Made a Decision

                    Alcoholism Never Goes Away

There's no vaccine, no pill, no medical treatment to permanently cure our illness of alcoholism. There may be one in the future, but there's never been one throughout history, and there's not one now.

We alcoholics have a chronic, progressive, terminal illness for which there is no cure! We can have a daily reprieve from our illness by not drinking during that 24 hour period, but that's not a cure. That's a gift.

We talk a lot about our Higher Power in AA, how using the "tools of AA" give us a good sober life, but I have come to believe there is a lower power busy in the world, too, and it looks to me like addiction is one of the best tools in its own tool kit.

When we were drunk we were said to be wasted, smashed, polluted, destroyed, fucked up, tanked, hammered, soaked, wrecked, pissed, blind drunk, boozed, fried, loaded - and the list goes on. There are actually nearly 200 historical words used to describe someone who is drunk. None of them I've found are complimentary.

But when we arrived in AA and heard the word "alcoholism," it was no longer a judgement, it was a diagnosis. We weren't crazy when we kept on drinking when we didn't want to after all, we were sick.

 What a relief it was to learn that.

The long-established picture of the broken down drunk living in a cardboard box beneath a railroad bridge seems to be branded on the brains of everyone in a drinking society. Young alcoholics use that image to reassure themselves every time they pick up a drink that they're obviously not an alcoholic. 

What isn't common knowledge is that image of the drunk in the cardboard palace is actually living out the final stages of our disease. Ours is a progressive disease. We don't start out as late stage alcoholics. 

We start out looking like social drinkers, although drinking a bit on the heavier side of that description. We soon progress to having sporadic problems from our drinking (social embarrassments, run-ins with the law, family problems), but unless we die in a traffic accident or domestic "incident," or speed up our progression by using other drugs in addition to alcohol, we can continue our "social drinking" for quite awhile.That's life in Stage One Alcoholism.

Stage Two gets uglier. That's when our "hangovers" become actual alcohol poisoning. That's when we start to reek of booze. No one wants us around anymore, so we isolate from family and society. That's when we might try to stop drinking and find that we can't. That's when suicide starts to look like a viable solution for our problems.

Stage Three is the short one. It ends in 

(a) "wet brain," where we drool in our soup, wear adult diapers and get locked away in a mental institution for whatever length of life is left to us.

 Or (b) death. 

An alcoholic death is an ugly death to have - or to witness. 

But it's the outcome for an alcoholic who continues to drink. 

Our disease wants to isolate us, take away everything we hold dear, and then kill us. If I'm right about a "lower power" being at work in the world, booze is a great tool for that nefarious purpose.

Sadly, after a while in AA, we can so easily resort to our pre-sobriety thinking about drinking. And we can start to place conditions on our priceless sobriety like "I'll stay sober as long as ... "

Yes. I've actually heard people in the program say that, basically telling their Higher Power not to allow anything bad to happen in their lives - "or else."  

Such thoughts totally ignore the unchangeable nature of our illness, our biochemical predisposition to abusing alcohol once it's in our systems. 

As our Big Book states:

We know that while the alcoholic keeps away from drink, as he may do for months or years, he reacts much like other men. We are equally positive that once he takes any alcohol whatever into his system, something happens, both in the bodily and mental sense, which makes it virtually impossible for him to stop. The experience of any alcoholic will abundantly confirm this. 

All of our AA's literature stresses that above point. And we'll hear it in meetings, too, in statements like: 

Once you've soaked a cucumber in vinegar long enough it changes and becomes a pickle and will never be a cucumber again. I soaked me in alcohol long enough to become a pickle. I can't go back and become a non-alcoholic again ... 

The very first time I drank I had an alcoholic blackout, so because I now know that not all alcoholics have alcoholic blackouts, but NO non-alcoholics have them, I clearly was born with my disease just waiting for me to prime the pump.

For the next twenty-plus years of my life I kept on priming it and earned all the rewards for that behavior - divorce, single-parenthood, driving drunk, wrecked car, court, etc. - but like most of us I believed I could eventually learn to manage my drinking. 

I couldn't, didn't, and now know for sure there's no hope for any alcoholic to ever "learn" control over their addiction. 

Oh sure, we might experience one night at an important occasion of being able to white-knuckle our hand around only one drink that evening, but that's not control. That's an obligation to that one event. And even then, with the boss in attendance or an angry spouse eyeballing our glass - there's no guarantee we'll be able to keep it to one drink until that occasion is over. 

Over time, after a diet of endless defeat, we seldom bother to try.

I've seen dozens of people come to AA, get sober, make huge progress in gaining good and productive lives, and then start to grumble and gripe a bit in meetings. Life isn't perfect. Their dog died. They lost their job. Their partner left them. 

Soon, because life isn't perfect, they began to show up infrequently in meetings (including their home group). They then no longer showed up in meetings where they were formerly regulars. Silence about them follows for awhile. Then the dreaded news on the AA grapevine confirms they have picked up a drink and are off and running with it once again. 

The pattern is a familiar one and it always ends badly, often fatally. The lucky ones return to AA and I've never heard one of them come back raving about how great it was to be out there drinking again. How happy their families were to see them back knee-walking drunk. How their boss said it was great seeing them back enjoying their hard drinking lunch hours once again.

 Nope. Not a one of them. 

But here's your good news  - once alcohol is our of our systems our decision to pick up a drink is just that, a decision, and it's one we never ever again have to make. 

We can, instead, hang on to our decision to remain sober.

Keep Coming Back! 

This AA thing works - when we work it!

 

 

Made a Decision.

Are We Having Fun Yet?

Recovery is a serious business. Staying away from alcohol (and all other drugs) requires a daily commitment. It is the most important thing we can do, because without our sobriety we stand to lose everything ...  family, job, health, life.

But, as our book tells us, "We are not a grim lot." Nor are we meant to be. In addition to being serious business, recovery is also meant to be joyful. 

We wouldn't let our car chug along burning oil, thumping forward on a flat tire or with banging noises in the engine. Just so, we need to pay attention when recovery feels like it is all work and no play.

If we're sober, but depressed. 

Sober, but unhappy. 

Sober, but feeling like it's all a bit boring ... 

It's time for an AA tune up.

Freedom from alcohol and drugs also frees us to enjoy our recovery and every other aspect of our lives. 

We find the fun! 

We find those things that make us happy. 

In my first year in sobriety, a friend of mine with the same amount of sober time decided sobriety wasn't much fun - and I agreed. 

So on the following Friday night we got all dolled up and went out looking for fun. 

We ate at a nice restaurant, which was nice, but at that point we drew a blank. Our “fun” had always involved barroom drinking, dancing, and flirting. 

We discovered we had no idea what to do next. 

What we eventually did was end up at the kitchen table of another friend in early recovery. 

There we drank pots of coffee, gossiped happily about every other member of AA, told each other more of our drinking war stories, and laughed hysterically into the wee hours of the morning. 

For many of us finding fun things to add to our lives means going back in time to our childhood to remember what fun looked like then: 

Roller skating? Football? A doll house? Jumping rope? Bike riding? Drawing pictures? Reading? Building a tree house or snow fort? Hiking in the woods?

 Playing with our friends?

Once we've scoured memory lane for those tidbits we can consider doing some of those things again. We'll probably find we have outgrown many childhood pleasures, but a few might surprise us by still being quite a nice fit.

We can even invite our children or grandchildren to share in our rediscoveries ... or not.  

We can always opt to share our fun, but we also have the right to be joyous, happy and free on our own

 if we so choose.  

Sad to say, our years of substance abuse took away our simple delight in just being alive, 

but recovery can restore it. 

 

Many alcoholics are also workaholics. When we find ourselves forced into having some down time we use it sit

around worrying. Where's the fun in that?

Discovering the ability to leave the job at quitting time, to rest when we're tired, to discover what we most enjoy - from building a house to just pottering around in the one we have - is the best part of having a sober life.

We must always remember we have a disease of perception. How we view our activities can brighten them with glitter or turn them gunmetal grey.

Prayer and meditation lift our spirits, center us, educate us, provide companionship, and offer us a journey of adventure - 

and/or - 

prayer and meditation are just something we do hurriedly (if done at all) as just one more recovery box to tick.  

Perception!

Service work is where we can grow our recovery by leaps and bounds. Becoming active in our home group, taking a turn chairing, serving as a greeter, helping plan and deliver special events can turn out to be some of the most fun we've ever had ... 

and/or ... 

Service work can be a drudgery to nourish our resentments: 

"THEY expect ME to do everything. 

Wah, Wah, Wah."  

Perception!

FYI - If "they" aren't doing-the-doing, "they" aren't reaping all the benefits recovery has to offer either. 

It's their loss! 

And they also put themselves at risk for relapse by not doing-the-doing. 

Learning the steps, learning how to use them as tools for living a balanced life, offers us the opportunity to get to know who we really are, to discover our strengths, to experience our talents to the full. 

To not do the steps, to not work them, use them, treasure them - all of them - is to deny ourselves all the benefits of a joyful recovery.

Meetings are our ongoing medicine for treating our disease. 

And getting to our meetings is one of the best parts of being a member of AA. Knowing we'll see our friends there, getting to laugh with one another, getting to help one another through our bad patches, and celebrate our good times together, is hugely important to our recovery.

It's a good idea to ask ourselves from time to time, 

"Am I having fun yet?" 

 

If our answer is "no," we may be taking ourselves far too seriously. 

Our lives didn't end when we got sober, that's when it truly began. 

Find your fun today!

 

Made a Decision

                   The Courage to Change

                    Courage is the willingness to accept fear and act anyway.

It takes courage to face the harsh fact that we are powerless over alcohol and that our lives have become unmanageable. 

Facing the truth about our addiction wasn't easy, nor is the process of embracing a new way of life without alcohol, but once we've made that decision a new and better way of living can begin.

The best news is that our Higher Power hands out courage like gumdrops to those who actively ask for it - and then apply it. We don't have to face any of the changes required of us in sobriety alone. 

Alcohol is a depressant. Our drinking life became a life of depression. Today we are too blessed to be depressed. And it was/is being willing to change that sets us free.

As  Bill W. said way back in 1965: 

Let us never fear needed change ... once a need becomes clearly apparent in an individual, in a group, or in A.A. as a whole, it has long since been found out that we cannot stand still and look the other way. The essence of all growth is a willingness to change for the better and then an unremitting willingness to shoulder whatever responsibility this entails.

And what does changing to get and stay sober entail?  At its most basic it means we make a daily commitment to remaining sober. 

For some that means asking our Higher Power for sobriety each morning upon awakening, and thanking Him that night for our having had another sober day.

Many AA members devote a considerable amount of time to prayer and meditation to get their day started right. Others just check in with their Higher Power throughout the day as needed. 

Meetings become a priority and we list in our daily planner which ones we'll be attending that day. We'll list our AA service commitments there, too. 

Hanging out with our friends in recovery is also important. They need our support after all ... and we need theirs! Our AA friendships -  formed on the anvil of learning how to actually be a good friend - are a vital component of staying sober in our early sobriety. It is where we learn (quite possibly for the first time ever) that friends are not required to be our clones. It is where we begin to learn to appreciate our differences or at least to begin embracing the concept of acceptance!

We all have different opinions, different ways of living, and different ways of working our program. But as long as we're staying sober and doing our best to help others, all of that is OK. 

In fact, it's as it should be. 

      As Bill W. himself also said - 

        Our very first problem is to accept our present circumstances as they are, ourselves as we are, and the people about us as they are. This is to adopt a realistic humility without which no genuine advance can even begin. Again and again, we shall need to return to that unflattering point of departure. 

This is an exercise in acceptance that we can profitably practice every day of our lives. Provided we strenuously avoid turning these realistic surveys of the facts of life into unrealistic alibis for apathy or defeatism, they can be the sure foundation upon which increased emotional health and therefore spiritual progress can be built.

A drinking life is not a normal life. When we drink heavily our bodies take real punishment. Drunks don't eat properly, sleep well, and we live in continual mental turmoil. Excessive alcohol intake physically causes our brains to actually swell, so we go through our drinking life "thinking" with a swollen brain. No wonder we used to make some pretty bad decisions! 

A few weeks into sobriety we will begin to  notice the difference as our minds clear up and our bodies start to relax. By the time we approach our second sober anniversary we'll probably have more mental and physical energy than we've ever had before.

Progressing in sobriety has been compared to building a house. First the foundation is poured by quitting drinking. Then rooms are added one by one as we begin to work the steps and practice the program.  Over time our building skills vastly improve and we are able to furnish our homes comfortably.

 I also like the analogy of living sober being a lot like baking a cake. We read a recipe, add the ingredients in order, mix it thoroughly, bake it for a period of time and - voila - we get a cake.

 In recovery we read the Big Book (recipe), do what it suggests in order, stir it around though every experience life offers us, and then "bake" it one sober day at a time until - voila - we find ourselves living our sober life, that one "beyond our wildest dreams." 

When we arrived in AA a sober life seemed like an impossible dream. It felt unnatural. But as our sober journey progresses we marvel that we ever sought escape in a bottle - or anything else.

Fact - No comfort can be found in "what was" once "what was" has became a death sentence.

Fact - We can't make any progress without making decisions.

Fact - Our program of recovery gives us a blueprint on How to Change for the better.

 

Fact -  Change offers us power.

Fact - Life is about movement. It is meant to be exciting and adventurous.

So go now and live yourself a factual sober life! 

Because all this works - when we work it!

 

Made A Decision

                                            Turn It Over

AA is all a bit confusing at first.

There's all that friendliness to deal with: "Hi, I'm Bill, Welcome!"

Encouragement: "You are the most important person in this room" ... "Keep coming back!"

Instructions: "You'll need to find a sponsor to take you through the Steps" ... "Read the Big Book" ... "Take it One Day at a Time."

Most of us respond with wariness or relief, fear or hope, confusion or willingness ... or something in between. But as long as we keep coming back, it soon all falls comfortably into place.

That first powerless-over-alcohol-step was the big one. The one we had to accept 100 percent, even though many of us weren't yet even sure we were alcoholics. (I was one of those). Coming to understand our powerlessness can take us a bit of time. 

And that's OK, as long as we keep attending meetings to listen and learn. 

The second step immediately gave us a loophole, in that "came to believe" wording. 

"Whew," past tense, we won't have to "come to believe" right away, we thought. 

Then - right on its heels - that Third Step arrived, instructing us to turn our will and our life over to that Higher Power, the one we weren't even sure we believed in yet!

How in the Hell are we supposed to be able to do that???

It's was easier than we could believe at first. As it says in our wonderful 12 & 12 book:

No matter how one wishes to try, exactly how can he turn his own will and his own life over to the care of whatever God he thinks there is? A beginning, even the smallest, is all that is needed.

Once we have placed the key of willingness in the lock and have the door ever so slightly open, we find that we can always open it some more.

Though self-will may slam it shut again, as it frequently does, it will always respond the moment we again pick up the key of willingness.

Many of us arrive in AA with a belly full of fed up about God. And our program makes it clear there is no need to have a personal deity to stay sober. There are many agnostics and atheists in AA with long term sobriety.

The only requirement for any of us is to acknowledge our inability to "control" our drinking and accept there may be something more powerful than us for help with that. 

Recovery is a journey, not a destination. The spiritual path is our never-ending story. We learn as we go and we never stop learning. That's why you'll find old farts like me still attending meetings after decades of sober living. "More will be revealed" - remains absolutely true. 

"Wanting what we want when we want it" is part of our alcoholic wiring. Our early superiority complex (hiding our second inferiority one) tells us, "I've got this sobriety thing," even when we have just barely begun our spiritual journey.

And if we are staying sober, we have indeed "got this" - but we've got this for today only. 

Learning that, internalising it, is part of the spiritual rewiring that takes place in recovery OVER TIME. Our lifetime of self-centeredness can't be reversed all at once. There are many things to be learned and rebellion can dog our every step at first.

 Newsflash - that's normal!

There's a funeral involved on our graduation day from AA, so I'm personally in no hurry to get there! Recovery is an adventure. It's interesting, challenging, and much of it (but not all) is downright fun. And the more we turn things over to our Higher Power for higher guidance, the easier it becomes!

An alcoholic can never get well, if by "well" we mean being able to safely drink again. But can we stay sober? Absolutely. We can stay sober every day for the rest of our lives - as long as we do it in manageable one-day-at-a-time chunks.

We first turn our drinking problem (and eventually every other problem) over to a Power greater than us. Millions ask that Power every morning to keep us sober and thank that Power at bedtime for another sober day. It never fails us when we do it, or at least that has been my own experience. You can easily make it your experience, too.

Our Big Book states:

When we became alcoholics, crushed by a self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or evade, we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing. God either is or He isn't.

Our spiritual path is an individual one, lived collectively. We get guidance from our literature, our sponsor, and our AA friends, but we don't find God by reading or word of mouth. We learn - and earn - our faith by living it in our own individual way, although honesty and carrying the message is always involved. 

AA eventually brought me to a personal God, a companion for my life journey that I can trust to look out for me. It didn't happen overnight.

It didn't happen quickly. I traveled up and down many spiritual by-paths before becoming comfortable with my own quirky, humorous, tough-love, ever-present God.

I am gradually learning to want God's will for me above all else. This requires prayer and meditation on my part to - little by slowly - gain more spiritual understandings.

 I block God's communication with me when I allow my inherent selfishness, dishonesty, fear or resentment to reappear and settle in. Steps 10 and 11 protect me from that.

 I'll never reach spiritual perfection (damnit), but I can work on improving.

Letting go of our pride allows our Higher Power to get hands-on in dealing with any problems we may face. We can learn to upload our problems on to broader shoulders. Serenity then becomes part of our daily bread. And joy butters it.

Does God speak to me? Yes, but seldom directly. (He did once, very early in my sobriety, and it - literally - scared the Hell out of me.) Instead I get nudges, whispers in the wind, conversations with AA friends and my sponsor, many magnificent displays from nature, and in songs and books that clearly address my own issues. 

God’s subtle ways of communication are surely true for each of us. We only need to pay attention, and life is our school.

The Big Big Book (Bible) gives us the tale of the son who tired of living the life of a wastrel and returned to his family. At the end of the story, the father of that Prodigal Son says: "He was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found."  We alcoholics who have found sobriety in A.A. were certainly in that same category, and it is God - "the Father" - who restores us to our real, sober selves.

All of us have surely felt the Divine Presence at the seaside, under a spectacular night sky, hiking in breathtaking mountain scenery or planting in our own gardens? I know that I have.

I've also felt God in a handful of meetings over the years, present as a Force so powerful it changed the hearts and minds of everyone there, including mine.

Keep coming back.

 

Made A Decision

                                       Freedom from Fear

AA has a lot of glib talkers. People so afflicted will sometimes say things that aren't true in pursuit of a better story. They will claim recovery has taught them to never lie, or that they no longer lose their tempers, or to have any fears about anything.

Hearing such blanket statements should activate our bullshit alarm.

True, we may no longer tell lies in every other sentence. We may also not rage at people anymore, but watch what happens when those who now never lose their tempers stub their toe.

As for losing all fear, remember Bill Wilson himself said:

The achievement of freedom from fear is a lifetime undertaking, one that can never be wholly completed. When under heavy attack, acute illness, or in other conditions of serious insecurity, we shall all react to this emotion - well or badly, as the case may be. Only the self-deceived will claim perfect freedom from fear.

Fear is a big one for us drunks. Many of us (most?) drank mainly to escape the fears that plagued us, that kept us awake in the wee hours and dogged our footsteps throughout every day. Drink let us escape them for awhile, so drink we did.

As it says in the 12 & 12:

At heart we had all been abnormally fearful. It mattered little whether we had sat on the shore of life drinking ourselves into forgetfulness or had plunged in recklessly and willfully beyond our depth and ability. The result was the same - all of us had nearly perished in a sea of alcohol.

What were we afraid of?

  Failure; Risk; Pain; Loneliness; Rejection; Intimacy; Abandonment; Appearing or sounding stupid; God's punishment; Poverty; Being homeless; What others might think; Doctors, Being exploited; Missing our one big chance in life; Flying; Leaving our house; Being laughed at; Making mistakes; Lawyers; Wrong decisions; Travel; Loss; Dangerous weather; Spiders; Diseases; Dentists  ... name it, we've feared it.

And we can still fear many of those things named above - and more - long into our recovery. The major difference is, we no longer have to drink over them.

When we first face the daunting task of writing a 4th Step, knowing it will be followed by a 5th Step, most of us are instantly filled with fear.

 Who wants to shine a spotlight on our darker deeds? 

And who on earth would want to share that knowledge with anyone??? 

Our pride and ego are in for a real hit in doing steps Four and Five - but the mental freedom that follows is the gateway to overcoming fear and finding courage.

 And it takes courage to stick with a sober journey. It is virtually impossible to progress along the spiritual path without it. But courage is not the absence of fear, it is the willingness to move forward despite it. 

Fears create most of our most insane thoughts and moments. Whenever we're anxious, hyper, or sleepless in Seattle (or elsewhere), we might consider pondering if there is a fear happening beneath it all. Often there is.

Fear gives us fluttering stomach butterflies when we are asked to share our story in an AA meeting. Courage then takes a deep breath, shares its experience, strength and hope, and in so doing set those butterflies free to fly away while we are actively helping others. 

We gain courage from the examples set by others in our fellowship. We gain confidence, hope and security just by being in a meeting and listening to others share their experiences.

We hear a lot of acronyms for F.E.A.R. in meetings:

False Expectations Appearing Real ...  

Frustration, Ego, Anxiety, Resentment ... 

And, my personal favorite: Fuck Everything And Run.

Much of our recovery deals with letting go of fear.  We do so by learning to rely on the God of our understanding, on our program, on each other, and eventually on ourselves.

Becoming less fearful takes time in recovery, just like every other part of sober living. And just when we think we maybe - just maybe - have got a handle on this fear thing, we get new things to be fearful about - like losing our health, or old age, or how the world will manage to survive after we die.

 But as my first sponsor used to often tell me, "God didn't bring you this far to drop you on your head." 

(I must still remind myself of that from time to time.)

Author C.S. Lewis once pointed out what we all learn over and over again in AA:  "Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done."

"Courage is fear that has said its prayers."

Recovery requires us to learn to be responsible for - and to control - our thoughts. Our Higher Power stands ready to help us with that when we say (often!) that quiet and powerful prayer, "Thy will, not mine, be done."

When we were drinking we made a lot of foxhole prayers - "Dear God please get me out of this mess and I promise I will never, ever, drink again." But learning how to pray in sobriety is the real deal.This is where we can actually connect with that Higher Power who wants our sobriety every bit as much as we do, and then some.

 God doesn't want or need lengthy petitions. He already knows what we want and, as long as sobriety is at the top of our lengthy WANT list, He will absolutely supply our every NEED.

We alcoholics are not alone in living in troubling times in a troubled world. While the pursuit of material success and possessions remains the focus of many, we find success by seeking spiritual direction through the continual working of our 12-steps. Doing so deepens our faith, which then calms and quiets our minds.

Our Big Book tells us: 

Faith has to work twenty-four hours a day in and through us, or we perish. We hear in our meetings - The solution is simple. The solution is spiritual.

Our AA founders knew this. Sister Ignatia, the nurse who worked closely with Dr. Bob, pointed out: 

There was one thing that always irritated (the) Doctor. Some people who were on the program for a length of time would come up to him and say, "I don't get the spiritual angle." I heard him say time and again, "There is no spiritual angle. It's a spiritual program."

We attempt to learn spiritual principles because we must, once we understand that our recovery is a live or die situation.
Eventually we accept sticking to our spiritual path, because we've learned it makes our life easier.

And when the road signs found along our spiritual path eventually read "Joyous," "Happy" and "Free," we will have finally learned living a life of obedience to our Higher Power is truly life's easier, softer way.