They have been tasked with something we don't want to have to do. They are expected to produce results $XX.XX = sobriety and that is simply not the case, but if you through enough information at the problem, facts, figures, slogans, etc...then it will cloud the issue long enough for you to cash the check.

The cure for alcoholism, the only thing that has been found to work consistently for the last 70+ years has been the spiritual program of action that we call Alcoholics Anonymous. Let's bear in mind always that the book clearly states that we have found a solution on which we can all agree, that means that we needn't stumble in the dark for what might work any longer, we need only do what we have been told to do.

Take a minute to visit our sponsor at www.thetokenshop.com

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Posted in AA, acoholism, action, alcoholic, alcoholics anonymous, alcoholism, direction, God, path, Recovery, sobriety, spiritual

Honest with Themselves

"Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves." Alcoholics Anonymous Chapter Five

We deal alot with reservations around here, the idea of closing doors and leaving nothing open for alcohol to sneak back into our lives. It is paramount in recovery that we make certain that one is finished for good an for all. This post is going to, in a round about way, bring into focus the idea that there should be no reservations while pointing out the one true reservation that stands in the way of a person achieving recovery.

For arguments sake here is a Contextual Definition of a reservation: 

"There is no way I could stay sober through the loss of my husband."

This statement, though powerful and intense, has ultimately left the door open for alcohol to find it's way into the member's life in the tragic event of the loss of her husband. This is a reservation. 


With that said, the Bog Book of Alcoholics Anonymous is very clear about reservations...mentioned in chapter 3, they have used the word must in telling us that we absolutely need to be rid of reservations or any lurking notions.

" If we are planning to stop drinking, there must be no reservation of any kind, nor any lurking notion that someday we will be immune to alcohol." Alcoholics Anonymous Chapter Three

Now, practical application of this reservation removal is another issue all together. While being necessary to maintain permanent sobriety, it may take years and sometimes decades for all of the doors to be sealed shut and for alcohol to remain outside. We begin in early sobriety with things as simple as going to work, taking a paycheck, going to bed at night, all without the use and abuse of alcohol. As we progress further into our sober lives and our daily routine is free from booze, we move into the more difficult items, deaths and funerals, marriage and weddings, loss of jobs, health issues...we see other members trudge through great difficulty and we are given hope, slowly the things we though we could never stay sober through slip away and we drop the reservations. 

Now, as mentioned at the top of this post there is one reservation that is a go, no go in alcoholics anonymous. If one is unwilling or unable to be honest with themselves and to maintain that honesty throughout their sober life, then one cannot achieve permanent sobriety. Staying away from a drink a day at a time requires that we be honest with ourselves and thus the statement, "If I am not honest with myself I will drink", is paradoxical because it is both a reservation and an absolute. 

Close the doors...and the windows. 

 

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Posted in alcoholic, alcoholics anonymous, honest, program, Recovery, resercation, sobriety

I am responsible....

"When anyone, anywhere reaches out for help, I want the hand of AA to be there"

I seem to spend a great deal of time attacking the cliches that many in AA cling to as if they were the life lines from which they dangled above a sea of liquor.  This one, is quite the opposite. I hold steadfast to the idea that our common calling, our primary purpose and for some the only reason our lives were spared, is to bear witness and testament to the power of God and of Our Program of Recovery.

In order for us to be witnesses we must, we absolutely must, remain on the firing lines, we have to get in the trenches, we can't spend our days lounging in the meetings with the fancy coffee, the expensive chairs and valet parking, hoping that the newcomer will take a taxi to the suburbs to have the message delivered to them. 

The problem in our fellowship today stems from the fact that too many of us, and yes I said us, because I include myself in this group occasionally, are convinced that someone else must be going to do it, and if they are going to do it, then I don't have to bother with it. After all I come to meetings to make sure that I get "my" problems resolved so that I can stay sober today! Please note the very thick sarcasm here.

Folks, the Big Book is very clear on this subject. 

“Selfishness, self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles."

Alcoholics Anonymous pg 62

How then am I too be rid of this most horrible defect? The answer is right here, around us in this world are all manner of people in need, some are sick and dying, some hungry, some poor, and then there are those to whom we are particularly well equipped to help....the alcoholic. They, like us, will come desperate and dying and seeking the solution, and if we are to stay sober ourselves we must be willing, able, ready, and available to carry our message to them. We have to be where they are, when they show...that means the detox centers, the half-way houses, the recovery homes, the shelters and jails, that means the club with the smoke stains yesterday's coffee still cooking in the pot...we all have one...It means that when the phone rings, and it's late in the fourth quarter, we answer it and leave the room. It means that sometimes we are a taxi, and sometimes we are a warm meal, a bed, a shower and shave. It means that sometime, to someone other than ourselves we have to be home....

 For that I am Responsible...are you?

Please take a moment to visit our sponsor: The Token Shop 

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Posted in AA, meetings, message, Recovery, sober