Made A Decision

                   Fearless and Thorough

How It Works is read at our meetings and inside that lengthy reading we hear: We beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas, and the result was nil - until we let go absolutely.

Well, that’s another one of those puzzling messages. I certainly had only a vague idea of what it meant for quite a long time, but it has finally become more clear. 

It means we must get our hands off our problems - and all our old methods of working them out - and hand them over to that greater power, the one that actually knows what to do about them. 

It takes some of us (me for one) a damned long time to learn to do that.

My first sponsor once gave me a mug with these words on it: 

“Everything I’ve surrendered has my claw marks all over it.” 

(My first sponsor knew me very, very well.)

We alcoholics are a stubborn lot. Even in the face of repeated failure we will continue to launch our tried and untrue attacks at situations that never once has yielded to those same old solutions.

The clearest example is for us to remember the way we held onto the idea that WE would ultimately get our drinking under control. 

WE didn’t need help with that. 

WE would eventually be able to do it. 

 Until after years, even decades, of suffering we, desperate for help,  finally - finally -  found WE ourselves unable to do it alone. 

Enter A.A. - where despite oldtimers begging us to be fearless and thorough from day one in our recovery, WE so often continue to keep a stranglehold on the idea that WE will find the solution to whatever is troubling us.

 

Oh sure, I was willing to hand over my problem with alcohol, But only when it became obvious that my Higher Power could actually handle that problem for others so might even be willing to do it for me.

But I wasn't any too sure my HP could or would handle all my other fears and worries. 

So I held onto them tightly, convinced I could work them out on my own despite working one step after another all designed to pry my hands off of them. 

We continue to repeat what we don’t - or won’t - repair. 

“There are two things alcoholics really, really don’t like - 

 (1) the way things are and

 (2) change.” 

Changing ourselves takes effort. 

Being a victim is easy - at first - but it doesn’t wear well. 

So if we want God to remove our character defects we have to stop doing them. We must as some point give up our resistance to growth. 

(Hint: Sooner rather than later works best.)

We are called to change, because only when we surrender our pride and ego can we win. It becomes a bit easier to do that when we begin to realize everything our Higher Power sends our way is for our soul’s benefit. 

We grow when we let go. 

When we let go of our habitual thoughts and behaviors we will finally get onto the path to  becoming who we are meant to be. 

That earlier self-help guru, Norman Vincent Peale, once wrote:  If you want things to be different, perhaps the answer is to become different yourself.

 

And a quote from an old Grapevine magazine reads: We neither ran nor fought. But accept it we did. And then we began to be free.

I would love to tell you I figured this all out in the blink of an eye just by applying my keen intellect, but if I’ve learned nothing else in A.A., I’ve learned to be honest. I don’t actually suffer from a keen intellect, rather a quite sluggish one. So it took more than one painful and even frightening life “lesson” to get my attention that change was even necessary. 

One was to let go of something I didn’t want to lose. Like most alcoholics I wanted what I wanted, and what I wanted was not what my Higher Power wanted for me. Yet I hung on and on until I actually reached the brink of suicide, that permanent solution to what truly should have been merely a temporary problem. 

It took an A.A. miracle to help me to surrender in that instance and I’ll always be grateful it arrived. But any of us stubborn alcoholics are capable of that kind of behavior when we want something, or someone, that our Higher Power knows will ultimately destroy us. 

I had been a member of A.A. for a good while before I ran headlong into the realization I wasn’t the star of my little life show; my Higher Power is the star. It was my Higher Power who got, and keeps, me sober. It is my Higher Power who sends me the lessons I need to become a happier and saner me.

It is my Higher Power who gave us all the astonishingly wonderful program of Alcoholics Anonymous, our safe place to learn how to actually become joyous, happy and free. Read our literature. Go to Book and Step Study meetings. Learn how to practice our program just the way it was written, and to  keep on doing it exactly that way. 

As a qualified graduate of the school of hard knocks and stubborn thinking, I am now overly-qualified to beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start of your recovery. 

Because living the Program of A.A. is truly the easier softer way.

 

Made A Decision

     Another Year to Beware the Janfeb Blues

The lights, tinsel, baubles and other holiday decorations of our recent holiday season are packed away. Admired gifts are now in use. Thank you letters sent. A few feast day leftovers are tucked away in the freezer as reminders, but good, bad, or indifferent the holidays are 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!  

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.