Recovered Alcoholic

  Let's remember that alcoholics are not the only ones bedeviled by sick emotions. Moreover, it is usually a fact that our behavior when drinking has aggravated the defects of others. We've repeatedly strained the patience of our best friends to a snapping point, and have brought out the very worst in those who didn't think much of us to begin with. In many instances we are really dealing with fellow sufferers, people whose woes we have increased. If we are now about to ask forgiveness for ourselves, why shouldn't we start out by forgiving them, one and all? - The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions pg 78 How awesome that they addressed this in the 12x12 and the Big Book!?!  (aka the  book Alcoholics Anonymous, our foundational text) This was our course: We realized that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick.  Though we did not like their symptoms and the way these disturbed us, they, like ourselves, were sick too. We asked God to help us show them ...

The principle that we shall find no enduring strength until we first admit complete defeat is the main taproot from which our whole Society has sprung and flowered. In the strength of my flesh, or in my self-will, nothing I endeavored to do endured. I would have a burst of temporary momentum only to be met back with the same ol self defeating pattern. This not only with my drinking but with all things I set forth to accomplish because it was all done from the tap root of self/ego. So even if I could obtain my intended goal, it was never enough and I always felt empty and needed more or something else-never satisfied or content.  Even if I "got the job" or the position or the guy, I would be only temporarily satisfied and then get overwhelmed because I didn't set my intentions into being of service to God, let alone set practical boundaries or respect my limitations because I didn't have any. Nothing grounded  this live wire so continued to spin out like a charged down...

  Value, or valor (latin) in its earliest modern American englishish is defined as: 1. Worth; that property or those properties of a thing which render it useful or estimable; or the degree of that property or of such properties. The real value of a thing is its utility, its power or capacity of procuring or producing good. Hence the real or intrinsic value of iron, is far greater than that of gold. But there is, in many things, an estimated value depending on opinion or fashion, such as the value of precious stones. The value of land depends on its fertility, or on its vicinity to a market, or on both. -Websters 1828  Valor means great courage, bravery, and strength of mind, especially in the face of danger or in battle. Core Definition and Uses Bravery: Personal courage shown during tough or dangerous situations, like military combat. Word Origin: Comes from Latin roots meaning to be strong or worth. ******************* So really, I guess the value or worth of my sobriety is...

I tried many, many, many times to "play the tape through" or bring into remembrance my last degrading or demoralizing escapade-even if it was a somewhat "good night" where I only humiliated myself in private but woke up demoralized anyway, but, I could not. This is because I was powerless over alcohol and over the thought that preceded the drink. The basis and the foundation of the program. At a certain point in the drinking of every alcoholic, he passes into a state where the most powerful desire to stop drinking is of absolutely no avail. This tragic situation has already arrived in practically every case long before it is suspected. I promise you that I wanted to stop everyday. I wanted to kill myself because I saw no way out. So if all I needed to do was to play the tape through, then I wouldn't be here. I would just be off playing the tape anytime I thought about drinking when something went wrong in my life and I would just know what to do all would be we...

  Trust God-Clean House-Help Others  The minute we put our work on a service plane, the alcoholic commences to rely upon our assistance rather than upon God. He clamors for this or that, claiming he cannot master alcohol until his material needs are cared for. Nonsense. Some of us have taken very hard knocks to learn this truth : Job or no job—wife or no wife—we simply do not stop drinking so long as we place dependence upon other people ahead of dependence on God. Burn the idea into the consciousness of every man that he can get well regardless of anyone. The only condition is that he trust in God and clean house .  -Working With Others pg 98 of the BB ************************************************** When I was separated from alcohol for the last time, God willing , I had nothing left. My bottom was about as far as my HP would allow me to go --thank God, because I was pretty darn low! My "go to" people bailed on me after a drunken night of debauchery which ended with m...

  In between the stories of the man, Jim, who convinces himself that he can drink as long as his alcohol is in milk, and the Jaywalker who gets a thrill from jumping in front of cars even though he doesn't think so, is this passage I want to share:    We have sometimes reflected more than Jim did upon the consequences. But there was always the curious mental phenomenon that parallel with our sound reasoning there inevitably ran some insanely trivial excuse for taking the first drink. Our sound reasoning failed to hold us in check. The insane idea won out. Next day we would ask ourselves, in all earnestness and sincerity, how it could have happened. In some circumstances we have gone out deliberately to get drunk, feeling ourselves justified by nervousness, anger, worry, depression, jealousy or the like. But even in this type of beginning we are obliged to admit that our justification for a spree was insanely insufficient in the light of what always happened. We now se...