(From Chapter One of the Book SLOW-briety, by O.Kay J.)

Made A Decision

We repeat what we don’t repair.

 

Why Me?

Newcomers to A.A. often say how baffled they became when they found themselves unable to stop drinking. This is especially true of those who managed on their own to stay sober for a week, month, or even years, and then picked up again.

"Why?” “Why?” “Why?” they cry.

But the answer isn't complicated. We drank because we are alcoholics. Every pleasure center in our brains lights up like the dashboard of a giant Boeing 747-400 when our brains get a hit of alcohol.

Non-alcoholics don't get that kind of a hit from our drug of choice. They might get a nice buzz, but we get skyrockets in flight!

We also drank because early in our drinking days we discovered we could self-medicate with booze to block out those pesky “feelings” leading to fear, anxiety, frustration, isolation, dependence, and over-sensitivity.

And we drank to allow free rein for our impulsiveness, defiance and grandiosity.

Drinking worked for us on many levels, so naturally, we drank.

Alcohol worked for most of us on all these levels for years and years.

And then, it didn't.

That's because ours is a progressive terminal illness that relentlessly over time goes from bad to worse. And our time runs out quicker than most.

Men hospitalized with alcoholism have an average life expectancy of 47 to 53 years, for women it's 50 to 58 years. In both cases this means alcoholics die 24 to 28 years earlier than non-alcoholics.

For anyone interested in the science behind this, there is a ton of it available in books and online. But our obsessive drinking mainly boils down to our alcoholic brains being wired differently. It’s that “mental illness” part of our physical, mental and spiritual illness as described in A.A. literature.

Early in my own recovery I read there are three stages of alcoholic progression. The first takes roughly 20 years, unless we boost the booze with other mind-altering chemicals. Then it can take far less. During those 20 years we look pretty much like most heavy drinkers, but toward the end of that time it all starts getting - and looking - a lot worse.

The second stage is shorter, usually no more than five or six years. That's when our livers start giving up the fight, when it can't process our intake any more. We no longer get hangovers, we suffer bouts of alcoholic poisoning, but I still called mine hangovers because I didn't have another word for what was going on with my body - other than terror.

The final stage is when our liver, or brain, or both (along with other important inner bits) can't take the abuse we've been giving it and finally pack it in.

When it's the brain that gives up, we can experience delirium tremens, imaginary situations as if they are real. These can often be horrific visions, but one of my best friends (and one-time drinking buddy) became terrified when she saw tiny Muppet-like demons running around her house.

Following the DTs there can be a total loss of our mental facilities and permanent residency in a little rubber room (wearing adult diapers), all down to a neurological condition commonly known in A.A. as "wet brain." (Known in the medical profession as Wernicke-Korsakoff (WKS) syndrome.)

Other joys in the final phase include (but are not limited to) agitation; anxiety; screaming headaches; shaking; nausea; vomiting; disorientation; seizures; insomnia; high blood pressure; tactile, auditory, and visual hallucinations (more delirium tremens); fever; excessive sweating; and finally, isolation and loneliness lived in a skeletal body beneath a poisoned liver’s swollen gut, followed by the relief of suicide or a very, very ugly alcoholic death.

Alcohol is absolutely an equal opportunity destroyer. I've witnessed final stage alcoholism when responding to calls for help made from sufferers in both the ghetto and gated communities.

The DRUG ethanol, found in all our alcoholic "beverages"- from beer to those pretty fruity rum drinks - is a killer. It's found in wine, from rot-gut cheap to the most expensive Domaine Leroy Musigny Grand Cru.

It's really a good idea for anyone in recovery to never forget that.

Hollywood has given us many scenes of drug addicts climbing the walls, screaming and pulling their hair out during withdrawal, but death from that kind of drug withdrawal isn't usual. Alcoholics, on the other hand, were often found dead during morning checks in those "drunk tanks" (jail cells) used to house drunks during A.A.'s formative years.

Our disease wants to kill us in the ways described, but it isn't fussy. When we're drunk, we feel invincible so our disease can take us out in a variety of ways.

It will use automobile accidents, falls from balconies, tumbles down stairs, domestic violence, drowning, suicide, or even just a staggering fall causing our spleens to bleed out. (One of my dearest A.A. friends drank again after ten sober years and died that way.)

 

But now - the good news:

 

While the elevator of our disease descends faster and faster toward the end, we don't have to reach the stage where the bottom drops out to hurtle us downward to our death. We can get off at any floor - and then go upward again via the staircase. Twelve steps up will get us to safety.

If we drank and drugged for years it will take time to build back a better life for ourselves, but we will find companionship, encouragement, love, and a blueprint for doing so at our very first A.A. meeting.

As my friend Lloyd E. said recently: 

I went to my first meeting as a hopeless drunk and I left there as a drunk with hope.

Recovery and hope are there for us if we want it. A.A. offers us our way out. It lets us give two fingers up to our disease.

Daily working the steps of recovery, prayers and meditation, talking with our sponsors, studying our literature, all take us to a better quality of life. It works best when we embrace everything A.A. has to offer.

Our meetings are our ongoing first-aid, our medicine. If you doubt it, start watching the faces of your friends in recovery when they arrive at a meeting wearing stressed or angry faces. Watch their expressions

change over the length of the meeting, first smiles, then laughter.

By meetings-end everyone leaves relaxed and filled with renewed hope.

Medicated!

Ours is a chronic, terminal illness. Many cancers are, too. Likewise, kidney disease, diabetes, and so many others. We don't have to have painful chemotherapy, or dialysis, or daily jabs of insulin. All we have to do is get our ass to a meeting to get us through another sober day.

It doesn't matter if you don't feel like it, if you don't want to go, if you don't like some other members of your group, if you're depressed, if meetings have become boring, if you can't be bothered ... stop giving yourself excuses and just go!

Sometimes my Higher Power needs to have skin on it,” is something I recently heard in a meeting. Mine does, too.

While I have many lovely moments of silent communion with the God of my understanding, I only actually hear God's direct messages to me when spoken by other A.A. members, usually during a meeting. 

When recovering alcoholics drift away from meetings they risk drinking again. That's a statistical fact. And for us, to drink means to court a fate worse than death - or death itself.

 

 

 

* If a British friend gestures two inward facing fingers at you, you’ve just been told to fuck off."

 

*****

 

Made A Decision

If I want to make the most of my life I need to start NOW.

New experiences create new realities.

 

 

                           SLOW-briety

 

Alcoholism is a play in three acts - social drinking, troubled drinking, and merry-go-round drinking.

 

I went into trouble drinking right out of the gate and only got off the out-of-control merry-go-round when I stumbled into A.A.

 

As drinkers we often land in hospitals or jails. We may lose our homes, families, jobs and self-respect. Despite all losses, we can keep on drinking until the final scene lands us in an insane asylum, prison, or the morgue.

 

There’s a happier ending though for those who find the way to live in total abstinence from all mind-altering chemicals, including our own deadly drug ethanol.

 

In sobriety we finally get a shot at living a life in which our children, partners, and friends love and respect us, our employers value us, and our neighbors are glad we live next door.

Most alcoholics on the abstinence train get on board in A.A., but I

recently heard only one in every 26 of us stay for the long haul. And most alcoholics never even get to A.A. at all.

What about you? Will you be that one in 26 who holds to their decision

 to never take that first drink, no matter what?

 

Will you come to realize the most important possession you have is your sobriety? So much so you'll do whatever it takes to keep it?

That's where "working the program" comes in.

That's when every single day we again make that decision to stay sober.

That's when we do the 12-steps of A.A. recovery, and then do them again whenever a second look is needed;

and when we carry the message to others;

when we have a sponsor; a home group;

and when we practice, practice, practice "living the program."

 

When we do these things changes not only start to happen - they continue happening, day after sober day, week after sober week, month after sober month, year after sober year and decade after sober decade.

 

 Toddlers don't learn to walk by giving up the first, second, or even hundredth time they fall onto their little diaper-padded baby butts. They pull themselves up and practice this walking thing again and again.

 

Top athletes, musicians, artists, dancers, actors, writers, comedians, etc., only get to be the best by practice, practice, practice.

Sobriety, too, gets easier with practice. So, we practice living life the

way we learn to live it in A.A. Then, just like a rosebud, we will slowly open up, petal by petal, to a new and better life. We become beautiful in recovery (and we smell good, too!)

 

When we drank and/or drugged for years, or even decades, we shouldn't expect to change overnight those behaviors that got us to our point of desperation. But we often DO expect it and become frustrated when it doesn't happen immediately. Many give up and drink over it.

 

But when a mega-ton ship going at top speed has to come to a stop, it takes almost two miles to manage it. Just like bringing that kind of tonnage to where it can safely change course, it takes us time and distance to be comfortable with our new direction for living.

 

There's all that crazed high-speed momentum to deal with for starters. Alcoholics are notorious for living life on fast forward. We are excitement junkies. And in sobriety, when adrenaline is one of the few drugs left to us, we'll often ramp up its use.

 

Doubt it? Do you regularly leave the house five minutes or more later than you should to get somewhere on time, even knowing how long it takes to get there?

Do you then drive impatiently through traffic, fume at stoplights, take chances when passing other cars, and finally arrive right on time after downing shot after shot of that pure adrenaline?

 Many of us do just that, until we learn that our home-grown adrenaline - just like all the other drugs when abused - is truly bad for us.

We alcoholics are notorious for having a lot of misplaced loyalty, too. It took me years to learn that the word “No” can be a complete sentence.

 

My A.A. sponsor taught me we sometimes must weed people out of our lives:

 “We are all pulling a wagon full of shit behind us in our lives,” she said. “So, every once in a while, maybe once or twice a year, we need to look back and see which people are helping push our wagon or just riding in it and weighing us down. Keep only those who push you forward in life.”

 

Recovery is not an overnight fix. It takes time to change behaviors that used to work for us, but no longer do.

It takes time to learn things like how to "become a human being and not just a human doing."

It takes time to let go of high drama and become comfortable with serenity.

 

When we drank, the abnormal became our normal.

It takes time to undue the practices of a lifetime that landed us a chair in A.A.

 

In recovery we do the 12-steps in order, one after another. They become the backbone for our new and sober way of living, but the A.A. lifestyle is a journey with no fixed destination.

 Members live it just one sober day at a time. There is no timetable to be met, no clock to punch, nobody gets a diploma.

Enjoy the journey and keep on doing-the-doing.

When we go to meetings, work the program to the best of our ability - and don’t drink - recovery will always prevail.

 

   SLOW-briety!

 

                                                                                  

                                                               *****

 

Made A Decision

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance. - Oscar Wilde, author.

 

                     Self-care Equals Self-love

 

When was the last time you did something nice just for you?  Do you even know how to do that? Or what that feels like?

 

If not, there's work to be done ... but this is the kind of recovery work that can feel very good in the process.

 

We do that work because it builds back our self-esteem. Also, because according to many scientific studies, people who don't like themselves find it difficult (if not impossible) to love others.

 

So, to want to help other suffering alcoholics - our JOB in recovery - we have to begin to find out how to love and care for ourselves.

 

None of us gets to A.A. on a winning streak. We pretty much always arrive battered, angry, frustrated and filled with self-loathing. It takes time to get rid of all that, but meanwhile the people who got to A.A. ahead of us will love us until we finally learn to love ourselves.

 

They will, you know. The same way HP does, as in that saying:

 God loves us, whether we like it or not.

 

 As drinkers we were prone to anger, hostility, rebellion and aggression and we often resort to those behaviors in early recovery. A newcomer's first real work is learning new behavior skills, to not be a tyrant or a victim, how to set sane boundaries, to discover through that process how special and deserving we are for having a marvelous life.

 

We can then stop abusing ourselves - and others - with unrealistic expectations that can minimize our having success. Being both batterer and batteree isn't good for anyone, but it's typical behavior for many newcomers.

 

Forgiving ourselves for being human is the first step on the path to improving self-esteem. Our Higher Power knows who we are, and knows what we are, no perfection expected. We are loved for just being human.

 

We are the only ones expecting perfection of ourselves.

 

Self-improvement and self-acceptance are far worthier goals. That process begins with learning to take care of ourselves, and others, in healthier ways.

 

Initially it means going to lots of meetings to stay sober and meet lots of our kind of people, our herd. These are the folks we'll be hanging out with, getting to know and to love, getting to have fun with, and - most of all - getting to care that they stay sober.

 

 We make time for them. We take an interest in them. We want good things for

them. We learn our recovery really isn't "all about me." We SLOW-briety ourselves out of our own selfish heads.

 

Self-care also includes making time to get to know ourselves. Most of us arrive in A.A. wearing a variety of masks - sometimes all at the same time - to cover that black hole of loneliness and desperation underneath.

 

We arrive feeling like damaged goods and we wear our masks to try and keep others from seeing who we really are. But when we view ourselves as damaged goods, we truly have no idea who that person behind our mask actually is!

 

 Once we find the courage to work the steps to remove our masks, and continually do the doing, our beauty will be revealed for all to see and appreciate.

 

Working all twelve steps takes us to finding a powerful relationship with our personal Higher Power (whatever that looks like) and helps us discover, accept, and then love the person we are becoming.

 

 Steps four through ten are the meat and potatoes of self-discovery, Steps one, two, three, eleven and twelve get us out of our own way and closer to our Higher Power, and to our fellow suffering alcoholics. Or at least that's the way it has worked - and continues to work - for me.

 

There are a variety of non-A.A. ideas that can augment our step work in reaching our goal of self-love.

As it says in our Big Book, Make use of what others have to offer.

I have used all of the following to find my way back to myself.

 I can confirm they all have helped.

 

First, we must find the fun

I once read we could write down all the things we liked to do, and then ask our closest friends what they think would be fun among them for us to do together, and then to do them - individually or together - often.

Gratitude

Science has shown it is impossible for our brains to hold a negative and a positive thought at the same time. Spiritual law says the same. So, every day - and most especially on those days when our brains are out to kill us with negativity - we can escape by making a written gratitude list.

I've heard some people complain they can only think of about three or four things to list. Work on that till it reaches a hundred or so! It isn't hard …

Are we sober today? Do we know our sobriety is a gift and a miracle? Are we grateful for it?

Do we have sober friends? Do we have a circle of support in a Home Group? Do we have a program guiding our recovery? Gratitude!!!

Did the sun come up today? Be grateful we can see it. Be grateful for its warmth. Be grateful for the energy it offers our gardens, our food crops, our planet.

Is it raining? Be grateful for a quieter day, for the replenishment of our creeks and rivers, for our thirsty plants and wildlife, for friendly conversations with our neighbors about the weather.

Did we laugh today? Do we have friends that bring us the gift of laughter? Are

there comedians we enjoy? Did our puppy do something that gave us a smile? Is our cat the best cat ever? Do our children love us? Do we know that?

Gratitude!

Did we see something amazing today? A colorful butterfly? A couple in love? The ocean sunlit with diamond-like sparkles? A perfect rose in the garden? A hedgehog? A new baby of any species including our own? A mountain in the mist? Lambs at play? A falling “star?"

If we are physically well, are we grateful? Good eyesight? Hearing? Our strength? Being able to walk, or run, or climb, or dance? So many people have none of these.

The list is endless ... and for that, be grateful!

 Becoming grateful opens the door to more and more things for us to be grateful about.

We must practice being grateful for life's tough lessons, too. It is from them we learn and grow the most.

 Remember when you thought quitting drinking was the worst thing that could ever happen to you and then discovering it was the best?

 Gratitude!

Affirmations

Saying "You are a terrific human being" every time you see yourself in a mirror can feel awkward at first, but affirmations contribute a more positive voice to the negative one already in our head. Over time it can drown the critic out completely. That's the goal.

Affirmations come in all shapes and sizes: like, "Every day, in every way, I am

getting better and better." ... "I am loved and I am loving." ... "I attract the positive." ... "I deserve to have a wonderful life."  ... "I have a spiritual ideal and I seek to reach it."

Whatever the ideal you want for yourself can become a daily affirmation designed by you, for you.

 Affirmations are life changing. Doing daily affirmations works. The science supports it and my own experience also supports it. Try it in your own life.

Gold Stars

When we do anything hard for us to do ... apply for a new job, end a toxic relationship, speak our truth, join a book club, share - or chair - at a meeting, make an amend, visit a dying person in hospice, spend a day without our cell phone, make time to eat properly or get enough sleep, or whatever that hard thing FOR US might be ... we award ourself a gold star.

Literally. We get a box of sticky stars and when we’ve done a hard thing, we stick one on that date in our journal, diary, or desk calendar, along with a mention of what it was. Then, when a later day (or week) turns shitty, we can flip back through that collection of stars and read what we did to earn them.

It won't take long for the positive thought - "Yes, I really did do that ... and that ... and that, too ... " to kick in. We will then feel much better about ourselves.

 Another person might look at one of our accomplishments and think, "Big deal, what’s so hard about that?"

 This isn't about them or their opinions, especially when something that might have been easy for them was bloody terrifying for us. We all have different size hurdles.

(Our gold stars are just for us! I have never shown mine to anyone and I don't expect I ever will. It's none of their damned business.)

Revisit your Childhood

Make a list of all the things you liked to do before the age of eleven. Jigsaw puzzles? Read books? Dance? Roller skate? Ride horses? Swim? Jump rope? Walk in the woods? Be in a pretty garden. Have a dollhouse? Ride a bike? Sing? Go out in a boat? Whatever.

Then go do each of them again, one after another, week after week for as long as it takes.

 

You'll discover that some of them will no longer hold the appeal of your childhood. I found I'd rather fix up the house I live in than have a dollhouse now, but some childhood fun things will still be a good fit. Add them back into your life.

Secret Pleasures

Loneliness is the pain of being alone. Solitude offers the joy of being alone.

Do more of what you secretly like to do all by yourself, but seldom make time for: Bubble baths? Reading good books? Gardening? Hiking? Napping? Lying in bed and watching TV or reading? Baking? Trying new recipes? Puzzles? 

That's how we learn to enjoy and value our own company. Whatever makes you happy in yourself - and by yourself - do it more often (yes, even rude sexy things).

Self-care leads us to others-care.

When we feel good about ourselves it's natural to want to share that with others. We'll find ourselves becoming more involved in A.A. service work - and enjoying it.

We'll find ourselves reaching out to others who are struggling to offer them a bit of our own experience, strength and hope. We'll feel less like "I have to go to a meeting" and more like, "I get to go to a meeting."

We'll feel gratitude whenever we are doing-the-doing.

It all works - when we work all of it.

 

Our mind is a garden. Our thoughts are the seeds.

We can grow flowers … Or we can grow weeds.

 

 

        The Problem Is Always Me

 

What???   I'm the problem??? I don't think so!! 

After all …

HE fired me! ... SHE stole my savings! ... HE never stops yelling at me ... 

THEY are spreading lies about me ... HE's the one having the affair ... 

SHE won't believe me ... HE broke his promise ... SHE’S my sister and treats 

me like dirt ... My father lied to me ...  SHE blabbed my secret ...

 

We can play that blame game forever, but if we want emotional sobriety - 

aka: serenity - we may want to look at what our A.A. program teaches us. 

Like this from the 12&12:

 

It is a spiritual axiom that every time we are

 disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is 

something wrong with us.

 

And this from the Big Book:

Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, 

we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us,

seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in 

the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed 

us in a position to be hurt. So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making.

 

In the A.A. magazine The Grapevine, Bill W. himself was quoted as saying:

If we examine every disturbance we have, great or small, we will find at the 

root of it some unhealthy dependency and its consequent unhealthy demand. 

Let us, with God's help, continually surrender these hobbling liabilities. 

Then we can be set free to live and love; we may then be able to twelfth-step

 ourselves, as well as others, into emotional sobriety.

 

Yeah, sure. Easy for Saint Bill to say, but not so easy to do if you're just a

 struggling drunk like me.

 

 But remember, it was "Saint Bill" who actually wrote those words we hear 

at every meeting: "We are NOT saints." We'll have to step back here and

 remember Bill W. - who gave us so much - was an unsaintly drunk just like

 the rest of us.

 

Sure, he was inspired - many say God inspired - when he and Dr. Bob put our

 incredible program of recovery together.  And there is no doubt both men 

were highly intelligent, strong-minded, high-achieving individuals. But the

 same can be said of many A.A. members. The difference is, our founders

 recognized that to stay sober they had to let go of any hint of being victims.

 

When we were still ignorant about addiction, we were victims of its power,

 but once in recovery we are no longer ignorant so we are no longer victims. 

No matter what we've lived through, we're still here. That makes us now 

survivors working on becoming better people.

 

 Our history has taken us from victimhood to victory. By climbing our steps of

 recovery, we get to the places offering life's finest views.

 

The moment we fall back into old behaviors and start playing the blame game it's

 time to rein ourselves in. We do it by looking at our part in whatever situation

 is causing us unrest.

 Because, clearly, the statement – Every time we are disturbed,

 no matter what the cause, there is something wrong

with us. - offers no loopholes.

 

I wish I had a crisp dollar bill for how many times I’ve heard someone in A.A. 

say “My family doesn’t understand me.”

How could they? We defied all understanding when we drank.

But our A.A. “family” understands us perfectly and they tell us, regardless of

 what’s happening around or to us, we have the responsibility to look only at

 our part.

Others in our lives may seem unreasonable, but - just as holding onto

 resentments is dangerous for us - so is holding onto the blame game. We must

own our part in any life problems we're experiencing.

 

Easy to do? Nope. Acceptance is seldom easy. It can often feel like submission;

 but it’s not. Acceptance is actually when we acknowledge the facts of a

 situation and then decide what we need to do about it.

 

When we regularly do our Tenth Step nightly inventory we will start to see our

 part in our problems with others. It’s where we learn we must stop judging

 others and ourselves.

So, throw the stick away you still beat yourself up with and start acknowledging you have good qualities, too.

(Yes, this means you).

 

We are not always in the wrong, but our self-respect will be enhanced every

 time we act on the phrase: ... when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.

 

Our Tenth Step work teaches us the person upsetting us the most is our best

 teacher!!! Our goal is to mentally thank that person for offering us so much

 to learn about ourselves. (I'll be working on this one till the day I die,

 but I'm better than I used to be … progress, not perfection).

 

The 12&12 states that all of us Are to some extent emotionally ill as well as

 frequently wrong, and it urges us to develop tolerance so we can learn ... 

what real love for our fellows actually means.

When we don't learn from our mistakes, we remain driven by them. 

Freedom is the absolute discovery of the joy to be found in living our own way,

 but better.  Freedom is actually obedience to our inner Higher Self, the

 One seeking expression through us.

 

The program of AlAnon, made up of those amazing souls who have to deal 

with us drunks (wet or dry), while maintaining their own peace of mind, 

teaches that everyone is to some extent emotionally ill.

One of the AlAnon sayings is:

 

Don't take anyone's inventory but your own.

 

It's great advice! Do you know anyone who is physically, mentally or spiritually

 perfect? I don't and I don't expect I ever will.  If "they" aren't perfect and

 "we" aren't perfect, how can we expect emotional sobriety unless we learn to cut everyone some slack?

 

The best way I've found is to begin treating others as I would like them

 to treat me - as that high-valued yellow metal "rule” suggests. *

It's pretty much the gold standard for finding emotional sobriety.

 

 

 

*(The Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.)

 

 

                                                         *****