Made A Decision

          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 good 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 if 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 like 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 any of 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, along with 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 of 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 only 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.

 

 

                          Feel Free to Contact me at o.kay.dockside@gmail.com 

Made a Decision

                    The Fourth Step:

                   Made a searching and thorough inventory of ourselves.

There is no harm for us in any of the steps. They are all designed to improve and enhance our lives, to get us - and keep us - sober. Doing them is basic to what's meant when we hear in meetings: "It works when we work it."

Chapter Six in the Big Book is called "Into Action," not "Into thinking." Stop thinking and worrying about doing your Fourth Step and get on with it!" Because once these two crucial steps - Four and Five - have been completed, you'll feel (and be) reborn!

Step Four is where the "take action" steps begin. When we pick up our pen to begin we will truly have begun to “work the steps.” 

You've already faced your biggest fear when you decided to attend your first AA meeting. A Fourth Step is a mere paper tiger in comparison. It is, after all, designed to introduce us to the truth about ourselves and it's always truth that sets us free!

But arriving at Step Four is also where some major panic can set in, because at first glance Step Four looks like very scary territory. Please don't feel badly if your initial reaction to doing this step is one of terror. It's perfectly natural to have the jitters when faced with some serious self-examination for the first time. 

But rest assured, once a thorough Step Four is behind you, the fear of it will be behind you, too, never to return.

 

My one-time home group - the Living on God's Terms (LGT) Group in the UK - started hosting Step Four Workshops after it became clear few of our group's newcomers had yet taken the Step Four plunge. One of them had even wished out loud they could all do it together.

Knowing Fourth Step workshops were not uncommon in the states, we held a group conscience meeting where the members decided to host one. We then requested workshop material from overseas.

 

The LGT Group has been doing one or two Fourth Step workshops each year ever since. They have been life-changing for many.

AA members overall hold different views of the Fourth Step (and pretty much everything else), but no one is wrong. There is no wrong way to do a fourth step other than to not do one!

Some members write one thorough Fourth Step and never feel the need to do another one. Others do one every year or whenever they feel the need.

I did the most thorough Fourth Step I was capable of in my first year of recovery. More issues were later revealed, so I've since done a few more complete Fourth Steps, plus two one-issue Fourth Steps that turned out to be of huge importance to my recovery.

My first Fourth Step was done as directed in our Big Book and that's also the format we use for our workshop. 

There was a fad for a while for writing a biographical Fourth Step, but that seems to have faded away a bit now.

Some members still, however, swear by them. (I did one myself when they were trendy, but haven't felt the need to do another one.)

There are no hard and fast rules on any of this. The important thing is to get our "stuff" down on paper so we can take stock of who we were, are, and where we want to go in our sober future.

In a 4th Step workshop the presenter will outline our system, set times for each topic, and stand by to answer any questions that may come up during the writing.

If you are doing a Fourth Step on your own, it's best to begin by reading about the Fourth Step in both our Big Book and the 12&12, and then take up any remaining questions with our sponsor before we start writing.

(It won't hurt workshop participants to review these two books for Fourth Step guidance beforehand, either).

To do the work on our own we'll need to set aside a morning or afternoon where we won't be disturbed. (That means phones and laptops off and out of sight, along with a "do not disturb" sign on the door, if necessary.)

Using the outline in the Big Book as our guide, we sit down with a pen and plenty of paper and go at it. We're literally taking an inventory here and our goal is to get as much as we can about ourselves down on paper. That includes a nod to our good qualities, too. 

We may indeed be short-tempered, selfish, or prone to telling lies - but we may also be loyal friends, hard workers and reliable pet owners. We need to at least acknowledge the good stuff, too.

A workshop allows participants to complete a very thorough Fourth Step, getting their most important issues down on paper, in under four hours. More issues may be revealed at a later date (when we're perhaps better able to deal with them), but the all-important basics will be written on the day. 

Our HP only gives us what we are able to handle at any given time. And even though I've often felt my HP was more confident in my being able to handle something than I was, I've learned - over time - He always knows me better than I do. 

                       Here are some Bullet Points for Step Four:

1. The Big Book of AA outlines how to do Step Four. Read it and think about it.

2. Take up any questions you may still have with your sponsor.

3. Set aside a morning or afternoon when you won’t be disturbed. Sit down with pen and paper or a notebook and go to it. Use the Big Book outline as your guide. Take prayer breaks if needed.

4. Some people prefer to just write their Fourth Step autobiographically and that can work, too. The goal here is not perfection. The goal is to get words down on paper.

5. Remember to add the positive things about yourself to your inventory. No one is all bad - not even terminally-unique you.

6. You should be able to complete a first Fourth Step in from two to four hours. You'll then have on paper the immediate things for working on with your sponsor.

7. Your written Fourth Step will give you everything you need to do an immediate Fifth Step.

8. If a Fourth Step Workshop is available to you, sign up for it - and then show up and take part.

 

Made A Decision

                               Powerlessness

The ‘sober’ alcoholic chooses not to drink because he has accepted his alcoholism.

 The ‘dry’ alcoholic, while “not drinking,” 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  

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

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

AA recovery requires us to understand and admit we are powerless over alcohol because with that admission comes acceptance. And with acceptance comes the willingness to do what's needed to stay sober.

Acceptance comes hard for us all. Many of us struggled for decades to control our drinking, to drink like normal drinkers, to figure out how to avoid the consequences of our drinking. 

 

Some alcoholics (as our Big Book tells us) are never able to admit defeat. They continue to drink, drug, and pursue these controlling behaviors 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. 

Think back to when your own 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 on our own can do nothing to escape that dark power, other than to surrender to a Higher Power, offers us no option other than total surrender. 

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 plenty of 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.

Step One is a two-part step: 

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

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 then begin to work on that Part B, the unmanageable part. 

Doing so means we must learn to "practice these principles" of AA in every area of our lives. 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 and begin living lives filled with joy, purpose and serenity.

Our Big Book offers us the choice to pick up and use the "kit of spiritual tools" for our transformation.

 It all begins with accepting both parts of Step One.

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. 

SLOW-briety!

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, can stop suffering by getting busy doing more of the doing of recovery.

So 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, 

not setting aside any time for readings and contemplation, or prayer and meditation ... 

 

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.

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

     Another Year to Beware the               Janfeb Blues

The lights, tinsel, baubles and other holiday decorations of our last holiday season were packed away a month ago. Admired gifts are now are in use. Thank you letters long sent. 

Perhaps a few feast day leftovers are still tucked away in the freezer, but good, bad, or indifferent the holidays are well 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!  

Our 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.