Serenity ...

That I shall find a peace such that I have not known before...here it is likely as time moves forward I will not know this peace again either. That is the thing about time, it changes and with it the ebb and flow of our ever evolving emotional and spiritual perspective.

It is likely that I will be at peace again when I leave here, at least I hope so...seems to me that our goal here is to place ourselves in a position of maximum use to God and our fellows.

I believe today that I will be given the strength that I need to carry on, but not indefinitely. We have a natural rhythm of charging and discharging our batteries. Once one gets to know themselves intimately, we begin to here the call. Just as a car pulls into a filling station to continue on the journey, we too must top off our tanks.

I have long felt pulled and recently, within the last several years, understood that pull. I am soothed by water and recharged in the warm salt air. Things move a little differently here, there is ice cream available 5 days a week between 11am and 3pm, but only if the wind doesn't blow too hard. We only bring what we need and nothing more, everything must be carried over and thus has an intrinsic value not otherwise known on the mainland. We are learning to live without, and McDonald's....I don't miss you!

Truly blessed to be here and giving credit where it is due...

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Posted in fellowship, God, intimately, peace, serenity, spiritual

Part 1:The Spiritual Malady...

"Lack of power, that was our dilemma. We had to find a power by which we could live, and it had to be a Power greater than ourselves."
 page 45 The Anonymous Press Study Edition of Alcoholics Anonymous

Alcoholism is a Soul Sickness and it is only fitting that the crux of the problem is where we begin our discussion. Suffering from a spiritual malady, the active alcoholic is cut off from the very thing they need in order to sustain life, the energy and grace that comes from our creator. Pride, selfishness, and self-centeredness are the very things that block us from this sunlight of the spirit.

It can be well established that we drink because we are alcoholics, we suffer from an internal condition that makes it nearly impossible to live with-in our bodies without some form of distraction, such as alcohol. However, our founders stumbled upon something that until that point had been widely ignored or overlooked by both the religious and medical fields. They found that a spiritual solution which removed those things which blocked us from God would in point of  fact treat the internal condition and in doing so allow us to live comfortably with ourselves.

Where we had once been powerless, power flowed in, we had become channels of God's power, testaments to his mercy and grace and doers of his will. All of these things remain possible as long as we are able to remain in the sunlight of the spirit and not dwell beneath the shade of doubt, pride and self.

"Whether such a person can quit upon a nonspiritual basis depends upon the extent to which he has already lost the power to choose whether he will drink or not."
page 34 The Anonymous Press Study Edition of Alcoholics Anonymous

I was not prepared for a spiritual solution when I was brought to the fellowship, nor was I willing to immediately accept that the only hope there was for me was to admit defeat, surrender my life to God and start doing his work. However, I was told early on and have since come to understand that the program of Alcoholics Anonymous that we know is designed to do primarily one thing...take a suffering alcoholic who is walking away from God and pick him up, turn he/she 180 degrees so that they now walk towards him.

Lastly I wish to say this, while it is not my place to diagnose anyone with alcoholism, I know today unequivocally that if you do not need the spiritual solution we have to offer, in other words you can stop on your own...you are not an alcoholic. If you can change your lifestyle, get a new set of friends, buy a fancy car or get slapped with enough probation and one of these things makes you stop...you are NOT one of us...

"There was a tremendous urge to cease forever. Yet we found it impossible. This is the baffling feature of alcoholism as we know it - this utter inability to leave it alone, no matter how great the necessity or the wish."
page 34 The Anonymous Press Study Edition of Alcoholics Anonymous


There is it...If you have passed into the realm in which there was no return through human aid...you need God...

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Posted in acoholism, alcoholic, alcoholics anonymous, aloholics, fellowship, powerless, pride, self-centeredness, selfishness, soul, spiritual, spiritual malady

HALT

HALT

Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired....now what?

It might have been a treatment center, or a well meaning member of the fellowship who first developed this conditional method of self awareness. Whoever it was, I am certain it was well intentioned, and at the time it was very intuitive. I am, however one that believes that we must remove the conditions on sobriety, in other words, we have to close the doors. If we are to tell ourselves that "if" this or that happens we don't know if we will stay sober, this or that will inevitably happen and we will be in the fight of our lives...see we already said we would drink!

Don't get me wrong, I am not bashing the concept, it was well meaning and I believe the original intent has been long lost. Our emotional and spiritual well being are intrinsically associated with our physical health. We have to remain vigilant, that we do not lose track of taking care of ourselves. Many of us were accustomed to taking poor care of ourselves in active addiction. Basic care of our physical selves was often neglected and as such we suffered. We went days without showers, missed meals, shunned others and seldom slept. Whilst our physical health declined, as did our emotional state and our spiritual world collapsed in on us. 

In recovery we are asked to heal all three parts. We also know that none of these parts can recover with out the others being taken care of. Tied together, our spiritual welfare is often tied to our physical well being. It is however one of the last places we look when we are troubled. As a result, other areas of our well being often begin to falter or fail before we look to our most basic needs. The combination of these are often deadly to an alcoholic. My experience is that if I get too hungry, too angry, too lonely or too tired all at once...I get a cold. It is my bodies way of saying...Stop, you have pushed yourself too far and you have had enough. It has nothing to do with taking a drink and everything to do with taking care of me so I can be of maximum service to you!

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

 

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Posted in AA, acoholism, alcoholic, alcoholics anonymous, drink, emotions, fellowship, sober, spiritual

Qui tacet consentire videtur...Silent?

He who is silent is understood to consent...

For many of us in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, our very lives depend upon an soft heart, an open mind and the ability to listen to and discern the truth we have so desperately sought.

 There is an alarming trend that has surfaced in our fellowship in recent years...Sponsor/Sponsee relationships in which neither individual shares the honest truth with the other. Out of fear and anxiety over the possibility of having to then be confronted with the truth about themselves, the sponsor neglects to share vital truths with the sponsee. These "suicide" pacts, will become very cumbersome to our fellowship as they continue to cause stagnant spiritual growth among some members. 

This issue has bled over into the meeting rooms and fellowship halls where we allow new-comers and old-timers alike to share about bars and drinking occasions. We are seldom willing to address, publicly or even privately the mistakes another member is making in an effort to help that member. 

It seems we would much rather make them happy than help them to reach a place of spiritual healthiness. 

Our silence is understood as consent, those who cannot, at present moment, differentiate right from wrong are dependent on us to do that for them. We cannot site by idly and hope that someone else will say the "right thing"...sometimes all that needs said is "something"!

Please take a moment to visit our kind host and sponsor:  

The Token Shop

 

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Posted in alcoholics anonymous, fellowship, open mind, spiritual, sponsor, truth

Meeting makers don't make it...

The central fact in our fellowship today is a generalized yet profound reliance on our fellowship to preserve our sobriety. The idea that meeting makers make it is outlandish at best. In order to clarify this  point I must fist make it clear what it takes to make it.

If one wishes to define "making it" as long-term continuous sobriety, then certain things have to change and others must become present for this to happen. There must come first a lasting lifestyle change which is all encompassing. This can and usually begins with a plethora of AA meetings where a new person is exposed to the solution we have avaiable. That person then engages the solution, embraces the lasting lifestyle changes and sets forth on a new path, one which places God in the center of our universe. In a God centered life we learn to be of maximum service to others, as well as a reliance upon his divine guidance during the certain low points to come.

It is common place in our fellowship today to use the meetings as a source of guidance in dealing with our everyday problems, problems which in context are meant to strengthen our relationship and reliance upon God
Once this relationship has matured we no longer need to rely on meetings to support us through our days, in fact it becomes detrimental to lasting sobriety to do this.

It is a paradox that we must give away what we have in order to keep what we have. What we have is a simple, perpetual solution to alcoholism, and while we have problems and the such, it is our solution we wish to keep and our solution we must give to others. We are provided a forum by which to do this in meetings and other twelve step work, however I must reiterate that without a mature relationship with God we will not have the strength or grace we need to properly supply this solution.

Meeting makers don't make it, and dispensing this advice, is akin to telling someone to go into a room but not allowing them to turn on the light. After standing in darkness for long enough they will ultimately desire to leave.

Those who "make it", rely only meetings for the  prospect of finding new members with which to share the solution, thus securing their own lasting sobriety.

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Posted in AA, fellowship, meetings, solution