Made A Decision

                   Fearless and Thorough

How It Works is read at our meetings and inside that lengthy reading we hear: We beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas, and the result was nil - until we let go absolutely.

Well, that’s another one of those puzzling messages. I certainly had only a vague idea of what it meant for quite a long time, but it has finally become more clear. 

It means we must get our hands off our problems - and all our old methods of working them out - and hand them over to that greater power, the one that actually knows what to do about them. 

It takes some of us (me for one) a damned long time to learn to do that.

My first sponsor once gave me a mug with these words on it: 

“Everything I’ve surrendered has my claw marks all over it.” 

(My first sponsor knew me very, very well.)

We alcoholics are a stubborn lot. Even in the face of repeated failure we will continue to launch our tried and untrue attacks at situations that never once has yielded to those same old solutions.

The clearest example is for us to remember the way we held onto the idea that WE would ultimately get our drinking under control. 

WE didn’t need help with that. 

WE would eventually be able to do it. 

 Until after years, even decades, of suffering we, desperate for help,  finally - finally -  found WE ourselves unable to do it alone. 

Enter A.A. - where despite oldtimers begging us to be fearless and thorough from day one in our recovery, WE so often continue to keep a stranglehold on the idea that WE will find the solution to whatever is troubling us.

 

Oh sure, I was willing to hand over my problem with alcohol, But only when it became obvious that my Higher Power could actually handle that problem for others so might even be willing to do it for me.

But I wasn't any too sure my HP could or would handle all my other fears and worries. 

So I held onto them tightly, convinced I could work them out on my own despite working one step after another all designed to pry my hands off of them. 

We continue to repeat what we don’t - or won’t - repair. 

“There are two things alcoholics really, really don’t like - 

 (1) the way things are and

 (2) change.” 

Changing ourselves takes effort. 

Being a victim is easy - at first - but it doesn’t wear well. 

So if we want God to remove our character defects we have to stop doing them. We must as some point give up our resistance to growth. 

(Hint: Sooner rather than later works best.)

We are called to change, because only when we surrender our pride and ego can we win. It becomes a bit easier to do that when we begin to realize everything our Higher Power sends our way is for our soul’s benefit. 

We grow when we let go. 

When we let go of our habitual thoughts and behaviors we will finally get onto the path to  becoming who we are meant to be. 

That earlier self-help guru, Norman Vincent Peale, once wrote:  If you want things to be different, perhaps the answer is to become different yourself.

 

And a quote from an old Grapevine magazine reads: We neither ran nor fought. But accept it we did. And then we began to be free.

I would love to tell you I figured this all out in the blink of an eye just by applying my keen intellect, but if I’ve learned nothing else in A.A., I’ve learned to be honest. I don’t actually suffer from a keen intellect, rather a quite sluggish one. So it took more than one painful and even frightening life “lesson” to get my attention that change was even necessary. 

One was to let go of something I didn’t want to lose. Like most alcoholics I wanted what I wanted, and what I wanted was not what my Higher Power wanted for me. Yet I hung on and on until I actually reached the brink of suicide, that permanent solution to what truly should have been merely a temporary problem. 

It took an A.A. miracle to help me to surrender in that instance and I’ll always be grateful it arrived. But any of us stubborn alcoholics are capable of that kind of behavior when we want something, or someone, that our Higher Power knows will ultimately destroy us. 

I had been a member of A.A. for a good while before I ran headlong into the realization I wasn’t the star of my little life show; my Higher Power is the star. It was my Higher Power who got, and keeps, me sober. It is my Higher Power who sends me the lessons I need to become a happier and saner me.

It is my Higher Power who gave us all the astonishingly wonderful program of Alcoholics Anonymous, our safe place to learn how to actually become joyous, happy and free. Read our literature. Go to Book and Step Study meetings. Learn how to practice our program just the way it was written, and to  keep on doing it exactly that way. 

As a qualified graduate of the school of hard knocks and stubborn thinking, I am now overly-qualified to beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start of your recovery. 

Because living the Program of A.A. is truly the easier softer way.

 

Made A Decision

     Another Year to Beware the Janfeb Blues

The lights, tinsel, baubles and other holiday decorations of our recent holiday season are packed away. Admired gifts are now in use. Thank you letters sent. A few feast day leftovers are tucked away in the freezer as reminders, but good, bad, or indifferent the holidays are behind us. 

For many that's a huge relief. We recovering drunks often view the holiday season as just one big month-long crazed High - with much of it being a bad trip!  

Holidays are filled with excitement, worry, family feuds, parties to carefully steer through, lots of meetings to keep our heads screwed on, gifts to buy, money concerns, dinners to plan, and waaaaaay too much to do in our already too busy lives.

But it's important for all of us to remember - just as leftovers follow the feast day turkey, goose or ham - any time a recovering alcoholic hits a high zone there will be a low zone following along right behind it.

And this year, with escalating political tensions and bigger climate worries added to the mix, the Janfeb Blues may find us feeling even lower than usual. Depression stands ready to settle in for a long miserable visit.

So what's to be done? 

"The key to survival" (as I read just today) "is not in maintaining a stiff upper lip, as we have been told, but to express our vulnerability. We're not complaining or whining when we do so. We're just bonding ourselves to the rest of the human race."

AA meetings are a great place for a bit of whining and a lot of bonding. So stuff these remaining winter months chock full of them as a way of being good to yourself. (I did my share of whining at one just last week. It helped me tremendously). 

We're not alone in these blue feelings at this time of year, but unlike so many people, we in AA have a solution. The good news is right there on page 42 in our Big Book where it says: Quite as important was the discovery that spiritual principles would solve all my problems. So if you haven't yet acquired the habit of daily prayer and meditation, perhaps now might be a good time to start.

It might also be a good idea to set aside that stick you use to beat yourself up with. The ability to realize our past mistakes happens as recovery opens us up to our feelings. But to dwell on them stops us from moving forward. Past mistakes kept current in our heads can crush us.

 I recently read we need to put those mistakes under our feet and use them as a platform to view our new and better horizon. Great suggestion! 

Learning to love ourselves enough to stay sober is the true beginning of our ongoing AA adventure. 

Happily it's still early enough in the new year for making resolutions. Making a renewed commitment to our recovery is one that can never go amiss. 

Without continued recovery from our addiction(s) we stand to lose everything we value - family, jobs, self-respect - so making a plan to do more in, and for, AA - is a sensible resolution to make. 

Our literature tells us over and over again that service to others is the key for getting ourselves out of the doldrums ... in January, February, or any other month. 

If service sounds more like work than fun, try adopting a mind change from - "this is what I have to do," and instead go for - "this is what I Get to do." 

Our entire lives are better because of the gifts AA has given us - and continues to give us - but those gifts actually come with an obligation to extend the hand of AA to others in need. We can take it upon ourselves to carry our fair share of the load, not grudgingly, but joyfully.  

Our lives get better and better when we contribute to the welfare of others and, in so doing, strive to become better people ourselves. 

(Continuing to work the Tenth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Steps is a big assist here.)  

                                      Don't ever give up - give back. 

(Your heart and your brain will be better for it.)

As for additional New Year's Resolutions, instead of the annual "lose ten pounds" or "run five miles every day," how about resolving to give:

Forgiveness to an enemy; tolerance for an opponent; our whole heart to a trusted friend; good service to a customer; kindness to all; a good example for children; love and respect for ourselves.

    This year we really can smile more, laugh more, care more, read more, and do more. 

I started by turning off the barrage of bad news provided by the 24-hour news cycle and am resisting the urge to fight back on any of the social media platforms. I'd rather whistle a happy tune and head to a meeting. 

Once there, as I listen to everyone share their experience, strength and hope, I am certain to hear just what I need to lift and keep me safely out of the Janfeb blues.

 

Made A Decision

Wishing You All A Happy Sober New Year!!!

I asked my Higher Power throughout 2022 for ways in which I could have a lighter footprint on our planet. 

So in May of that year my HP brought me to rural Portugal and on New Year’s Day the following year I was in the middle of moving from my rented flat, with all its modern conveniences, into our purchased home (Rocksalot) that had virtually none.  

Change, change, change ... 

On that day - and for many, many days thereafter - I reminded myself  constantly that Change is always the invitation to a richer life!

Rocksalot had not had an upgrade since roughly World War II, and it was built long before The Great War (WWI) was even underway. It is an old, old pile of rocks with lots of potential hidden inside its bones. Our extensive renovation began the day of our moving in.

Because my teenage grandchildren also live there, along with their Mom, two mod-cons went in immediately. The first was electricity and the other was the Internet. 

Both are very important to me, too, as all my A.A. meetings today take place on Zoom.

Are any of you old enough to remember "the nettie?" How about "the out house?" Rocksalot did not have indoor plumbing or running water, and the heat was from an open fire in the kitchen, which we also used for cooking. 

One by one, one day at a time, those things deemed most important were added (the running water project being near the top of that list).  It was an exciting new year for us and by summer I expected to be living in my own comfortable "granny flat" in the downstairs portion of the house. 

As it happened I ended up moving into the shed across the courtyard - now my perfect little “Dollhouse” (Granny Flat) which a neighbor has described as "charming and magical." But more about that another time.

Now. What about you?

 What have you and your own Higher Power got cooking up together for the New Year ahead? Over the holiday season have you reflected on all the changes that have taken place in your sober life this year? Are you looking for expanding those in the New Year?

Most New Year's Resolutions just "go in one year and out the other." But when we reflect upon what A.A. has given us, and think on how we can open up new vistas in the year ahead through our program of recovery, that's when we start to design the kind of life we want for ourselves. And we get to do it all with HP's help.

In this new year  we may decide to go back to school; pursue a new career; commit to a relationship; adopt a pet; learn to garden or add to the one we have; write a book; take an art class; tackle learning a new language; take up hiking; become a hill climber; learn to sail a boat; get and furnish a dollhouse; become politically active; go camping; read more; learn to cook, bake or expand on what we already know of the culinary arts.

We might adopt a different lifestyle; deepen our spirituality through daily meditation; start a program of Tai Chi, or aerobics, or QIgong and Louhan Patting; devote more time to self-care; spend more time with our children, our grandchildren, or any other child we're fortunate enough to have in our lives ... the list of choices is, truly, unlimited. 

When we drank we may have thought about doing many of these things, but we seldom put thought into action. Early in our addiction it was just easier to escape from our life than to try and improve it. At the end time of our drinking it was impossible to even try. 

In recovery the sky's the limit. Our Higher Power will make sure we have everything we need so we can focus on pursuits we find interesting. That's known in A.A. as being joyous, happy and free.

In addition to my house project I also plan to finish writing the book I'm well into at the moment and then get cracking on a second one. I'll have a brand new garden space to get stuck into, too. Then there are the 101 art projects I plan to splash paint and glitter around in. 

And, as always, I'll give my service to A.A. the priority in my life it deserves, for without my sobriety none of the things I hope to bring to fruition this year ahead will happen.

Our A.A. literature tells us we MUST give it away to keep it. We must share our experience, strength and hope with others to keep our own sobriety. I’ve been around long enough to have seen many who didn’t fall by the wayside.

 A.A. is an organization of volunteers who keep it alive to fulfil its primary purpose of helping suffering alcoholics find what has been so generously given us. Add more service to the fellowship to your own list this year - your life will be far richer for it.

In this nice fresh new year we can genuinely try to live one day at a time, making every effort in that one day to focus on becoming the person we know our Higher Power wants us to be. We follow up on that goal by taking actions that will allow us to blossom. 

And I'll close with the following lovely message sent to me from my dear A.A. friend Jeremy in Ireland: 

Good morning to all in our A.A. family:

 We have booked our flight and are prepared to take off into the New Year. Please make sure your Positive Attitude & Gratitude are secure & locked in the upright position. 

All self-destructive devices; pity, anger, selfishness & resentment should be turned off at this time. All negativity, hurt & discouragement should be put away. 

Should  you lose your Positive Attitude under pressure during this flight, reach up & pull down a prayer. 

Prayers will automatically be activated by faith. Once your faith is activated, you can assist other passengers who are of little faith. 

There will Be No Baggage allowed on this flight.  God, our Captain, has cleared us for takeoff.... Destination -- GREATNESS!! 

Wishing you & your families a New Year filled with new Hope, new Joy, & new BEGINNINGS!!  

  Stay blessed.

 

Made A Decision

   It's Christmas Day. Thank God I haven't missed it.

When you take the alcohol out of a fruitcake, you still have a fruitcake. Lt. John M.

In homes across the world this week people are gathered around brightly lit bejeweled trees to give and receive gifts and to feast on holiday delights, all to celebrate the birth of the God of Love into the world. 

In other homes the Menorah candles are lit (also in surrounding days) for the Festival of Lights -  Hanukkah - offering celebrants hope, along with enjoying many traditional games, gifts and wonderful foods.

Pagans light bonfires this week to celebrate the turn of the year toward longer sunlit days, a return to the light.

December is a month of numerous religious and cultural ceremonies for many faiths and people. Many Christians celebrate other days this month honoring various saints; Buddhists meditate for enlightenment on Rohatsu (Bodhi Day); Zoroastrians honor the death of the Prophet Zarathustra; people of African ancestry celebrate their heritage and identity during Kwanzaa - and these are only a few.

           It's good to remember today that all over the world people are celebrating the return of light to the world, for the theme of the majority of these winter celebrations is birth, rebirth, light in the darkness, cultural and religious identity, enlightenment and love.

   Always love.

AA's theme today - and every day - is also one of  love, and in the new birth of our better selves to be found in our rediscovered compassion and service to others. 

There are meetings around the world today, in person and on zoom, and in them - - as in every month - there will be joy, celebration, laughter - and love. There will also be enlightenment, words of wisdom, and hope shared to keep the darkness at bay.

We will be remembering our darkest days, too - those December celebrations once filled with drunken behavior, guilt, anger, frustration, cynicism, self-loathing and regret. AA set us free by giving us a blueprint for sober living that allows us to feel and share the actual joys of this season.

AA gave us fellow travelers on our spiritual journey to encourage us, laugh with us, cry with us, and share their strength with us when we most need it.

How blessed are we???

I know of people in recovery on this holiday enjoying the company of once bitterly-estranged family members. And I know of one young man sitting right now at the side of his mother's Hospice bed, able to be there and be present for her today. 

Gifts come in many different kinds of packages.

Look around? Are we sober today? Blessed with a roof over our head? Food on the table? Family and friends nearby? If so, we are blessed indeed. Many in our world have none of these things. 

Are we able to reach out today to share our story of recovery? Will we help another suffering alcoholic find the life we have found in AA? If so, our blessings are without number.

 Love is a power, a gift from our Higher Power. But there are many in the world not feeling much love today. We who do are called to share that love with our troubled world. 

We in A.A. are blessed to be witness the power of Love at work in saving the lives - and more importantly, the souls - of others. We get to see dull eyes brighten, sad faces smile again, and new hope lift and straighten shoulders as people are restored to lives of fulfillment and true purpose.

We welcome our newcomers with that kind of power and then get to watch their miracles unfold - moment by moment, day by day, year by year, right before our very eyes.

Some of us may be struggling today under the stress that also accompanies this month. If so, please have a look at other holiday blogs here for some tips on getting through the holidays sober. Most of us will. All of us can. The prayer is that all of us do.

I wish you every possible joy of this season of joy. And I encourage you to dig even deeper in the New Year to find much more of what the program of Alcoholics Anonymous has to offer. And also to feel the love surrounding all of us right now today.

Then pass it on.

 

Note: This is the second blog posted about getting through the holiday season sober. I will be posting the next two over the next couple of week as we are right now in the slipperiest time of the year for those of us in recovery from alcoholism. There is repetition in all these blogs, but that's OK. We can't hear this stuff too often right now to be safe and stay sober.

Made A Decision

                                        Tiz the Season

     Happy Upcoming

Navihanukwanzasolstikkah .

                            also known as the season for 

Meetings-about-staying-sober-while-surviving-the-holiday(s). 

In the run up to the holidays these meetings are held because ghostly and ghastly memories of holidays past start to dance through our heads along with fears about the holidays just ahead. 

These fears are especially strong in those who haven't yet faced a sober holiday season. But, as in most things, the holidays are just another paper tiger once we face up to them by having a plan in place to get through them. 

Making our sober plan is more important than getting cards in the mail, buying candles, or wrapping presents.

 The first part of that plan is to step up our attendance at meetings throughout the holidays. We're fortunate today in having 24/7 meetings available to us on Zoom around the world. 

I should note there are also a small number of A.A. members who will go into the holiday season with perhaps a bit more confidence than is warranted. Confidence is a good thing, but it's always a good idea to be on guard against the cunning, baffling and powerful nature of our disease.

As it points out in the book, "Living Sober, regarding the "biochemical, unchangeable nature of our ailment:"

"Alcoholism respects no ifs. It does not go away, not for a week, for a day, or even for an hour, leaving us nonalcoholic and able to drink again on some special occasion or for some extraordinary reason - not even if it is a once-in-a-lifetime celebration, or if a big sorrow hits us, or if it rains in Spain or the stars fall on Alabama. Alcoholism is for us unconditional, with no dispensations available at any price."

Over the holidays we'll probably be invited to parties where people will be drinking; or we'll have to get through another session with family members who drink (often the way we did); or we'll be tempted seemingly beyond hope by all the Christmas "cheer" ads on television that can spiral us downward into depression.

(More on this fake cheer stuff further along.)

Even holiday chocolates filled with genuine booze can be a booby trap when we don't pay attention! When in doubt about the candy - or the big bowl of holiday punch - ask!!!

First and foremost, get in touch with your own personal brand of Higher Power before you head out to a holiday event. It's the way to renew your courage and to know with that kind of backing you will be victorious over any situation you may encounter.

If we're single and invited to a plus-one party, we can take along a friend in recovery. Decide with them on a signal and excuse for leaving beforehand should one of you start to get uncomfortable. Long time couples can use this same plan.

Family gatherings can be more tricky. While one or two people there may be supportive of your sobriety, others - especially those who drink like we did - may feel threatened by our sobriety. They're the ones who mock our "inability" to drink while forcibly pushing "just one" at us. 

The key here is to let people know on arrival that you have another holiday party to go to after this one. (No one needs to know your other gathering is an AA meeting). Then get the basic must-do part of the visit out of the way (exchanging gifts, eating dinners, lighting candles, whatever) before heading out as soon as possible to your "next holiday party."

Everyone knows there are many parties around the holidays, some of them on the same afternoons or evenings, so the "next holiday party" ploy outlined above works equally well for quickly escaping the often dreaded office party.

As for all those seasonal "Hallmark Moments" on the telly mentioned earlier  - the ones where perfect families gather around perfect tables filled with perfectly cooked comfort foods ... or joyfully exclaim over perfectly-wrapped, perfect gifts from comfy couches in perfectly decorated living rooms ... they don't exist. 

Tell yourself that. 

             No one - NO ONE - has families like that. 

Most of us have families where in close quarter situations there's at least one snarky member verbally trashing other relatives while others argue about politics (with and without fist fights), get drunk, apologise for the undercooked vegetables, or otherwise devote their time to making everyone else feel uncomfortable.

Some of us have families supportive of our need to stay away from booze and other mind-altering chemicals, but many of us do not. Usually our non-alcoholic blood kin can't even stand up in our shoes, much less take a walk in them. They continually say things like, "I really don't get it. Surely you can have just one?" 

Others at the family party, the ones worried about their own drinking, are made very uncomfortable by our sobriety because they don't want to look at their own intake. We are seen as a danger to them. We're the family odd one they'd happily not have to spend time around.

Sometimes, even after we've done our Step Nine and it has been accepted, our family members (those not in recovery) can't let go of the person we were when drinking. We remain the butt of the family jokes because they hold tightly to resentments made at those long ago ruined family events.

We, after all, were the embarrassing ones who knocked over the tree, blew out the sacred candles, punched our father-in-law, fell asleep at the table, upchucked in the sink, made a pass at somebody's partner ... and so on. 

We've put those memories behind us (or don't even remember them), but others have not. They still watch us warily for more of the same. In their eyes we will always remain the family bad guys.

Under the burden of all that baggage, family gatherings - or just family, period -  often remain the hardest place to navigate in our sober lives. 

Or, as I once heard in a meeting, "If it's not one thing, it's another. If it's not another, it's your Mother." 

The good news is, we now have another family - our A.A. family - to validate, support, encourage and get us safely through the holiday season and all other life events. 

Our A.A. family members "get us." We don't have to explain our discomfort at being surrounded by people drinking, trays full of drinks on offer, and people gulping down drinks while eyeing us like we're the weird ones. 

All the meetings about holiday hazards help get us centered for the tinsel-strewn days ahead. There will be people in them who have lived through all the dangers of holidays past and still stayed sober. They assure us if they could do it, we can do it. And they're right!

 A.A. members in our holiday meetings are there to share their experience, strength and hope on how to safely get through "the most wonderful time of the year" ... 

               and to top up their own sober resolve in the process.

So go laugh and be merry. The holidays only roll around once a year after all -

Thank God!