Made A Decision

What a Healthy AA Group looks Like

A healthy, thriving, productive, supportive AA group is a beautiful thing. It is made up of an eclectic mix of people having long-middle-and-new lengths of sobriety who stand ready to welcome and help the brand-newcomer by sharing their collective experience in staying sober.

Members of a healthy AA group sponsor and have sponsors; participate in service work for their group and AA as a whole; offer educational programs about AA for themselves and for the public; know the 12 steps and 12 traditions of AA; share when asked to share, chair when asked to chair; and hang out with one another socially outside of meetings. They also step aside without resentment when it's time for younger members to more fully participate in service positions inside the group. 

Google says there are currently more than 123,000 AA groups around the world, that AA literature has been translated into more than 100 languages (I recently heard that number is up to 123), and there are more than two million people in AA recovery today. AA depends on each and every one of those members to do his or her fair share, because the work inside AA groups is 100 percent voluntary. 

Newcomers, of course, have to find their feet and are allowed to sit on the sidelines soaking up recovery for a bit, but once they are over their initial fears and confusion they're encouraged to do their share and to participate in 12-step work. Once they do so they become a vital part of AA. (Note: I wasn't "encouraged" by my mostly-all-male first AA group. I was told to do a variety of service jobs in ways that left no escape hatch.) 

Being an active sober member of an active healthy AA group is exhilarating. We can't wait to get to our meetings where we participate fully. In our supportive group's atmosphere we learn by doing how to live a life of "right actions," and from them we soon start to feel good about ourselves.

As Seamus, my dear Irish friend in recovery, once told me: "Learning and teaching are players in the same game. If either one stops, everything becomes heavy and ceases to be fun. Learning is the reward for respecting life and teaching is the fruit of experiencing life."

Healthy AA groups offer a mixture of meeting programs, from personal sharing from one speaker; to topic meetings where steps, traditions, gratitude, service, sponsorship, and other related AA topics are opened for group discussion; "study meetings," where AA's literature is read and hashed over; and general discussion meetings about what's going on in each of our lives and how we're applying our program of recovery to our life situations.

Healthy AA groups offer special workshops, too, to further educate its members - and even the public - about what AA has to offer. Members invite people in the legal, teaching and medical professions to attend their "open" meetings (open to all, not just alcoholics) to learn what AA is all about and what it has to offer.  (Note: I'd personally like to see a lot more of this done.)

A healthy group doesn't skip over the basics. The AA Preamble, How it Works, the 12 Traditions and very often The Big Book Promises are read aloud at every meeting. A favorite prayer brings  the meeting to a close.

While AA members do network among themselves and often employ one another's legal, artistic, building, plumbing, or other skills outside of meetings, we don't focus on such activities inside our meetings. We are not an employment agency. Nor are we treatment centers, social service practitioners, religious institutions, or medical advisors. We are one-time drunks who have escaped the ravages of alcoholism who meet to share our knowledge of AA recovery with one another - and to help newcomers find sobriety. 

We - each of us - have all the qualifications necessary to share our own story of suffering and escape from our disease in a manner newcomers can identify with. 

Protecting AA's primary purpose is an enormous responsibility and a healthy AA group recognizes that fact. Its members know there are millions of suffering alcoholics in need of what AA has to offer. Carrying that message to the still-suffering alcoholic remains its priority. 

Are there unhealthy AA groups? Sure. Fortunately they are fairly uncommon. But even though they usually don't last long, they can do plenty of damage while still in operation. These are those groups made up of one, or sometimes a small clique, of "bleeding deacons," old-timers who offer "my way or the highway" advice to newcomers, then talk (and talk, and talk) at length when it's their turn to share and discount (or don't even know) AA's written traditions. 

My best advice, once you're sure a group is unhealthy for you, is to go find yourself a healthy one - even if that means having to start a group yourself. Because, as is said in the "Big, Big Book" .... "Where two or three are banded together, I will be there in the midst of them." 

And when our Higher Power has a healthy AA group of people banded together with the single purpose of helping others and themselves, miracles can - and do - happen. You won't want to miss being a part of all that!

 

Merry Meet(ings) and Season Sober 

The Thanksgiving holiday is approaching like the seasonal train wreck it often is for folks in recovery, so the current topic de jour at meeting after meeting - both now and throughout the rest of the "most wonderful time of the year" - will be "How to stay sober throughout the holidays."

We might also aspire to stay sane, too, but if all you manage is sober you've done enough from now until the New Year arrives.

All these same-topic meetings right now are being held for a reason. It's more the ice in the glass and not on the pavement that causes "slips" this time of year.

Holiday parties and family gatherings plus seasonal stress loom like minefields for a sober alcoholic - especially for those in recovery facing their first sober holiday season.

It can feel pretty overwhelming when every other ad on TV seems filled with people hoisting glasses of "cheer" - in their perfect homes, with their perfect families and lovely friends - all happily toasting the season.

Spoiler alert: There are NO families like that.

 Nor is the alcoholic world celebrated in those ads. None show the family drunk starting a row at the Thanksgiving gathering, or knocking over the Christmas tree, spilling the Hanukkah wine all over the spotless white tablecloth, telling inappropriate stories, snogging in a closet with another drunken guest, puking beside the toilet, or burning the holiday festival dinner to a crisp.

Those of us who have done those things - and worse - rightfully fear doing them again. So that's when we need to haul ass to our safe place, our meetings. They become our refuge - and sometimes even hiding place - until all the seasonal madness is over. 

I should note there are also a small number of A.A. members who will go into the holiday season with perhaps a bit more confidence than is warranted. Confidence is a good thing, but it's always a good idea to be on guard against the cunning, baffling and powerful nature of our disease.

As it points out in the book, Living Sober, regarding the biochemical, unchangeable nature of our ailment:  Alcoholism respects no ifs. It does not go away, not for a week, for a day, or even for an hour, leaving us nonalcoholic and able to drink again on some special occasion or for some extraordinary reason - not even if it is a once-in-a-lifetime celebration, or if a big sorrow hits us, or if it rains in Spain, or the stars fall on Alabama. Alcoholism is for us unconditional, with no dispensations available at any price.

We need to remember to thank our Higher Power for Zoom meetings 24/7 around the world, for our local in-person meetings, our own home group, and our AA network of friends - all ready, willing and able to help us get through the holidays sober.

Back-to-back marathon meetings in AA clubhouses offer a warm welcome for those alone when it feels like anything other than the most wonderful time of the year.  AA holiday celebrations are held in big cities, small towns and even in very rural areas worldwide. The sharing and celebrations are there for any of us if we're in need - or even if we just want to hang out with those people who most understand us.

A lot of AA groups offer us sober fellowship of all kinds this month. There are AA dances, holiday parties, potluck dinners and other special gatherings. I've personally brought in many a brand new year in my local AA clubhouse and would do it again this year were there an AA clubhouse nearby.

We can head for a meeting anytime we need to escape from the seeming non-stop round of family gatherings, shopping marathons, office parties, and other places where we fear hearing those incredulous faces saying - "Surely you can have just one drink at CHRISTMAS?!!" 

Making our sober plan is more important than sending out cards, buying candles, or wrapping presents. Sober planning requires many meetings, remembering to H.A.L.T when we are feeling hungry, angry, lonely or tired, and for planning beforehand a way out of situations when we start feeling stressed. 

First and foremost, get in touch with your own personal brand of Higher Power before you head out to any holiday event. It's the way to renew your courage and to know, with H.P. backing, you will be victorious over any situation you may encounter.

If single and invited to a plus-one party, take along a friend in recovery. Decide with them on a signal and excuse for leaving beforehand should one of you start to get uncomfortable.

Family gatherings can be more tricky. One or two people there may be supportive of our sobriety, but others - especially those who drink like we did - may feel threatened by it and continually push us to have "just one glass."

The key here is to let people know on arrival you have another holiday party to go to after this one. (No one needs to know your other gathering is an AA meeting). Then get the basic must-do part of the visit out of the way (exchanging gifts, eating dinners, lighting candles, whatever) before heading out as soon as possible to your "next holiday party." Everyone knows there are many parties around the holidays, some of them on the same afternoons or evenings, so the "next holiday party" ploy works equally well for quickly escaping the often dreaded office party.

The good news is we have our A.A. family to validate, support, encourage and get us safely through the holiday season (and all other life events). With them we don't have to explain our discomfort at being surrounded by people drinking, and trays full of more drinks on offer. 

All the meetings about holiday hazards help get us centered for the tinsel-strewn days ahead. There will be people in them who have stayed sober through all the dangers of holidays past. They assure us, if they could do it, we can do. 

And they're right. 

Keep Sober!

 

                          

Made A Decision

              A.A. Can Not Survive Without Our Traditions 

Like most of us I had very little interest in A.A.'s Twelve Traditions in my early recovery. 

I listened to How It Works when it was read (mostly), but I tuned out the Traditions completely, focusing instead on that new guy who just came in, or on pondering a problem at work, or on worrying about unpaid bills, or whatever else crowded my monkey-mind for attention.

Learning about the Traditions came later, studying them came later still. But eventually over time in recovery I began to appreciate their value; to marvel at the job they do keeping A.A. together and strong.  I finally now regard them with the awe they deserve.

In our book The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions - known mostly as "the 12 & 12" - it states: 

On anvils of experience, the structure of our Society was hammered out . . . Thus has it been with A.A. By faith and by works we have been able to build upon the lessons of an incredible experience. They live today in the Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous, which - God willing - shall sustain us in unity for so long as He may need us.

Your assignment today, should you choose to learn something, is to delve deeper into A.A.'s fascinating history. There's plenty of material available including what you'll find by merely reading our Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous and the 12 & 12. 

But there are other books, too. Jump onto Google and find some. You'll come away from learning about our history with more appreciation of our program and the people who welded it together for us. The Traditions are a huge part of that story. 

And you'll get more than a few laughs when reading those books, too. I have found identification with my own behavior in all of them (my laughter is often rueful), and I'll bet cash money you will, too. 

In A.A. literature we find acceptance and acknowledge our immaturity, character defects, and emotional struggles. We accept our flaws and work to eliminate them, or at least reduce them to a manageable size. 

So for our earliest members, most of them low bottom drunks who drank alcoholically for decades, to have come up with our Traditions is truly a God-directed-miracle.

Don't think so? 

Sit in on a few group conscience meetings in your Home Group and listen to the things we drunks can find to argue passionately about. 

In them I am often reminded of the old joke about the guy who stopped to get gas in a very small town in the states. While the attendant was pumping the gas (I told you this was an OLD joke) he noticed two churches within view of the gas station, one on either side of the road.

"Are there enough people around here for two churches?," he asked. "Why don't they build just one bigger one?"

"Won't happen," the attendant replied. "That church over there," he said, pointing, "Sez 'there ain't no Hell and the other one sez 'the hell there ain't.'"

There was a big flap in an A.A. group recently when one member took exception to people clapping in appreciation after a guest speaker finished his share. One irritated member said applause was out of line in an A.A. meeting because it would inflate the ego of the speaker.

Another member took exception, pointing out we alcoholics often have self-esteem issues and are nervous about sharing anyway, so a warm round of applause was encouraging, not ego-building.

This difference of opinion heated up enough to make it all the way to the General Service Office for resolution. There the group was reminded of its autonomy and it was suggested members take a Group Conscience vote on how they wanted the issue handled in their own meeting.

Our Founders - Dr. Bob and Bill W. - big letter writers, shared their thoughts on these kinds of issues often. Here's one example taken from letters written in 1949 and 1956:

 We used to be skeptical about large A.A. gatherings like conventions, thinking they might prove too exhibitionistic. But, on balance, their benefit is huge. 

While each A.A.'s interest should center principally in those about him and upon his own group, it is both necessary and desirable that we all get a larger vision of the whole. 

The General Service Conference in New York also produces this effect upon those who attend. It is a vision-stretching process. 

A.A. has always had to bring itself back to the place of unity. Without it none of us would have a place to recovery from our deadly disease. So, like toddlers learning to reluctantly share our toy blocks in playschool, we learn how to practice creating unity within our groups. 

Those who initially are unable to play nice with others often leave a group and start another one. Oldtimers used to say all that was needed to start a new group was a resentment and a coffee pot. And they were right. Our amazing program didn't spread across the entire world based entirely on saintly spiritual leadership. 

As our 12 & 12 points out:  Over the years, every conceivable deviation from our Twelve Steps and Traditions have been tried. That was sure to be, since we are so largely a band of ego-driven individuals. Children of chaos, we have defiantly played with every brand of fire, only to emerge unharmed and, we think, wiser.

 These very deviations created a vast process of trial and error, which, under the grace of God, has brought us to where we stand today . . . We saw that the group, exactly like the individual, must eventually conform to whatever tested principles would guarantee survival.

We hear it said in meetings that the steps protect me from myself; the traditions protect AA from me. I've also heard that expressed as the steps protect me from killing myself; the traditions keep me from killing others.

Like every living thing A.A. grows and changes. Alcoholics easily panic at the very thought of A.A. changing in any way other than how it was when they arrived. But take just the one example of Zoom meetings. These online meetings are one of the best things to ever happen to A.A., but they frightened many when Covid lockdown forced us into them. 

Zoom meetings are living proof when something bad happens (Covid), good things can and do result. 

When we enter a meeting our Traditions require us to leave the social worries of this world outside. We are in our meeting to learn how to stay sober through both good times and bad. Period.

We might chat before and after the meeting about social issues, but we do not do so in the meeting. We might even take anger over social issues into the parking lot and do battle, which I have seen happen a time or two.

But we leave all that outside the meeting room door or zoom square.

In our meetings we talk about our spiritual growth, but we don't talk about our personal religion. 

In the rooms we may say we are having problems in our relationship, but we don't trash our partner in the process.

If we are grieving over a world series or world cup loss (or election results) we can say we are grieving a loss or are happy about a win without having to get much more specific. 

 

No matter what is going on in the outside world we have cause for happiness every day because we are sober alcoholics. Our sobriety alone is cause for gratitude, because most alcoholics in the world are still out there suffering.

God has allowed all of us the right to be wrong, but in A.A we don't shame those there we may think are wrong. We are called to ask our Higher Power for the serenity to always love the best that life and A.A. has to offer. Knowing and practicing our Traditions, both inside and outside the program, allows us do that.

Making the Traditions our groups' priority has allowed A.A. to exist as it does today. 

And, if we continue to try and place God's will first in our lives, and in our groups, A.A. will remain able to keep us all sober. It will also allow it to be there for that frightened newcomer when he or she arrives at our door. 

 

Made a Decision

                                    The “M” Word

As an alcoholic I would rather talk than think.

As an alcoholic I would rather pray than meditate.

As an alcoholic I will usually put off meditation until I can’t put it off any longer.

The above pretty much sums me up in a nutshell.

(It’s no accident that I use the word “nutshell” here, either! This “nut” has always had a tough shell to crack, but fortunately my HP doesn’t  hesitate to apply pressure when needed.)

My first thought about meditation is "I don't wanna." 

It's the same thought I have when I know it's time to go to bed. And for the same reason. 

My mind doesn't even begin to shut up for at least fifteen minutes of my trying to quiet it for meditative purposes. 

Sleep takes much, much longer. Sometimes it never arrives at all.

Some days my mind never shuts up at all, either. It will start to settle down for a bit and then flare up again. And even though I have occasionally had wonderfully quiet moments, where undulating colors moved visibly and slowly in my head, those times are rare indeed. Meditation is just very hard for my monkey mind to adjust to. 

I try to get comfortable. 

My nose itches.

I sit relaxed, eyes shut. 

My neck hurts.

I focus on breathing in … and breathing out ... waiting for my mind to be quiet.

“Natter, natter, natter,” my mind says. 

“BE QUIET,” I think.

“NATTER, NATTER, NATTER,” my mind replies.

And so it goes until I accept that’s probably just what my mind is going to meditate on today, my natter natter thoughts. 

For a long old time in recovery I would quit trying to meditate after days like that. I’d resolve to give it another go at a later date. Often that date would turn out to be a much later date.

I have tackled my meditation problem many times. I've tried TM (Transcendental Meditation); meditation during yoga; Getting into the Gap for meditation (complete with CD to get me there); have watched YouTube instructions, and have pretty much used every meditation technique for dummies I could get my hands on. Even so, when I sit down to meditate, it remains a crap shoot.

But I do it, and even though my ability remains imperfect, I refuse to should on myself about that. 

One of these days I will probably be a powerful daily meditator, because living a sober spiritual life demands continuous action.

It’s really easy to procrastinate about this meditation thing, though,

 because procrastination is the addict’s default position:

“I’ll quit drinking tomorrow.” 

 “I’ll find a sponsor soon.”

 “I’ll think about creating a healthy diet for myself later.”

 “One of these days I’ll quit smoking and vaping.” 

“I really should do more service work in AA.”

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, that’s our game. 

The sad thing is that behavior not only keeps pain in our lives, it attracts more pain to us.

Our literature tells us Prayer is asking a question; meditation is listening to the answer.

                       Recovery strives to teach us to slow down. 

                               Meditation, at least in part, teaches us how to slow down.

When we are with others we need to be with them wholeheartedly. 

But when we are by ourselves we learn to be alone with God. 

                                          We learn to slow down by taking time out. 

                    And Meditation helps us learn what the presence of God feels like. 

So, of course, I continue to try to spend time quieting myself, getting centered, becoming relieved of my own tiresome, worrisome, obsessive thoughts.

 Of course I do. 

Of course we must.  

I have also come to believe there is no such thing as a “bad” meditation. 

Like prayer, about which it is said, “trying to pray is praying,” I think the same applies to meditating.

Mostly my end game is to just sit and do my best to be quiet. I try to think about God (not pray to God), while searching for answers to questions I've read we might ask during meditation, like: What is my gift to share? What is trying to be revealed in my life? What is my purpose in life today? Why am I still here on this planet? I listen for answers, both then and in the hours and days that follow. 

Answers do arrive and they arrive in God's time.  (God has waaaaaaaay more patience than I do, but patience remains one of my life lessons yet to be fully learned).

Our literature, tongue in cheek, tells us how long we need to meditate for every day, too:

Daily meditation for about 20 minutes is recommended for all in recovery; unless, of course, you’re very busy, – then you should meditate for an hour. 

There's this guidance from the Big Book, written when our members were still just in the hundreds. Our numbers are in the millions today, but the same applies: 

When many hundreds of people are able to say that the consciousness of the presence of God is today the most important fact of their lives, they present a powerful reason why one should have faith. 

The 12 & 12 offers: Meditation is something which can always be further developed. It has no boundaries, either of width or height. Aided by such instruction and example as we can find, it is essentially an individual adventure, something which each one of us works out in his own way.

Google informs us that:  The word meditation is mentioned 37 times in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. It is also specifically called out in Step 11. However, many AA members struggle to embrace the concept of meditation for alcoholics.

As one of those who has struggled, I can also tell you it’s worth the struggle. 

There truly is more to our life than increasing its speed. 

So even if meditation is as difficult for you as it has always been for me, try to meditate. 

Imperfect as I remain I’m still a satisfied customer, because the rewards are many.  

Besides, I’ll bet you’ll be a lot better at meditation than I am. 

One of AA’s well-known gurus, author Chuck Chamberlin, once wrote: 

You can have a God-centered life and suffer the consequences, or you can have a Self-centered life and suffer the consequences.

There are always consequences for our actions and meditation brings us consequences, too. It brings us good ones.

 

                  When We Don't Know How to Pray

              Thought to Ponder: Nobody ever found recovery as a result of an intellectual awakening.

There are only two things we need to know about prayer and meditation for staying sober:

                        (1)  We have to start doing them, and, (2) We have to continue.

A dear AA friend once gave me a copy of The 12 Step Prayer Book. It's a lovely little book that contains a lot of very beautiful prayers written for us folks in recovery. It contains a few annoying ones, too, but then I am easily annoyed by prayers.

I'm not as easily annoyed by them as I was when I first got here though, because then I was especially annoyed when a member would rhapsodize about the Prayers of St. Francis of Assisi, the one that asks God to make us  "an instrument of Your peace."

As a single working mom with four small children, aging parents, a job to keep, a house to manage, and all while staying sober, I thought I was doing plenty enough for others, thanks. 

I called that lovely prayer "the codependent prayer," and said so, often. 

 (Yes. I was that kind of AA member).

But our spiritual program of recovery doesn't much care if we like the idea of prayer or not, and it doesn't care if we enjoy meditating, either (more about which in next week's blog). It just "suggests" we do both if we want to stay sober. 

With sobriety upon my arrival into A.A. being my priority goal (then and still), I examined all the prayers I knew by heart. I found all two of them lacking: 

(1) 

The Lord's Prayer was too masculine for my taste 

(but not too Christian. Pray it and listen to the words.). 

So I altered it some. 

I still pray my version at bedtime. 

(2) 

My Mum had taught me a grim little bedtime prayer when I was very young: "Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray to God my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake. I pray thee, God, my soul to take." 

It was a bit scary when I was little to even think about not living through the night and I soon stopped praying it. Now that it's far more appropriate (though still disturbing) it has become part of my nighttime prayers once again.

Since I didn't get to AA with a headful of memorized prayer material I have had to cobble things together over the years. Some I'm quite pleased with, others not so much, but I do my best.

Being a creature who loves routine I tend to say the same old, same old, stuff, much of it written out by me as original prayers long ago, even knowing by then the only real prayer is to ask for knowledge of God's will for me and for the power to carry that out in that day. Today, In addition to "power," I ask for the energy, courage, ability and desire as well. 

I pray that, too, every day. 

But not until I've first bored blind the God of My understanding by naming my children, their partners, their own children, our pets, my friends, my sponsees, our pets, and then naming deceased loved ones, my country of origin, people affected by war, and climate change, and ... trust me, the list goes on (and on and on). These are my by rote prayers and I do them morning and evening, even though they often bore me, too.

My "real" prayers are those I mutter throughout the day when I appreciate something, accomplish something, find a missing something, hear from a loved one, have a nice surprise of any kind, cook a delicious meal for myself, paint a picture that turns out better than I had hoped, get a call from one of my sons, have a lengthy visit with my daughter, laugh with a grandchild, tell my dog he's a good boy, pet one of my pushy cats, and so on. 

My daily muttered prayers are all prayers of gratitude and they are pretty much ongoing these days.

But that was not always the case!

My life in early recovery still held a lot of turmoil, because I would still go full-on into situations in my time-honored fucked up way - and pay the penalty for that pretty much immediately. It took me a long old time to remember to ask my Higher Power to help me before I set out with my personal battering ram aimed to take down anything that got between me and what I wanted.

People in the states may remember those commercials where people would guzzle down a soda and then smack their forehead and cry, "I cudda had a V8" (a healthier veggie drink). 

In my case - after I had done damage - it was only then when I'd think, "Shit! I cudda said a prayer first."

Our Big Book says: When we see others solve their problems by simple reliance upon some Spirit of the universe, we have to stop doubting the power of God. Our ideas did not work, but the God-idea does. 

I now completely agree - but in the beginning we have to start to SEE it. And that can take us awhile.

Most alcoholics are perfectionist, people-pleasing, over-achieving, hard-driving neurotic accomplishers. A smaller number are procrastinators that won't leave a burning building until their clothing starts to smoke. We all have to come to terms with who we are and how to best work our 12-step program, our own prayers being a part of that. 

The main thing is we don't have to learn everything AA has to teach us in an afternoon. Our A.A. life is a journey and, like any journey, we learn the most by not trying to do too much, too fast.

SLOW-briety.

Spiritual gurus and philosophers through the ages have spent entire lifetimes pondering spiritual mysteries and truths. We drunks - guilt-fueled perhaps over years wasted in drinking - tend to want an understanding of the knowledge of the ages by next Thursday. 

Friday at the latest.

Reeeee-lax. 

Breathe. 

Slow the pace.

As long as we are staying clean and sober we are all exactly where we need to be at this stage of our recovery. 

We will all have our own battles in switching from a material viewpoint - the one fostered by our entire society and hammered into us by Madison Avenue jingles and other persuasions - to a more spiritual outlook. 

Some non-alcoholics make that change willingly, the vast majority do not, remaining focused on acquiring more "stuff," and often using the time-honored techniques of greed, arrogance, and selfish hoarding to get it. 

God has given every human free will to use as we choose, either for good or for evil.

 With us stubborn drunks, however, He has reigned us in a bit. 

In A.A. we soon learn we are pretty much doomed if we don't focus our life force on developing unselfish love, service and honesty. 

Given any other option in those early days of recovery we'd all still be drinking. 

True, we can still drink or drug if we choose to, but in our case, because our Higher Power knows us alkies so very well, He took our widdle hans and tied our widdle shoes, and then shooed us out onto the path to victory, like it or not.

Prayer is one of the most powerful ways for shifting our focus from the material to the eternal verities of life. I've come to the conclusion there is no wrong way to pray, as long as we do pray, and also that our prayer life grows and changes over time. 

Our Big Book talks about the power of prayer a lot, like this for instance: 

If a mere code of morals or a better philosophy of life were sufficient to overcome alcoholism, many of us would have recovered long ago. But we found that such codes and philosophies did not save us, no matter how much we tried ... Our human resources, as marshalled by the will, were not sufficient, they failed utterly. Lack of power that was our dilemma ...

Here the Big Book there launches into finding that power, that seeking God in prayer gives us that power. The entire book is in fact stuffed with that same information presented both in the text and its stories of recovery. 

Science has weighed in, too. It has discovered prayer which elicits feelings of love and compassion for others releases a nice hit of serotonin and dopamine into our own brains. As most of us know, both of those are notably in short supply in alcoholic heads. 

One study of the psychological benefits of prayer states it may help reduce anxiety and stress, promote a more positive outlook, and strengthen the will to live. 

There are many days when any one of us can use a good dose of that!