OKaysez

 

Made a Decision

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      "Make Use of What Others Have to Offer."

For almost 90 years alcoholics have been finding their way to sobriety inside the tremendous support system that is Alcoholics Anonymous. 

Our AA literature gives us the perfect blueprint on how to get and stay sober. Those who read the instructions and follow them (and continue to follow them) can be assured of living a sober life. 

Better than that, they can be certain of eventually living a life beyond their wildest dreams! 

While A.A. doesn't have a perfect record for getting and keeping alcoholics sober, it offers the best options for doing that job. Its track record of success is plain for all to see.

But A.A. is not now - nor has it ever been - the only game in town! 

Others have achieved sobriety through active participation in all the major world religions. And some have achieved sobriety through other programs, from psychiatric counseling to self-help groups. 

A.A. isn't threatened by those successes. 

Those who have read our AA literature know that AA supports being involved in our own program while also getting outside help when needed. We are also encouraged to explore the many spiritual paths where our recovery journey may lead us. 

We are advised to "make use of what others have to offer."

In a limited sense, everything we need to stay sober IS in our Big Book. But why allow ourselves merely a one-book library? 

Reading a wide range of spiritual books adds to our greater understanding and takes us on an ever more fulfilling spiritual adventure.

I've been to AA meetings where only "conference approved literature" was allowed and I've been to meetings where readings came from any number of sources found inspiring by the reader. 

Clearly they've both worked for me, because neither type derailed my sobriety.

Fear, supported by our ego, is always against change. We will accept something when we must, but then often quickly cop the attitude, "This is good and therefore this is good enough." 

It's a shame, because that's a fear-based decision, one not held by either of AA's founding fathers.

  Both Dr. Bob and Bill W. were highly literate, well-read men raised as Christians, but they remained wide open to the teachings of all religions, psychiatry and many philosophies. 

Both men found a God of their understanding, but both continued to explore spiritual teachings all their lives and were the richer for it. 

They deplored intolerance and wrote quite a bit about it, like this from

 the Big Book:

"We are careful never to show intolerance or hatred of drinking as an institution. Experience shows that such an attitude is not helpful to anyone. 

"Every new alcoholic looks for this spirit among us and is immensely relieved when he finds we are not witch-burners. A spirit of intolerance might repel alcoholics whose lives could have been saved, had it not been for such stupidity."

"... we have no desire to convince anyone that there is only one way by which faith can be acquired. 

"If what we have learned and felt and seen means anything at all, it means that all of us, whatever our race, creed, or color are the children of a living Creator with whom we may form a relationship upon simple and understandable terms as soon as we are willing and honest enough to try.  

"Those having religious affiliations will find here nothing disturbing to their beliefs or ceremonies. There is no friction among us over such matters. 

And then there's this from AA's American magazine, The Grapevine:

"Today, the vast majority of us welcome any new light that can be thrown on the alcoholic's mysterious and baffling malady. We welcome new and valuable knowledge whether it issues from a test tube, from a psychiatrist's couch, or from revealing social studies. 

"We are glad of any kind of education that accurately informs the public and changes its age-old attitude toward the drunk

"More and more we regard all who labor in the total field of alcoholism as our companions on a march from darkness into light. We see that we can accomplish together what we could never accomplish in separation and in rivalry."

As our third Tradition states: 

The Only Requirement for AA membership is the desire to stop drinking." 

Those of us who make it to A.A. (and so many of us sadly never do!) know our having one drink starts a train of obsessive thought toward getting the next one. And once we're aboard that train we can't stop drinking. 

Our disease is an "equal opportunity destroyer." We all arrive in A.A. propelled there by the same disease. So our fellowship includes people from all religions, and those with no religion, from every race, sexual persuasion and all the trades and professions. 

There are two common mistakes people make about alcoholism. One is that it can be cured by physical treatment. It can't. 

And the second is that it can be controlled by willpower. It can't. 

Most alcoholics have tried both ways and  found they don't work.

Alcohol is poison to the alcoholic - literally - because when an alcoholic continues to drink, they die.  It may be a quick death or a slow death - but it's death by poison regardless.

Alcohol, our society's "legal" drug, come packaged in pretty bottles and sold by clever advertising, but it's lethal stuff and we alcoholics tend to drink it by the gallon.

Remember those old black and white movies where the bartender smiles and says, "Name your poison?" For an alcoholic, that's an absolute truth.

In recovery, we recognize that alcohol poisoned our lives for a very long time. 

Learning to recognize (and then daily remember) that all liquor is poisonous to us - is an important part of our staying sober.

After all, as I heard again in a meeting just the other night: 

"We don't suffer from alcoholwasism, we suffer from alcoholism.