Recovered Alcoholic

  " We never apologize to anyone for depending upon our Creator. We can laugh at those who think spirituality the way of weakness. Paradoxically, it is the way of strength. The verdict of the ages is that faith means courage . All men of faith have courage. They trust their God. We never apologize for God. Instead we let Him demonstrate, through us, what He can do. We ask Him to remove our fear and direct our attention to what He would have us be. At once, we commence to outgrow fear. "- Pg 68 I recently quit smoking. This is the first time in my adult life I haven't been addicted to some sort of substance. I have done the back and forth nicotine dance, switching devices in which the nicotine was delivered into my system, but never attempted to fully quit. Just as when I was separated from alcohol, and then diet pills, I knew God could and would if he were sought. I have been praying for a while for the willingness to be free from this bondage; and then finally, over a ...

Tools I was given: Daily Gratitude list 1. I am grateful to God for getting/keeping me sober 2. I am grateful to God for giving me legs to go for a walk 3. I am grateful to God for keeping me from jail when I drove drunk. 4. I am grateful to God children are healthy....etc 5. I am grateful to God that I have use of all me senses 6. I am grateful for AA 7. I am grateful for coffee 8. I am grateful for running water 9. I am grateful the toilet works 10. I am grateful my dog came home...whatever....just as long as you are grateful for it or them. Plan of Action Reading all online meeting emails. Listening at face to face meetings to others, not thinking about how profound I want to sound when it's my turn. Get a box or jar and label it- God Box-all fears and bad thoughts about people or whatever can be written on a little piece of paper and put in the jar/box, symbolically giving it to God  Finding a face to face meeting/home group. Humbling myself to actually being in ...

  Therefore,  the main problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind, rather than in his body.  If you ask him why he started on that last bender, the chances are he will offer you any  one of a hundred alibis . Sometimes  these excuses have a certain plausibility, but none of them really makes sense in the light of the havoc an alcoholic's drinking bout creates.  They sound like the philosophy of the man who,  having a headache, beats himself on the head with a hammer so that he can't feel the ache.  If you draw this fallacious reasoning to the attention of an alcoholic, he will laugh it off, or become irritated and refuse to talk. (My main problem centered in my mind, not my body. My mind can convince me a whole host of things are true if I am honest with myself. I made tons of excuses to drink-justify and rationalize, my mind feeds me reasons to put the poison in my system and to keep going back to the very thing that creates havoc and...

  “When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation—some fact of my life —unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God’s world by mistake." (pg. 417) Once that statement really and truly penetrated my stubborn being I was free. Game changer for sure! Where I live. Who I live with. Who died. Who drank. Who did this to me. What I did to them. Why does my sister have cerebral palsy. Why did dad abandon me. Why the innocent are harmed. Why was I hurt. EVERYTHING is for a reason even if I don't like it.  I could either accept whatever it is (not condone or support it) or keep fighting and be offended my entire life by what is.  I could spend my life in mourning, frustration and confusion, or I can take up my bed and walk each day.  I can gr...

Tradition Nine, which states: Our groups ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.   "WHEN Tradition Nine was first written, it said that “Alcoholics Anonymous needs the least possible organization.”  In years since then, we have changed our minds about that. Today, we are able to say with assurance that Alcoholics  Anonymous—A.A. as a whole—should never be organized at all.  Then, in seeming contradiction, we proceed to  create special service boards and committees which in  themselves are organized. How, then, can we have an unorganized movement which can and does create a service  organization for itself? Scanning this puzzler, people say, “What do they mean, no organization?” Well, let's see. Did anyone ever hear of a nation, a  church, a political party, even a benevolent association that  had no membership rules?  Did anyone ever hear of a society which c...

  I'd love to hear how those first 164 pages, the basic text of the AA program, affected you; when you first read it or after many readings, or whether you've never read it at all. I remember laying in the sun at my cousin's house who I rented a room from, trying to comprehend what I perceived at the time to be a weird culty book that I had no clue how was gonna help me. I read it anyway because I was out of options. Nothing really took hold consciously that I was aware of yet. I just did what I was told as my wet brain dried out. I also had little side "assignments" too and speakers I would listen to to keep my mind occupied during my drinking time of day. It wasn't until I hit a bottom in sobriety, about 6 months in, that I really dove deep into the book. My mind had cleared enough to be able to retain some information. My desperation allowed me to receive and consciously comprehend what was written even through the old timey verbiage.  The BB was a gateway ...

  I try to incorporate all Steps in my day, but sometimes I fall short, especially when it comes to Steps 9 and 5. Sometimes I don't want to amend or admit to God, myself and another person the exact nature of my wrongs. When I don't apply those specific Steps into my daily life it will just make my next annual 4th Step that much harder as whatever it is still "there", just suppressed in self righteous indignation and pride. But when I am "on the beam" this is how I am personally able to incorporate all the Steps into my daily life: Step 1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable. I admit that I am powerless over alcohol; that I can't delude myself into ever thinking that I don't have an allergy to it, that this time I will not have an abnormal reaction to it.  That I won't develop the phenomenon of craving....If I drink ever, I am done for. I also identify the areas of my life where I am experiencing...

 When I first became serious about getting well, I heard a speaker talking about  committing  to a homegroup and getting a service commitment. I hadn't ever really committed to anything before except for my own destruction.  Replacing accountability to a home group, instead of slavery to my disease, helped me to stay on the right path until I changed internally. I resented "having to go" sometimes, until I realized that I really didn't have to do anything, I was choosing to get well. I spent my entire life feeling like I had to for all the wrong reasons-and naturally rebelled.  When I really understood that AA wasn't calling me asking where I was, that AA would survive with or without me, I was able to transition out of rebellion mode, to being a part of something that didn't revolve around me. This humbled my stubborn a** and helped me to apply that same perspective in all my affairs. Not everything is about Me...God's bigger picture includes me, but ...

  Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. We asked His protection and care with complete abandon. Half -either of two equal or corresponding parts into which something is or can be divided. (Not Whole) Measures -a plan or course of action taken to achieve a particular purpose. In AA, the equilateral triangle represents the  three part answer  –  Unity, Recovery, and Service  –  to a three part disease  –  Physical, Mental, and Spiritual , while the circle represents AA as a whole I learned early on, and as it states in our preamble, that Half Measures availed nothing. Joes and Charlie talk about how if I am going to make a cake, then I need to follow the instructions as laid out or else my cake will not come out right. That I need to apply that same mindset to my sobriety.  The recipe to treat my illness is the program Alcoholics Anonymous-AKA-The  Big Book. I have a disease that not only affe...