Made A Decision

(49)

                                        Look for the Similarities ...

When we stick around AA long enough we will one day hear someone who - in sharing their story - tells our own story of drinking and recovery. 

It's an amazing moment when it happens, and it's worth sticking around awhile just to have that experience.

But even before that special share we'll hear bits and pieces of our personal story spoken by others in meetings, certainly enough to identify with and marvel at. But only if we're able to listen with honest ears. 

Many of us in the beginning aren't looking for the similarities in our stories. We're looking for the differences, hoping for some proof we're maybe not really an alcoholic after all. 

(Rest assured - non-alcoholics don't do much - if any - worrying about their drinking. We alcoholics do. If you've made it to AA, odds are you're one of us.)

Right before the start of my very first AA meeting I picked up one of the brochures laid out on the table. When I read it later it contained a test to determine if we were - or were not - suffering from alcoholism.

I took the test, answering the questions with total honesty (something quite new to me at the time)    and got an A+ on it. 

I then folded up the brochure and put it in my purse.

In the months that followed, whenever I'd start to doubt I was actually a real alcoholic, I'd take out that brochure, read my test answers, and decide  once again that - yes - I did indeed belong in AA.

That brochure eventually fell to bits from being unfolded and refolded. My alcoholism, however, is still with me. 

But thanks to AA I haven't had to continue being a drinking

alcoholic.

Meetings at first were hard for me. I had never been a joiner. I liked solitary pursuits (then and now), but once I realized I had found my herd in AA - the only place in the world where people thought the way I thought  - I've never wanted to leave. 

I had decided I wanted to live, and that the people who had been sober a while in AA could teach me - not only how to live, but to live well - so I became an AA groupie.

But that early "I'm different" idea can cause us a lot of misery. So can the idea that "they" - those people over there - are different," a situation that has also reared its ugly head during AA's long history.

After all, it was four whole years after AA began before a woman got sober in AA. The men thought it was because women were "too different." 

"Low-bottom skid-row drunks said they were different. 

Socialites thought they were different, too. 

So did professional people, artists, plumbers, journalists, sail makers, bus drivers, sales people, rodeo riders, gay men and women, actors, the rich, the poor, churchgoers, atheists, veterans, convicts ... the list is endless.

                         

                         But the fact is this: 

   "Alcoholism is an equal opportunity destroyer."

When we recognize our disease is found in all groups of people, we can then - and perhaps only then - recognize how much alike all us alcoholics truly are.

One of the first things I was taught was that to stay sober I had to contribute to AA itself. AA was keeping me alive and well so I owed it my service. 

Our wonderful book, The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (aka - The 12&12) puts it like this:

"Most individuals cannot recover unless there IS a group. Realization dawns that he is but a small part of a great whole; that no personal sacrifice is too great for preservation of the Fellowship ... It becomes plain that the group must survive or the individual will not."

Recognizing our commonality is the key. After all, everyone in our group has experienced the pounding headaches, jitters, hot and cold sweats and dry mouth of hangovers.

We've all known what it's like to wake up afraid to face people and situations because of shame over our behavior the night before.

We remember our fear in having to face up to the consequences of our drinking. The fear we felt when in jail, in court, or in having to face up to our families - and eventually to ourselves.

                All of those feelings - and many more - get removed once we settle 

                                                      into our new life in AA.  

So are we still grateful? I only ask because denial is built right into our disease. We perfected it every time we lied about the extent of our drinking. 

When we stop being grateful and start taking our precious sobriety for granted, we can easily start to again lie to ourselves about how bad our drinking actually was. 

      First the lie - then the belief - then comes another round of drinking hell.

                                Honesty is the backbone of our recovery. 

                    Self-honesty is the greatest gift we can give to ourselves. 

But rigorous honesty, like every other part of our recovery, takes time to develop. We become honest by becoming honest - and that takes practice.

Self-honesty takes even more practice, because it involves getting to know who we really are after having spent years, even decades, running away from that knowledge. Drinking, after all, helped us escape it. 

                      Sobriety has been granted to us all, but it's not a gift. 

                             A gift is something we can keep forever. 

                      A grant is contingent on us doing things to keep it. 

           As our AA literature tells us, our continued sobriety is contingent 

                          on the maintenance of our spiritual condition.  

                Remaining grateful keeps that spiritual doorway wide open.

 

Made A Decision 

(48)

  Taking Our Show on the Road

The first thing we learn in AA is how to behave in a meeting. 

We quickly are taught not to interrupt others when they are speaking (cross talk), but when it's our turn we can - and do - reference their stated problems, by offering program answers that have worked for us (cross sharing). 

(Cross talk - bad. Cross sharing - good).

We learn in meetings and from our sponsors how to love one another, how to look out for one another, how to first care for our group members and then for AA members everywhere. 

It soon becomes very easy to look out for one another inside the rooms of AA, but eventually we have to take some of that recovery into our homes and society.

 Many of us talk a good talk "around the tables" of AA, but then go home and shout ugly things at our partners and children. 

That has to stop and, as we work our program to the best of our ability, it eventually will.

When we smile at our AA group members, leave the meeting and within minutes are unkind to a fellow shopper or clerk, we still have some growing up to do.

Because no one is in our life by accident. Everyone we meet - from the postman delivering our mail, to the local butcher, baker and all those candlestick makers - are all there to teach us something about ourselves. 

The world doesn't need any more  of our anger. It needs love if there is going to be any kind of healing for our species and for our planet. Taking what we learn in AA out into the world is important, especially in these times of escalating strife and political upheaval. 

We must practice "the discipline of kindness" to feel our best about ourselves. 

It can help to see our world as our Father's house and to think of all the people we meet as guests in that house, people to be treated with respect. 

The same is true of our world. It, too, is our Father's house. And just as we wouldn't throw garbage around our Father's living room, we should perhaps not contribute to others having to walk knee deep in plastic wrappers (or dog crap) in our streets. 

When we want to be of service, both inside and beyond AA, we contribute to making our program, and our world, a better place. 

The first part of the word "civilization" is "civil."  Our fellowship, even our civilization, can end if we all think only of ourselves. 

We in recovery have a wonderful opportunity to contribute to the well-being of the world. We have found the answer to our own greatest problem and know it is not found in buying more stuff, shaming people on social media, or becoming more and more cynical through non-stop watching of the 24/7 news cycle. 

The answer we have found in AA is all about love - self-love and love of others. 

And it's also about service.

In recovery we learn to love ourselves enough to stay sober.  We learn to love our fellow AA members and want them to succeed in staying sober. We learn to pray for those we find it hard to like. We learn to love AA and to want to contribute to it through our service for its continuance. 

As our hearts expand in love we continue to send it outward, from AA to our families, our neighbors, our community, our world.  

And "Boy Howdy," (Southern USA expression) does the world ever need some of it right now!

Do we appreciate our unique opportunity to be of service? Or are we always focused on staying busy with our own concerns? 

Do any of the following sound familiar?"

"I'd do more service work in AA, but I don't have the time."

"I'd take the kids to the beach (park/woods/movies) more, but I have to work."

"I wish I could join and contribute to Earth Extinction (World Wildlife Fund/my Political Party/Cancer Society/homeless relief project/local women's shelter, the Humane Society/the National Trust, etc. etc.), but I'm too busy."

Here's the thing about making time:

If you heard your name announced on your local radio station as the winner of a fat cash prize - as long as you showed up to collect it at the station by 5 p.m. on that day - you'd find the time to get there!

 Or if one of your family members were suddenly injured, you'd "find the time" to get them the medical attention they needed.

Or if you smelled smoke in the house you'd quickly find the time to tear yourself away from that computer solitaire game to find the cause.

We can always "make time" for things we feel are important. 

And, as part of that effort, there is always something we can do for others; and in that doing we increase the value of our own life. 

Also, helping others in any capacity helps keep us sober. 

It's the melding of our physical and spiritual sobriety that provides the substance for a more positive and fulfilling recovery journey.  I'd love to live high and saintly on pink clouds all the time, but my Higher Power has convinced me I need to have my feet firmly planted on earth. Because that's where my fellow travelers are and that's where HP's work needs to be done. 

If I don't do it - if WE don't do it - who will?

AA has given me a full and satisfying life, and the Big Book makes it clear it would be wrong for me to limit all my interests and activities only to AA. What we learn in AA is needed in the outer world, and we are all charged with taking it out there. 

But we must also stay aware that AA needs to remain our number one priority activity.

Or, as I heard it once perfectly said in a meeting:

"Don't let the life AA gave you take you away from your life in AA."

I have come to believe there's only one way for me to have a fully satisfying life, and that's by living the way God wants me to live. 

My HP and I meet up in that secret place of spirit on a daily basis. That's where I get my marching orders and special treats. That connection has given my life meaning and a task of work to do that matters. 

When I act under God's direction My life runs smoothly and, best of all, I am deeply content.  

(When I am not content I have misread my directions and must  take a step back to see where I've gone off track - then fix it). 

"And greater works than this shall ye do," it says in the Bible. 

Other religious texts say the same. 

We can do greater works when we have some experience of the new way of life we're given in AA. Opportunities for a better world are all around us. But we do not work alone. Our Higher Power is there to guide us into all good works. 

The following quotes say it all: 

 (1. GRAPEVINE, JANUARY 1958

2. A.A. COMES OF AGE, pp. 232-233) 

"Let A.A. never be a closed corporation; let us never deny our experience, for whatever it may be worth, to the world around us. Let our individual members heed the call to every field of human endeavor. Let them carry the experience and spirit of A.A. into all these affairs, for whatever good they may accomplish." 

"For not only has God saved us from alcoholism; the world has received us back into its citizenship."

 

Made A Decision

(47)

                        Happy, Joyous and Free

The first thing a newcomer to AA is likely to notice on arrival is that members are smiling at and laughing with one another. They quickly learn we laugh throughout many of our meetings, and often that laugh is about some of our drinking escapades - events that could easily curl the hair of a non-alcoholic. 

The late great actor and comedian Robin Williams once said he had done things while drinking and drugging that made the Devil back away from him in shock and exclaim, "DUDE!!!"

Being able to laugh at ourselves and each other is vital to our recovery. From these shared laughs we gain the knowledge we've all done similar things when drinking and yet, here we are, sober, happy and freely able to use those experiences to help others. 

Humour is a key component of the recovery in our AA program, for which I remain heartily grateful. I entered AA fearful if I quit drinking I would become "sober" in the more worldly definition of that word - ie: "serious, sensible, and solemn." I'm also certain I would never have been able to stay sober had that been an actual requirement. 

At first I feared I might never laugh again without a drink in hand, forgetting that any laughter connected to my drinking took place early on and had ended long before I arrived at my first AA meeting.

 

Discovering in AA that I could laugh at myself, and in the process begin healing those memories of guilt and shame about my drinking, was - and remains - a huge part of my own sober recovery. 

Humour is the one common denominator in all my friends (in and out of AA) - all of them make me laugh. And the laughs I've had in meetings are a big part of the reason I kept coming back.

What I like best about AA humour is that great truths usually come all wrapped up in it. Like the man who said "One thing I could never understand was how someone could walk into a bar, order one drink and go home. I would walk into a bar, order one drink and BE home."

And the fellow who pointed out our drug alcohol has a number of side effects "including one that got me jailed 22 times." 

Or my sponsor's observation: 

"When I got sober I wanted to become famous in an anonymous program." (Still cracks me up every time I think of it.)

Science now tells us negative thoughts can poison our cells and that being angry, judgemental or critical triggers brain chemicals able to poison our immune systems. So now, instead of an apple a day, I try for a hearty laugh at least once every day ... even if the only thing I find to laugh at is me.  

It was many years ago when I read the book "Anatomy of an Illness," in which the author documented his recovery from a fatal illness by using belly laughs for a cure.  He watched funny movies, listened to tapes of comedians' routines, sought the company of cheerful and funny people - and over time he got well. 

Alcoholism is a progressive terminal illness, too, so introducing plenty of laughter into our lives makes good sense. And how can we fail to laugh when we hear things in meetings like: 

"This fellowship is like an adjustable wrench. It fits every size nut."

"Normal drinkers make such a big deal out of knowing their limit. I knew my limit, too, I just always passed out before I reached it."

And then there's this one from my brother, also a sober alcoholic: "Giving a birthday chip to a drunk for staying sober is like giving one to a person with hemorrhoids for staying off a bucking bronco."

 Humour is vastly underrated as a teaching tool. Some of the brightest and most thought-provoking people in our society (and in all of show business) are the stand-up observational comics who - using humour - identify crazy societal behaviors that should be obvious to us, but often aren't until they point them out. 

And long ago I had a history teacher who gave us a lot of funny tidbits of information about famous people. Like when Napoleon Bonaparte was attacked by rabbits in a bunny hunt he had organized for himself and his men. Some 3,000 rabbits were released from cages, but instead of running away they viciously charged and scattered the soldiers! 

(President Jimmy Carter had a run in with an enraged rabbit once, too, as some of us old folks will remember.) 

In that history class I also learned the 16th American President, Abraham Lincoln, was at one time a licensed bartender. He opened a bar in 1833 with his friend, William Berry, but the place soon closed after Berry (probably one of us) drank up most of the liquor. 

That history teacher changed my entire attitude to learning about history for the better and I still remember how much I enjoyed his class because of the laughter. Bad teachers drone on and depress their students. Bad meetings do the same.

As my friend Tim says, "A bad meeting to me is when it's a "moan-a-logue."  

Some meetings are just that, members moaning about their lives and about how tough sober living is. Really? Do they honestly not remember the drunk driving charges? The police being called to settle family disputes? Pissing their bed?

Yes, sober life has it's tough moments, too, and I have nothing against a good bitch session. But in sobriety we have solutions for our problems to be found by working our twelve steps and in reading our literature.

 Do some work. Read the books. Learn stuff ... 

and then bring some recovery to your meetings. People there will identify with your problems and be inspired by your solutions. 

There's sure to be some smiles and laughter, too, when we hear things like:

"Only two people can make me drink. Poor Me and The Great I Am."

Or this, from my friend, Nyk: "When I got to AA I was so angry I could have drowned your goldfish."

And these:

 "If it's not one thing it's another. And if it's not another, it's your mother."

"I run around all day trying to avoid me."

"The best time to quit drinking is while we're still alive."

"They fuck you up, your Mum and Dad. They really, really do. They give you all their craziness and save some just for you."

As it says in the meditation book "Each Day a New Beginning:"

"Choosing to see the bright side of life, to laugh at our mistakes, lessens our pain, emotional and physical. Laughter encourages wellness. It is habit-forming and, better yet, contagious. Bringing laughter to others can heal them as well."

Hearing something funny first-hand in a meeting is the best way to discover the healing power of laughter. So go to lots of meetings and laugh often. It's the best prescription of all for what ails us. 

The generation that produced my Mum and Dad used to say, "Laughter is the Best Medicine." If you agree - pass some on!

Made A Decision

(46)

                        Powerlessness

"The ‘sober’ alcoholic chooses not to drink because he has accepted his alcoholism. The ‘dry’ alcoholic is “not drinking” but is invariably angry and resentful. He finds abstinence is not exciting because he is not interested in it - he is bored." Father Leo B., AA speaker  

If you are "bored" in AA, you need to sit down right now with a pen and paper and figure out why. The more common causes are: 

Not getting to enough meetings, or not going to a lot of different meetings, not doing any service work, not attending any Big Book or 12& 12 study meetings, not having a home group - in other words, basically coasting along being content with just staying sober, no more and no less. In the big picture of our recovery that's a very "slippery" place to be.

A total acceptance of our alcoholism - with no reservations - is absolutely essential to maintain sobriety. The "dry drunk" in the above quote has simply not accepted his (or her) powerlessness over his (or her) addiction(s). 

It takes utter defeat and utter surrender to go from a raging drinking alcoholic to  a recovering alcoholic who values his or her sobriety above all things. 

The very first step in AA recovery requires us to admit we are powerless over alcohol. This is not a coincidence, because with that admission comes acceptance. And with acceptance comes the willingness to do what we need to do to remain sober.

Acceptance comes hard to us all. We struggled to control our drinking, to drink like normal drinkers, to figure out how to avoid the consequences of our drinking - and many of us did these things for decades. 

Some alcoholics - as our Big Book tells us - continue to drink and pursue these controlling behaviors and remain unable to admit defeat until our disease finally kills them. 

Our AA literature explains: 

". . . the actual or potential alcoholic, with hardly an exception, will be absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self-knowledge. This is a point we wish to emphasize and re-emphasize, to smash home upon our alcoholic readers as it has been revealed to us out of bitter experience."

Those of us fortunate enough to have had - and acted upon - our "moment of clarity" - that instant of knowing our absolute powerlessness over our disease - tend to grab hold of what AA has to offer with both hands and open hearts. 

Then later, when we recognize we are not only powerless over alcohol, but are powerless over what people think about us, or how other people work their program, and even over the ability to keep our own hearts beating one moment longer than our Higher Power intends for us, we are truly well on our way in recovery. 

That's when we are able to stop getting white knuckles from gripping the steering wheel of our lives so tightly.  

And that's also when we find there are things we are not powerless over - like our attitudes - because We can adjust our thinking. It takes practice, but we can let go of negativity. We can experiment with positive affirmations, different spiritual practices, and we can become a positive influence to ourselves and others, including even giving some care to our battered home planet. 

As our book the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions tells us: 

"We perceive that only through utter defeat are we able to take our first steps toward liberation and strength. Our admissions of personal powerlessness finally turn out to be firm bedrock upon which happy and purposeful lives may be built." 

Our Big Book has plenty to say about it, too:

"He cannot picture life without alcohol. Someday he will be unable to imagine life either with alcohol or without it. Then he will know loneliness such as few do. He will be at the jumping-off place. He will wish for the end."

Think back to when your addiction(s) influenced every part of your daily life; when your drug of choice gave you permission to indulge in every kind of behavior.  Coming to the realization that we can do nothing  to escape that kind of power, other than to surrender to a Higher Power, offers us no option other than total surrender. 

And remember that in Step One there is a 

Part A: "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol" -  

and a Part B: "and that our lives had become unmanageable."

Once we've firmly placed the plug in the jug and our cravings for alcohol have stopped (sometimes quickly, sometimes more slowly) we can begin to work on Part B - that unmanageable part. 

We eventually learn we must "practice these principles" of AA in every area of our lives to have the top quality life we deserve.

We will not only stay sober by doing all 12 steps of recovery - and continuing to work them - we will also slowly move away from lives of turmoil and high drama to begin to live lives filled with joy, purpose and serenity.

Our Big Book (page 25 in mine) offers us the choice to pick up and use the "kit of spiritual tools" for our transformation.  And all begins with taking a thorough Step One - both parts.

With surrender comes victory over that mind set where life is too hard to live without an escape hatch. 

When we stop fighting, stop being stubborn, stop arguing and trying to figure out everything - we can begin to relax. The answers we seek will come over time. 

I used to feel great sympathy for any person who suffered. Today I only commiserate with those who suffer in ignorance, people who do not yet know the transformative purpose of pain. 

Those of us who have that information and are "bored," or in any way hurting, need to stop suffering and get busy doing more of the doing of recovery.

This AA journey, after all, has worked for millions of people. It will work for you, too - but only if you work it.  

 

Made a Decision

(45)

                  Happy New Year, 2022

                                               But Beware the Janfeb Blues

The lights, tinsel, baubles and other holiday decorations have now been packed away (or at least that process has begun). 

Presents have been admired and now are in use. Thank you letters have been sent. Tree needles swept up. Leftovers all eaten or tucked away in the freezer ... 

         Good, bad, or indifferent, the holidays of 2021 are behind us. 

For many of us the holiday season is just one big month-long High - days filled with excitement, worry, family feuds, parties to steer carefully through, lots of meetings to keep our heads screwed on, gifts to buy, money concerns, dinners to plan, and 2021's special worry during yet another Covid spike - "guests or no guests?"

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

And this year, with Covid and bigger climate worries added to the mix, the Janfeb Blues may find us even lower than usual. 

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 January and February chock full of them as a way of being good to yourself. 

 (I did my share of whining at one just today. 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: "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 in this New Year it 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. 

A new year offers us 12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days, 8,760 hours, 525,600 minutes - plenty of time - a day at a time - to step up to the plate and knock the ball out of the park ... or, in England, to score the goals right there in front of us. 

 We do it by putting the principles of our A.A. program into action, each and every day.

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 2022 for, and in, AA - is a sensible resolution to make. 

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 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." 

(Works every time).

Work and prayer are the two forces that can gradually make for a better world. It's in our best interest to work for the betterment of ourselves and for other people. Prayer can guide us into a better life, but "faith without works is dead."

  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.

In 2022 we can smile more, laugh more, care more, read more, and do more. I plan to start by turning off the barrage of bad news provided by the 24-hour news cycle and to resist 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'm sure to hear just what I need to lift and keep me out of the Janfeb blues.