Taking The Big Book Personal

The “personal stories”  -  the ones in the back of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous”  were included in the Book for a reason and the criteria for story selection was established by the co-authors.

1) Reason for including personal stories is IDENTIFICATION:

“We hope no one will consider these self-revealing accounts in bad taste. Our hope is that many alcoholic men and women, desperately in need, will see these pages, and we believe that it is only by fully disclosing ourselves and our problems that they will be persuaded to say, ” Yes, I am one of them too; I must have this thing” (29:3)

But for whom are they intended?

The “Personal stories” that follow the directions – the first one hundred and sixty four pages – are for identification purposes directed to AA prospects. Prospects are not yet members. They were not for inspirational reading AFTER a prospect has already decided to try AA.

If you have already said “Yes, I am one of them too; I must have this thing.” Then it is time to put down the stories and come get this “thing”. The stories would be pointless by that time.

2) The criteria for which stories to include toward this objective is to “push” GOD:

“These are followed by forty-three personal experiences. Each individual, in the personal stories, describes in his own language and from his own point of view the way he established his relationship with God. These give a fair cross section of our membership and a clear-cut idea of what has actually happened in their lives.” (29:2)

If I read a personal story in this Book, say….in the Fourth Edition…..and I cannot find in that story “the way he established his relationship with God.”, – What do you suppose has happened – and is that OK?

The Big Book is not really designed for casual reading. It is a textbook of directions for taking the Steps. I find many new folks like to give it a dry run first though - I did. Unfortunately then there was a temptation to glean and cherry pick quotes and concepts for repeating online and in meetings – without actually taking the directions – to sound knowledgeable or spot wipe life’s stresses as they were spilled.

When people at the point where they take the steps, those directions are in the first one hundred and sixty four pages.

Peace,

Danny S

Do It With Your Tongue

Not Your Tome

One of my favorite stooopit POP-AA rhetoric tricks is the old “I was too jittery to read the Big Book when I first came in here”. “I could even hold a cup of coffee let alone a Big Book” -as an excuse for avoiding the Twelve Steps and staying dry solely on the fellowship without actually recovering. “Shaking too hard to hold a book” — ‘Too in the fog to comprehend the reading” all that bottom of the barely scrapped excuse making and justification for God avoidance. But do Know it well!!!

“I HAD THE SHAKES! I couldn’t do the steps!“

“Excuse me? Good God! You don’t have a sponsor do you?”

We are not suffering from an illness that the Big Book can conquer. Reading comprehension skills are not a requirement for recovery – “reading the Big Book” isn’t a solution – if it were then half of the jittery men I have known, some who were illiterate – and the sightless could never take the Twelve Steps and recover from alcoholism which of course we know is not true.

For years the co-authors did this ALL WITHOUT BIG BOOKS so we know that “reading the big book” has NOTHING to do with taking the twelve steps – having a spiritual awakening being the result and solving our alcohol problem. Then as we go through the book and read all of the successful twelve stepping stories of sorry sick and puking drunks – we learn that it is all done with by word not ink.

There is only once when we talk about ‘reading’ the Big Book in the process. That “reading” of this book done is when making our ‘approaches’ – we ask him to read the book and we try to leave it behind until the second approach. This is all in “Working With Others”.

Trust God, Clean House, and read the Big Book? Nope!

To take the steps all anyone has ever needed and all they ever used back in Akron is a good sponsor who has himself recovered to talk to and take him through the steps the same that Bill did with Bob, Bill and Bob with Bill Dodsen then Clarence Snyder, et al. What we really need maybe is a patient, experienced and able sponsor who will TALK us through the steps – not one who would have us “read the book”.

It has always been “One alcoholic talking to another” alcoholic – not one alcoholic reading to another or passing out assignments to another.

Reading the Book? Of course. But it ain’t being sponsored. There is no syllabus in AA for recovery.

Peace and Love
Danny S – RLRA

We Teach – We Practice

AA Meetings – Are

they really “ALL GOOD”?

What do you do when you go to an AA meeting? Do you sit there waiting and listening and hoping to hear “the message?” Hope that someone will inspire you – that you will “get what I need”. What kind of selfish piggishness is that?

We aren’t in an AA meeting to stay sober. We are supposed to already BE sober – for good and for all. It is the guy who cannot stay sober for whom we go so we can grab him and get the message carried to him – not so WE can hear the message. Not so we can “get what we need”.

Practitioners of the Twelve Steps learn that all inspiration, direction, intuitiveness and discipline comes from a loving God – mostly through meditation – NOT through the “you people” experience of the fellowship.

Selfish use of AA meetings is very prevalent here in the North East, especial here on Cape Cod – yes, ‘especially’ meaning more prevent and in larger amounts than anywhere else in the world I have been to meetings and meet other AAs – down south, in Canada ,out west and overseas too.

Oh but Danny you are wrong – we are supposed to be selfish, self serving self centered sick and crazy people – ALL alcoholics are this way. No. we are supposed to recover and be living a life that has been relieve of that sort of lifestyle. Many of us are. Too many of us are not. Unmanageability is a thing of the past to we who have recovered we no longer find our lives described on page fifty two of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous”.

A newcomer walks in and no one approaches. That is because the group has lost its purpose and become a social scene — no longer the spiritual entity it was designed to be. A little shyness against each other like it’s the first day of school or a high school dance or something – the “new guy” and the established clusters of pal is normal for social gatherings and it’s an indicator of a toxic AA group too – one that slid right off the table and lies on the floor while we serve ourselves and step around it hoping someone else will pick it up or are too self absorbed to even notice it is lying there. Hells even an Amway meeting where they are money motivated would be more proactive than we are to help a newcomer.

“Sobriety—freedom from alcohol— through the teaching and practice of the Twelve Steps is the SOLE PURPOSE of an A.A. group.”

Bill W., the A.A. Grapevine, Inc., February 1958

(Affirmed as a guiding principle of A.A. and approved by the A.A. General Service Conference in 1969, 1970 and 1972.)

Teaching and practicing those steps is not merely ‘one of’ the group purposes. It is its SOLE purpose. That means there is no other reason for the Groups very existence. If you think we are here to serve YOU to keep YOU sober – to give YOU a place to dump your problems and “share” your troubles then you are sadly mistaken.

If we aren’t there for that, we may as well not even be there at all. If we come to meetings to “get our juice” or because “I don’t want to drink today” or – and here is the sickest message of all, “So I can see what happens to people who don’t go to meetings” then we are doing nothing for the newcomer alcoholic but showing him what selfish, self-centered sons of bitches we still are and reinforcing the very behaviors that got him there in the first place.

No one approaches the newcomer because too many – too often all it seems – haven’t got a clue as to what they are supposed to do or what the SOLE purpose of their group is SUPPOSED to be. No one ever showed them and they haven’t bothered to find out either.

Some people feel better if they can say they are “putting out my hand” – whatever the hell THAT means ‘ – or passing on a phone number or getting a shaky hand a cup of coffee. Nice but that’s NOT what we are here to do. We ought to be that nice to everyone everywhere anyway – not just in AA meetings. No cigar for that.

Most of us do not even know that we are supposed to put our lives on hold, grab that new comer, qualify them as either “one of us” or not, as it tells us to do in the Big Book and IF they qualify THEN take them through the twelve steps. Instead we are going to run home to catch American Idol - tell him “keep coming back” and “ninety in ninety”, see if he makes some friends and if we like them then we’ll allow them into our little clique of sober pals.

Well, if she was not a real alcoholic she’ll just come back another day and eventually make some friends and start to feel secure and start blubbering bullshale and ignoring other newcomers too.

The Twelve Steps. Teach them. Practice them. Then maybe we will have Groups with real POWER in them to which the newcomer can come and get some. That will happen when we see leadership in AA Groups that is much less interested in becoming head Social Directors and self-styled elder statesmen and more interested and qualified to being the Spiritual Guides to those yet unrecovered – to lead and point in the direction of their Creator.

Peace,

Danny S – RLRA

He Ain’t Heavy – He’s a Real Alcoholic

“There’s Gonna Be Consequence And Repercussions“

Beginning with the very waitress bringing them their Amstel Lights, two men, one a heavy drinking alcohol abusing asshole – the other, the same, except for one thing. One is a real alcoholic.

The other is not.

Together they start pissing people off from the starting gate. They spend too much money. They puke and piss in the wrong places like in and on their pants. They get home too late and generally wreak havoc on what started out as a pretty nice evening.

Our two hapless partiers continue along this line, transcending several ‘degrees of separation’ that include wives, girlfriends, husbands, cumares, kids, employers, creditors, judges, lawyers, police even anonymous and random innocent bystanders in supermarkets, interstates, rotaries, on bridges – in tunnels and online at the social security office – ALL get exposed to the screwed up personality of a drunk who is so self-absorbed - even when NOT actually drunk – that it would seem his only purpose on earth is to tear a hole in time and space in order to allow anger, hate, and discordance to escape from Hell and to enter this plane making small collective contributions toward our destruction. Some find the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and stop drinking – never recover – and continue their handiwork in that fellowship “giving resentments – not getting them”. This is another article at another time. And that they do.

Over time, perhaps years, they also both suffer common physical consequence of this over uberdrinking lifestyle – getting cirrhosis of the liver and pancreatic diseases. They get cancers. There are other dreadful conditions too. All these are attributable, some directly some indirectly, to drinking alcohol. They even step backwards of off of subway platforms tying up commuters for hours.

Things just seem to have a way of going wrong – becoming unmanageable – for those who drink too much – too often – for too long.

Sit a real alcoholic – the kind described in the first forty three pages of “Alcoholics Anonymous” - not the kind described by Dr. Drew, VH1, MTV, Oprah, your doctor, your mother – but the AA kind, their “real alcoholic“ like the term or not – sit that guy on a stool next to someone not fitting that description yet who would certainly be handily identified as a hard drinker and observe us both. Watch how we operate – how much we drink – how fast we drink – and you will be hard pressed to tell much of a difference. Oh my brothers but there are differences . BIG ass differences. Differences that distinguish the alcoholic from the non-alcoholic – the AA members from the “interested party”.

We both do the same stupid things, piss off the same people in our – lives, lose the same money, jobs, houses and families. The difference is the heavy drinker is doing it because he wants to.

I was that way too at one time so I do have experience as that kind of drinker as well as being the kind of problem drinker I am now – what I and the co-authors of the Big Book call the “real alcoholic” which they describe in their “description of the alcoholic“ – which no one here can seem to find because they never actually experienced the big Book, yet all speak as if they have. Whassup widdat anyway?

As as the real McCoy we are drinking because we have to — not because we want to. The power of choice no longer exists for us. Not for the classic “Alcoholics Anonymous” “real alcoholic” – the one for whom a the book was written and a Fellowship formed it doesn’t.

The hard drinking abuser can get unlocked by a shrink or some good counseling and muster up the willpower and never put it in him again IF HE wants badly enough – if circumstances get severe enough that he is “sick and tied of being sick and tired — or else come to the realization that he has an abnormal reaction to ethyl and decide to “just don’t’ drink” and never again set off the craving.

He thinks that because he stopped on his own – left AA without having had the spiritual experience or practicing the twelve step steps that it automatically means anyone with a drink problem can do it too. How near-sighted is that? it is selfishly auto-referenced and maybe even narcissistic.

The simple fast and effective process which is designed to bring that experience on – that ANYONE ought to be able to stop by self-reliance and it just isn’t true. No more than sheer willpower can cure a cancer or fix a pancreas that is broke through overuse and no longer metabolized EtOH properly.

People like us – except for divine intervention – we cannot stop once we start and then as if adding insult to injury we I can’t ‘not-start’.

We drink ‘even though we are “sick and tired of being sick and tired.” Non-alcoholic EtOH abusers STOP when they get that bad.

There are many many alcoholics out there who wish to God that they could have stopped simply upon feeling sick and tired and then after they were sick and tired of being sick and tired. No such luck. Real McCoy’s, real alkies, keep going despite the sick, despite the tired, despite tragedies and losses so painful and complete that only a severe form of a kind of rare insanity can be blamed. And do it for years and years and years. That SUCKS more than the heavy drinker, the EtOH abuser can ever even imagine. Lose your wife? Lose your money? Lose your kids?

It’s bad man. And it is cakewalk when compared to what the real alcoholic goes through. That’s right. A fucking cakewalk!

It is arrogant to assume this is true just because it is not within the abuser’s experiences. — arrogant an dangerous to the real alkie hearing it because more than anything the real alkie wants to believe that he has that kind of power over alcohol and there he goes again- without seeking the spiritual solution because some arrogant pissant who DID stop told him he could do it to – thereby cause him to relapse and set his family off again and the kids crying again.

Thankfully that divine intervention did happen and I never desire to drink anymore – I have been put in that place of neutrality – safe and protected – and I do recoil from it as if a flame.

Peace,

Danny S – RLRA

I’ll Get You Danny Bona freakin’ Duce!

Don’t look back Danny Boy.
I’m right behind you!

The wife of your humble narrator – “Saint Nancy Lee” – claims that same stood in a hall of Alcoholics Anonymous and claimed to his fellows that he is

“The Most Recovered Alcoholic on Earth”.

When un-recovered alcoholics hear this kind of talk – or even lesser ‘kinds’ of talk for the first time it can cause quite a stir. Not just this particular misquote of Nancy’s but anything depicting the AA alcoholic’s experience as including getting well and the experience of real and permanent recovery from what we had one time thought was a hopeless state of fuckedupedness.

If they have been programmed by the POP-AA Continuum of recovery-bots calling themselves “members” of AA – and someone reveals that they “have recovered” they frequently will wince – maybe burp, fart, hiccup, swallow some soured reflux and then they might do something else — like report what they have just heard back to their shit-eating grinning, sponsor who will usually take swift action to quash the very notion.

That is important for many of us sponsors you know. If our “sponsees” where to ever actually get into that Big Book they would find out just how full of crap we really were. Talk about “the gig” being up.

The best way stifle the truth here is to issue an onslaught of severe verbal ad hominem attacks upon the claimant.

The moment someone identifies as a “Recovered Alcoholic it is DEFCON 1 baby.

Personal character assassination can be a powerful weapon and Big Book thumping schmeckleheads like me and you are not alien to such sorties being waged against us. It might sound like, “Oh don’t listen to that guy. He is egotistical and pompous – trying to set himself apart from us “still recovering alcoholics” – we are too good and meek and humble to make such a claim. He ought to get over himself and come back down to earth from his spiritual mountaintop. He’ s not “real AA. . . . . talking down to us that way. Then a grandly played “Pray for him“ . . oh that is so powerful . . will always cinch it.

Isn’t it weird that anyone who reveals AA out of the Big Book is often accused of not ‘really’ being ‘AA’ because he speaks in terms of “real AA”?

“Hey! Don’t you know that using the term “Real AA” is not in keeping with “Real AA? Real AAs never refer to a ‘Real AA’ because that wouldn’t be “real AA”

POOF! You have just obliterated your ‘church basement cred’ and can now go live in the Abyss of Idiots. How’s that for a judgment, Sparky?

All these clever ways to avert the solution. All these phony eye twinkling, brass badge flashing fellowship Deputy Dogs bragging about their “years” to newcomers to “show him it works” sheayea, right – with self dubbed authority to bullshit and to steer other still suffering alkies afflicted with “real alcoholism” away from the Big Book – away from the solution – away from God.

Man, if I ever develop a “spiritual” aroma about me, start speaking-softly while-carrying a big book so that butter would not melt in my milk-toasty mouth and begin talking about how profanity shows lack of spirituality and start walking around the rooms of AA like giggling and grinning like a school girl on Quaalude spouting AA slogans – please just fucking stick my head underwater and hold it there until the thrashing stops. Please.

I pray to dear God Almighty that I will NEVER as long as I live be dubbed a “spiritual man” based upon my deportment around others. That phony shit performing and play acting to an imaginary audience is killer.

It is dishonesty and deceit and hypocrisy at its force and self-serving, self-absorbed agnosticism at it finest.

Isn’t it though? The inherent guile embedded and rooted deep inside such procedure is wondrous. It is like passing judgment upon another member for being “JUDGMENTAL!” The irony of it silently escaping in a quiet flutter like a shoeboxfulll of horny Monarthc Butterflies. The kettle goes form pewter to black the very instant it casts it’s famous aspersion upon the pot.

There is no such thing as most or least recovered or one alcoholic being more or less recovered than another. Either you are suffering from alcoholism or you are not.

My sponsor asked me “Hey Danny . . . . do you want to recover?” I said yes. . . of course. I do. But uh . . those people over there said that we nev…. . “ NO BUTS!  He then showed me all of the incidents in the Big Book where the co-authors wrote in terms of being “recovered”.  It was all of them. I wanted what they had. I might not want what some old broad spinning knitting needles like Ninja weapons in the back of the room – who did “a step a year” and uses the 12 & 12 to take her “Crack Girls” through the steps has – but I sure do want what ‘they’ had back in Akron in 1938. Man, I would do anything to get it. Even scoff on myself as the self reliant AA Ubermember and instead do some drastic stuff in order to turn my thoughts and my behaviors entirely over to God as my new power. Yep. . . . even that.

That sponsor of mine was following these direction in the Big Book, “Alcoholics Anonymous” :

“After satisfying yourself that your man wants to recover and that he will go to any extreme to do so, you may suggest a definite course of action. (142:4)

There are millions of folks just like me – and you – you have recovered and they live all around the world. I get to speak with them, travel to meet and speak in their Groups, conduct workshops and correspond through email with them. It is a great gift this kind of global Fellowship – that God has shown some of us how to create. They are in Ireland, Scotland, England, Iceland, Denmark Australia, New Zealand — people in Borneo, Israel, France, Japan, and a bunch of Russian Federation states I cannot even spell or pronounce — all of them read this very blog every single day. It blows the mind!

So Nancy was wrong. I never said that I am “the MOST recovered alcoholic on planet earth” . I wish I where though. Oh ho ho ho how I wish that I were. What I did say is that according go Google and Yahoo, I am the number one recovered alcoholic in the world. If you Google “recovered alcoholic” I am the top ranked search. If you search “Danny alcoholic” I am only number two in the world. Danny Bonaduce has me beat that son-of-a-bitch. But I will get him one day and send him tumbling down the search engine result pages like the dead, sober, iron pumping, flea.

I may be only the number two “Alcoholic Danny” but I try harder and I am the recipient of the great promise made in Step Eleven

“We are then in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity, or foolish decisions. We become much more efficient. We do not tire so easily, for we are not burning up energy foolishly.” (88:0)

Corporation spend millions a year for SEO as good as what my site achieves. Millions.
Shit, if this were a money making enterprise just think of the millions of dollars I would have. Hmmmm. Money – then power then sex. Yeah, maybe those will be the ticket to permanent, continued, contented sobriety. Right now though I have to go hit the gym in case he reads this and comes looking for my ass.

Peace,

Danny S – RLRA

Real Live Recovered Alcoholic
http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com

Oh JAMES!

Tolerance. What a trait to possess. What a promise too. The co-authors of the Big Book, “Alcoholics Anonymous” claim that once we are practicing the Step Ten pr ocedure – all five parts – that “love and tolerance of others is our code.” (84:2)

Can you imagine that? Can you imagine not hating and not being overly sensitive to the injustices real or imaged of others? Someone steps on our toes and we are like, “Ho hum . . .yaaawn ”. Cool as a cuke. Real life James Bond types. Cool! The felt of the baccarat table glows green and bright like just cut grass while hot women in bikinis one hanging on each of our arms fawn over our . . . . . . . . . . sorry. I went over the top.

What the hell is tolerance anyway? We sometime love to point to someone’s ‘intolerance’ when they have the audacity to disagree with us. But isn’t that showing how intolerant we are of others too – the every same “crime” of which we are now judging of having committed against us? Is tolerance the ability to “put up with” something that irritates us? Yeah fine, but might that mean that we still can be irritated? That doesn’t sound too cool. 007 doesn’t harbor ill will and grudges against his enemies, does he? Heck no. He takes care of business with only a minimal bead of sweat and then calmly steps over the bloody bodies and goes out to order a nightcap.

Let’s see what Miriam Webster says about tolerance:

1: capacity to endure pain or hardship : endurance, fortitude, stamina

2 a: sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one’s own b: the act of allowing something .

This means that if I disagree with your view and get upset with you over it because I am overly sensitive to people places and things but I bite my tongue about it and manage to avoid a confrontation with you – that I am a “tolerant” person?

Uh, no dude. Not if I am secretly upset with you – resentful , really. It also probably means that I am a real pussy.

Being a pushover and a doormat is not tolerance – no matter how many times we pat ourselves on the back and feel superior to our enemy for “keeping the peace”.

If you cut me off on the highway and my first inclination is to road-rage your ass off onto the shoulder or at least get up close enough to you so you can see my middle finger but don’t do it because I am afraid and I let you go without further incident —– that is showing tolerance, right?

No. Sorry. I don’t think so.

Even if I manage to dot it it doesn’t. Both show exactly the same thing; that I am out of control – that my emotions rule me and that I am overly sensitive to you and so therefor you control me.

True tolerance is synonymous with forgiveness. As a fourth step promise, the Big Book informs us that as the result of praying and asking for tolerance, pity and patience toward those we resent that Go d will show us how to “take a tolerant view” – see things from a new perspective. That perspective is that others are perhaps sick – as we were or maybe ‘are’ sick. They have symptoms if their illness and we do not like those symptom. We resent them. They piss us off – annoy us. So we ask God to show us how to be kind – how to be tolerant. Notice we don’t ask him for tolerance or kindliness. We ask him to “show us how” to be that way. We are going to have to take action in order to get it. SHIT! More work. Right?

Making allowances for others — because our view of them no longer disregards the injustices committed upon them and their badly affected psyches. We take into consideration that they once had an innocence that has been stolen and so we experience this as a “giving before” or ‘forgiveness’. It is the absence of judgment. It is not playing God. When we stop playing God because we have turned our lives and wills over to God then tolerance follows. The evidence of having “let go” is a tolerant view – which is love – and a higher threshold for not hating them for their trespasses. Instead we are forearmed with forethought in the form of this awareness and we automatically forgive those who trespass against us.

007 is not interested in getting even with those who have stepped on his toes. He is interested in executing his primary purpose today and moving on to the next one tomorrow – without prejudice. Without negative emotions mucking up the works. Now that is true love – true tolerance. What a code.

Peace,

Danny S – RLRA

Real Live Recovered Alcoholic
http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com

Meds, Depression and Alcoholics Anonymous

After attending enough meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous you begin to recognize that very many of us alky wahlkys have a few other . . . . . uh . . . mental issues besides the “mental obsession” characteristic of alcoholism. We seem to have a skewed share of depression, anxiety – some bi-polar disorder – to name the most common ones.

A number of years ago, a few years after having recovered from alcoholism, I experienced a bad bout of depression.

This was the real deal – following on the heels of 911. It was real, clinically diagnosed depression – not just feeling blue and full of self-pity for not being able to get laid, a job, a car or whatever reason it seems that so many of get into our internal whining funks when all we really need is a counselor to unlock us. Nothing to do with alcoholism. Everything to do with self pity.

I had recovered from alcoholism and was yet “young” in spiritual growth and had “practice” living the new way of life we call the “12 steps” – you know. . . . beginning each day with a set of certain prayers and meditation, praying particular prayers and meditating and inventorying all throughout the day – and before bed – the typical 12 step lifestyle – - – - all that stuff that the folks so often seem to never learned is actually thor even knew. If some asshole takes medical advice from another asshole sitting in a folding chair in a church basement – instead of picking up the spiritual toolkit that is laid out in the Big Book – that ought not be a reflection on my own relationship with my own creator and my life – it s got no bearing on me, my sobriety, my concept e AA Program – — and I sought help from a doctor whose care included Effexor.

It worked fine.

After becoming more and more disciplined spiritually and growing in that spirituality – I then, again under my doctors’ direction, slowly weaned off -the meds. it took about six months or so – not days or weeks. IN my case I discovered what MANY of us Twelve Step practitioners find – - that the new-found and continually growing spiritually eradicates depression even better than the drugs ever did. WAY BETTER!

There was no involvement of AA with my depression. No sponsors or members were consulted – NO ONE human except my doct

of spirituality or practice of the AA Program.

AA doesn’t claim to have a ‘fix’ for stupid and taking medical advice from a sponsor who is not a doctor is just plain idiotic. Unfortunately the fellowship also is not short on kookie Deputy Dogs who would just as soon impress us by flashing their sobriety “badges” feeding their already bursting-at-the-seams egos by feeling ill-conceived direction to folks ill prepared to use the God given balls with which they were born — than they would show us what they were like, what happened and what they are like now.

The Book specifically tells us that we alcoholics following the path of the book should see doctors if and when we need. It does not say go see ol’ fish-breath sitting in the back of the room by the coffee machine where he can ogle the young ‘chicks” with lower-lumbar tattoos and purple thongs pulled way up their wazzoos who just rolled in from the NA meeting across town, the courthouse or the local wind-up joint and have him tell us what to do with our medications.

Peace,

Danny S – RLRA

“If You Do Not Immediately Give Me Knowledge and Power . . . .

. . . . You Shall Rue The Day That You Ever Became A God or Whatever Omnipotent Genius Czar of the Heavens You Claim To Be.

Amen” Stewie Griffin

What if while practicing Step Eleven – asking God for “knowledge of His will” for you and “the power to carry it out” - he actually gave it to you? What would you do then?

Can you be trusted with it? I mean, what is the point of having a step eleven unless it can happen. Right?

Someone brought up a similar idea the other day in the comments section of this very blog – the ‘comfortability factor’ in claiming to know what “God” wants for us. You know what he is talking about I am sure. After all, we do have a step in which we pray “only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.”

WOW. Knowledge and power. Seems like dangerous possessions for the self-centered selfish alcoholic fool doesn’t it – like Plankton in “Spongebob” or Stewie in “Family Guy” – always looking for new and ingenious ways to gain world domination and power over others – invariable stepping on everyone’s toes in the process. Not to mention looking pretty damned foolish in the end.

Well the toning-down of this idea and taming of the ego comes quite abruptly the moment we realize that it is not our will but Gods will for which we are asking knowledge and it is God’s will for us and not for others. For the self-centered, selfish former problem drinker it gets even worse from there because once we are in Step Eleven we have had a spiritual awakening and self seeking is no longer running our lives.

We have turned our lives and wills over to God’s care and he is now in charge of it without the usual amount of interference we had previously been throwing into the works – the Sixth Sense is now developing and we are seeing God at work in our lives – not to mention that the desire to drink has long been iradicated.

But there is something else. I have always been very wary of folks who go around telling us how “God said” this to me and “God revealed to me” that. VERY suspicious and disturbing people in my view – a big turn off – and frankly – quite a bit kooky, in my estimation.
However:

“What used to be the hunch or the occasional inspiration gradually becomes a working part of the mind. Being still inexperienced and having just made conscious contact with God, it is not probable that we are going to be inspired at all times. We might pay for this presumption in all sorts of absurd actions and ideas. Nevertheless, we find that our thinking will, as time passes, be more and more on the plane of inspiration. We come to rely upon it.” (86:3)

Personally I have found this to be absolutely true – but I have been a Twelve Step ‘practitioner’ for ten tears now and I believe a fair enough amount of time to accumulate experiences that I can relate to others with it. The ‘catch’ or ‘safety net’ to Step Eleven is that we ask not only for the “knowledge of His will” but also “the power to carry it out.”

One without the other is useless.

Times when I had been wrong – you know, made one of those absurd and arrogant presumptions of what I thought “GOD’S will” was for me, I never had to “power” to carry it out anyway – so even though I tried to do what I THOUGHT was “God’s will” – I was spinning my wheels.

Cool safety net – and smart cookie that “God” fella. He sure seems to have thought of everything.

Peace,

Danny S – RLRA

A Load of Bloody Bull

Sometimes, perhaps oftentimes, things that seem negative – aren’t really. When I worked on Wall Street we had a term – “healthy paranoia”. It meant keeping a certain discretionary posture with regard to inside information having to do with clients. It also meant avoiding regulatory SNAFUs with loose lips or pens. Big Brother – the NASD and the SEC – could be watching. In the case of my Broker-Dealer firms they were watching – taking names and kicking pinstripped pleated-trousered ass. Man, they made movies and wrote books about us! Another story altogether. There are healthy and beneficial ways to issue certain judgments, sarcasm and cynicism.

One can be smarmy without being unctuous – critical without being offensive – even if certain types of oversensitive folks tend to get their panties into a pickle anyway. It’ s usually just to cast further aspersions anyway. Heck, lots of folks believe that chocolate is healthy and that so is wine. The trick is to eliminate the “SELF-SERVING” element – putting forth to be helpful instead and VIOLA! It is positive.What others can seem only to express as negative, emotional and downright harmful barbs is now on a new positive plane.

AA is all about grabbing hold of what was once vile ugly yes even obscene and using it for good by helping others with it – like having a machine that turns skat into gold. You become rich beyond your wildest dreams and no one knows how you manage to live so well since you don’t apparently work as hard as they. So right now howz about a little ‘healthy skepticism’.

Such a large portion of the stuff we hear in AA meetings can be described in two words: Bloody Bullshit – more quantity and better quality than has ever been shoveled out of la “Plaza de toros de Acho” It might include everything from medical advice and or marriage and financial counseling – to tons and tons of opinions about the AA fellowship itself, recovery, The Big Book, Traditions, The Steps, AA History – so much of it just hot steaming, stinking red-streaked crap. My friend Mickey Bush out in California calls it “Lip flappin’ party line BULLSHIT!” and that is an accurate description of it – for sure. You would think you could trust folks with “time under the belt” or who have “a few twenty fours” flashing sobriety medallions like deputized hillbillies huntin’ for a ‘colored fellar’. Fuhgetaboutit! You learn to give these Fellowship “experts” one big fish-eye of suspicion because the reality is that they not actually be ‘members’ – and when you listen to folks like these you could do your own internal intelligence bank a great disservice.

Only those fitting AA’s “description of the alcoholic” – detailed so eloquently described in the first forty three pages of the Big Book, “Alcoholics Anonymous” – can become members. Not everyone who says they are members actually qualify. Before you go flaming me and this site – because that’s what some of you do – God bless you – just know that no one, certainly not your humble narrator, is deciding who is a member and who is not. This is only a laymens acknowledgment of what AA itself acknowledges and that is that ONLY the individual is capable deciding whether or not he is alcoholic and hence eligible for membership.

What this is  – and this is what pisses people off – isa reminder to folks that not YOU, ME, not your sponsor, not even the guy in the back with the red nose, the grey hair, the scowl and the AA Deputy Dog badge with his “sober-time” engraved on it – no ONE - gets to say who is and who is NOT an alcoholic – not for membership purposes – and hence a member. This includes whenever it is said that ANYONE can be a member just because they “showed up”– it happens to be a Friday night, and “No one gets here by accident”. BULLSHIT! They must qualify themselves but qualify none-the-less. No one else can qualify for another. It is not possible. No one has the intimate knowledge of their past as indelibly inscribed in their heads – in their souls.

Qualifying as “alcoholic” is about as intimate an experience as a human being can have – more visceral and delicate than sex – and we have folks raising their hands and throwing around the term like it were nothing more than a bad case of genital herpes. Genital Herpes does not even approach the of intimacy and dereliction of spirit experienced by a real alcoholic truly in ‘admission mode’.

If someone saw you wading into the surf and called you a Bluefish – it would not mean that you are. You might be a Stripped Bass, a mackeral or just another guy wading into the surf thinking he’s a Bluefish because some asshole told him so. I can stand in front of my house and declare to all that “I am hungry” – because I am the only one with the intimate knowledge of how I truly hungry I am – who can know for sure whether or not my body has gone into ‘starvation mode’ experiencing real ‘hunger’ – but if I do not understand the how “hunger” is described, what it means in terms of language and human understanding then I could be wrong.

Someone who thinks that “hunger” means ‘a rumbling stomach’ – might think that they are being smart and know what they are saying yet full stomachs rumble as noisily as do empty ones. So they Sometimes more. Likewise, what if “alcoholic” doesn’t mean simply ’someone who drinks too much’? What if it is more than that and if there are specific qualifiers involved in the actual description. Guess what? There is! ‘Real’ Alcoholism – the kind described in the Big Book, “Alcoholics Anonymous” is just like this. Except not all of us are on the same page in our learning.

We are too egotistical to be “taught”. We say stupid shit like, “There are no teachers in AA” and then go to a meeting and tell the newcomer “I had to become teachable” in pretending to have acquired humility. God almighty ! Is there any group of people on the face of the Earth who are mosre full of shit than we AAs are? If there are – please tell me where so I can stay away from that quadrant of the planet. Some people or so zombified and hypnotized by other AA zombies that they desperately want to be AA members and although they cannot be, continue to call themselves such. Only alcoholics can become a members. “Those who suffer from alcoholism”

Peace,

Danny S – RLRA

DUDE! You Got Your Blow In My Soda!

“No man  .  .  .  . You got your soda in my blow.”

I suspect that Red Bull Cola will be pretty hard to keep on the shelves today. Expect it to FLY like nobody’s business.I’m thinking about going to pick me up a few right now!

Why the sudden hankering for Red Bull Cola? Because Red Bull has cocaine it. Yes that’s right – you heard right. This is not urban legend and it is absolutely true.

Feel free to “Snopes” it if you like. I will be insulted not-in-the -east. I am a real journalist with credentials and credible sources so don’t get your panties stuck up your wazzo – yet. This story is on the wires and will be hitting the newscasts soon – I am sure – so you can get more details then.

If you are a drug addict and are drinking Red Bull Cola product you ARE sucking in low doses of cocaine – just like unsuspecting – or uncaring – folks did with their Coca Cola back in the day. Nine milligrams of Peruvian Marching Powder per serving and has since 1903 been removed from Coca Cola – but NOT Red Bull. It’s in there!

Here is what the Red Bull International folks say about their cola – this is from their product website:

• “Red Bull Cola is a special composition of ingredients, all from 100% natural sources.

• In addition, it contains flavors derived from both the Kola nut and Coca leaf, ingredients in the original colas. So, it is a very special recipe. What else would you expect from Red Bull?

• The result is a classic, not too sweet cola taste, which comes from using only plant extracts from natural sources.”

Red Bull admits it.

So the old joke about snorting “Coke” doesn’t have to be a comic fantasy anymore.

I am not a drug addict. I don’t snort blow even though when I do I cannot stop – but I have power over cocaine – since all I have to do to solve my drug problem is “just don’t’ snort” — and I don’t. Problem eradicated. I do not need to go to Cocaine Anonymous since apparently I DO have power over drugs.

But what if the shit is in my soda man!

I am drinking it. Does that violate a “just don’t drink” policy?

The answer tomorrow.

Peace,

Danny S – RLRA

Real Live Recovered Alcoholic