The Chief Cause of Post- Recovery Alcoholic Depression

Note: Through the meditation technique discussed here the author has ‘medically” (under medical supervision) eliminated the need for antidepressants Effexor, Wellbutrin and Lexipro as well as other medications. He has fully recovered from clinically diagnosed depression, anxiety, attention deficit disorder, smoking, obesity, high cholesterol, diabetes, arthritis, colitis, diverticulitis, alcoholism and drug abuse as well as sugar addiction and overeating.

Most alcoholics don’t actually fall asleep. They pass out. For the recovered sufferer without a dependable method for handling stress, this can be true long after they have first recovered and been abstinent.

There isn’t much that is sadder than a self-described “recoverING” alcoholic, dry as a bone, brandishing bronze sobriety medals, sitting in church basements still feeling batshit crazy, even after decades of abstinence, inventories and meetings.

Once again, the Twelve Steps provides a spiritual tool to fit the bill. Unless those tools are utilized properly, depression, anxiety, PTSD and even bi-polar symptoms that ruled the alcoholic’s life prior to recovery do resurface. Then it’s back to the doctors, the head shrinks the therapists and to the pharmaceutical solutions that only treat symptoms and never treat causes.

World affairs, news stories, family troubles, relationship difficulties; sometimes it seems that there is nothing but negativity afoot. It can feel as if their is a dark veil of gloom over the head of the alcoholic, even one who doesn’t drink anymore.

Never-mind what your therapist has told you. “Counselors” haven’t got a clue and have been mis-educated on the subject of “substance abuse” and alcoholism.

The single cause for all post recovery depression has but one root and it draws out of forces the alcoholic does not understand.Lack of resiliency against these forces are the reason for depression. Natural disasters, 9/11, serial killers, criminals getting away with abominable crimes – all such atrocities seem to exist for no other reason than to cause worry and spread resentment.

Alcoholism and depression is a combination of maladies that can be even more deadly than either of the two standing alone. This is a common co-morbidity that kills millions each year.

As observed by William D. Silkworth, Medical Director of the now infamous Townes Hospital – historically one of the most highly regarded hospitals in the world to treat alcoholic and drug addiction:

“They are restless, irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks . . .” (“Alcoholics Anonymous, ‘The Doctors Opinion’, p 26)

The familiar expression “restless, irritable and discontent” describes how an alcoholic feels and are some of the clearest, typical signposts of depression. These symptoms are not complete. They are only part of the whole picture, since they depict merely the effects and not necessarily causes.

Filling in around all of these pockets of depression are the inane, personally irritating incidents that each of us experience privately: The untimely glob of mustard dripped off of a corned beef sandwich onto the floor, a mosquito bite, an itch; an ache, a pain, a fart in church; a missed elevator; all of these unpleasantries we encounter each day come in a continuous stream of personal affronts that never seem to stop. They never will.

The more sensitive we are to them the more negativity we take on and the heavier the load to stuff into our craw – into our psyche.

Each and every day that we go to bed at night we fall asleep having repressed a day’s worth of resentments. They move us closer and closer toward the next first drink and they pull us farther and farther away from conscious contact with our Creator.

That is, unless they have a way of dealing with the din of negativity that is simply life as we know it. This is where Step Eleven comes to the rescue. It can save the practitioner from the imperfect handling of stress throughout the day. Step Ten is designed to do it in real -time – but how many of us execute even near perfect adherence to their daily practice of principles? Precious few. “We are not saints”

If you fancy yourself a Twelve Step practitioner but have not got an effective way of dealing with stress all the day – you will let up on the spiritual program of action delineated in your Step Ten procedure (84:2) – you will be headed for trouble and the first sign of that trouble will be expressed in a very busy Step Eleven inventory at night. You would be lucky to stay awake long enough to complete it. It might get so bad it will start to resemble a Fourth Step inventory, with columns and in depth analysis – something Step Ten is not designed to be nor is necessary if truly practicing these principles in ALL affairs.

Whenever we make allowances for the negatively charged influences around us and suffer the cruel, unfair and offensive situations and the people who cause them, they no longer affect us negatively.

The simple attitude of patient neutrality is what real grace is. It prevents resentment from getting inside.

Then resentment remains on the doorstep to our psyche never gaining entry to serve as food for the ego-self. We remain graceful and unmoved; free to use our impartial, dispassionate vision to move naturally without struggling to make decisions. And ego remains hungry, subdued and right sized.

This is an essential element in being able to forgive. If you are depressed it is only because up to now haven’t been able to. You have lacked grace. Give up resentment and grace is automatic; depression vanishes.

The sample meditation technique at the top of this page is very special. It will not replace your mind’s stinking thinking with phoney thought substitutes and “my” will. I am not a hypnotist. What it will do is clear your mind of “your will” allowing Gods will to take over.

That clear vision, His vision, will afford you the clarity to see resentment before it penetrate you, before it crops up inside you and overtakes your thought processes. It will allow you to effortlessly separate the unforgiving you from the forgiving you.

When you do that, depression anxiety almost all forms of mental obsession and pressure of conscience will let up. Soon it will go away.

Peace & Love,

Danny S – RLRA

Real Live Recovered Alcoholic

http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com

Is AA Still A Twelve Step Fellowship?

Satan Says . . . .

A buddy of mine called me this morning and wanted to know if I wanted to go the “opposites” meeting here on the Peninsula of Doom.(POD).

I’m like, “Huh?”

“Yeah, opposites. Like George C ostanza on Seinfeld.”

“Oh right” I said. “I get it. Whatever someone in that meeting says they do in order to stay sober, you do the exact opposite?”

“Yes. It never fails . . . ” he said. ” . . . doing the exact opposite of whatever I hear there.”

“Seinfeld” fans will recall that nebbishy character George Costanza feels that little ever goes his way – that fate is always running counter to his will and so he decides to consciously WILL in favor of the opposite. He believes in doing so that ‘Costanza’s will’ be done. In effect he tricks fate. (Or ‘God’ But we’re talking NBC here, now OK?)

An interesting concept. So I picked up my friend and off we went to the local “Loony Noonie” in here on the POD. (AA, “Loony Noonies” are all over the country. It’s an affectionately ascribed nickname for noon-time AA meetings held all across the United States.)

A man was sitting in the back who introduced himself to anyone sitting next to him, by saying “My name is Satan.” (Obviously it was some sort of inside joke to which my friend and I were not privy. It was still a little creepy though.) I wondered what it would like if I had come to my very first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, looking for a solution to your drinking problem, maybe even learning whether or not I was actually alcoholic, and some guy, the most vocal and visible in the meetings, identified and introduced as the Devil himself?” Holy shit!

Mr. Satan apparently had a very sophisticated comedic form and sometimes such subtle types of iconoclastic humor escape those who are barely holding onto life itself – know what I mean?

Anyway, so I get this thought. The Satan dude and how creepy he might seem to a newcomer gives me the idea: “I am going to pretend that I am my son Danny Jr. and that I suspect

I may be alcoholic and this is my very first meeting — that I have learned something of alcoholism from my Dad and from reading the incredibly spot-on volume titled “Alcoholics Anonymous”. I get the distinction between the alcoholic and the nonalcoholic. That book has made that much very much is clear to me and even though II have Twelve Step living already in my life – my whole family does through my Dad who is a recovered alcoholic – I still suspect that I may need a spiritual awakening since even though I honestly want to, I find that I cannot quit drinking completely, or if I do drink I have such little control over the amount I take I figure I might be suffering from alcoholism and if I have learned anything from my Dad it is that only a spiritual experience will conquer it. I figure, hey, let me go see what other peoples’ experiences are with this twelve step deal. Let me see if it works for them like it has for my Dad. I mean, it seems to have worked for him well enough let’s see it in the lives of others too. Then I just might give this thing a try. The stuff in that book sounds wonderful to me. Gatherings held where people like me can go with this trouble I am having – where I can go and see the Big Book depiction come alive in real-time real life. A recovery reality Show! In a church basement! A Group of spiritual people who have had a spiritual awakening and recovered from alcoholism – an assemblage of folks who are not glum but instead can laugh in the face of adversities past, meeting in a church basement solely for the expressed purpose of extending the Power given them to help others to people like me. They are waiting. For me. And just like in that Big Book they only want to help me have the same spiritual awakening that they had. Nothing more. Nothing less.

We, (me and my friend,) sat in that meeting for one hour. People talked about ICYPAA (a non-AA recovery entity that segregates into “young” recovery candidates, a very NON-AA concept) – someone ‘chaired’ a typical recovery story (a very sweet woman with thirteen years of sobriety) — other than that it was a typical, rhetorical, Open Discussion meeting – loaded with Rehabology Doctrine POP-AA talk and self-centered “shares” but zero solution to alcoholism ala AA. It seemd more as though this were the “group” annex of the local secular treatment center (Gosnold) than it was gathering of AAs with the AA message.

The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous were mentioned exactly once. It was Mr. Satan dude himself who brought them up.

And what exactly did the Satan dude say about the Twelve Steps? He announced to the entire meeting that . . .

. . . . he had tried the Twelve Steps and they did not work.

No. Really. That’s what he said. (Well, he is Satan after-all. What did you expect?) This is what anyone coming to this AA meeting for the first time would have heard in this meeting. You hear right. In a Twelve Step fellowship meeting, the Twelve Steps was only mentioned ONE TIME and that one time was only to proclaim that it did not work!

Mr. Satan “took the steps” and the folks who told him he needed to do that to “stop drinking” were wrong. There were other ways for Mr. Satan and it included avoiding the Twelve Steps.

Could you imagine going to, say, a Jenny Craig meeting to learn about their system for weight loss and one in that meeting mentions the Jenny Craig system of weight loss to you at all, save for one person, (Named . . Oh I don’t’ know – I want to say, ‘Lucifer’. Yeah that’ll work for this example) and that person, or ‘demonic entity’, makes the point that the Jenny Craig Program DIDN’T WORK for them —- Oh but just love coming to Jenny Craig meetings anyway and owe their lives to Jenny Craig.

Would there be any reason for you to believe that that you were in the presence of anything less than pure psychosis? Would you feel like you might get the hell out of there? Maybe never come back?

You are dammed right! And you would be correct.

Yet this is exactly what happens, isn’t it. I know you’ve been a witness to this kind of insanity, not in Jenny Craig but in Alcoholics Anonymous.

My friend was right. Not only could George Costanza and his opposites system keep him sober here but he could also lose weight, grow hair, find the job of his dreams and get laid every night by a gorgeous woman. His penis would never ‘move’ when he came in close proximity to a handsome gay man and all of his friends would hold him in the same high esteem in which he holds himself. But George is the only one because remember George does the OPPOSITE of what he believes he is supposed to do.

Satan says, “Don’t do the steps.” And so George takes the steps.

Satan says, “Go to lots of meetings” George goes only to a few meetings.

Satan says, “People and your own determination key to your sobriety sand happiness” Instead George develops a life that transfers his old reliance upon self and other people to God. George never drinks again and lives a happily whole and useful life.

Then Satan goes back to hell – where he came from

I think you get the idea.

Thank God Danny’s Dad (me) does have spiritual awakening and growth to share with the family because in my scenario Danny Jr would be be S.O.L. (That’s spirutaleese for “shit out of luck”) . What the hell has happened to Alcoholics Anonymous?

The simple truth is that AA groups ought to be spiritual entities with Primary Purpose. Just because a group of folks meet regularly and are allowed, by Tradition” to call themselves an AA group doesn’t mean that they are one

If you want what Satan has – then do what Satan does. Fortunately we did not stick around long enough to find out what just what it is that Mr. Satan has. (Besides a bad case of middle-of-road- based AA bullshititis) We did however learn just what it is Mr. Satan has not got — and that is the solution to alcoholism. It isn’t about any one fellow. But types like Mr. Satan are all over the AA fellowship sowing misery and death for real alcoholics. I get around a lot. And I see it.

Yes “There Is A Solution”. We have a whole twelve pages of Big Book ‘chapter’ that talks about it just that specifically.

The upshot is this: If my son needed a solution to alcoholism and if he had attended this meeting in search for it he would have come away with the message that The Twelve Step solution does not work and they really are not discussed in AA meetings. The cool thing is though he knows middle-of-the-road, POP-AA bull-shale when he hears it. Thank God.

And THERE! With the publication of this article I just rendered Mr. Satan’s lack of solution void. His own arrogance is herewith helpful despite the secular promotion of deadly non-solutions, because now the thousands of readers who access this blog every day have another story with which to identify AA Fellowship abuse in their own neighborhood. So There Satan! Blow it out your goats horn.

Peace and Love,o

Danny S – RLRA

Real Live Recovered Alcoholic

http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com

Each 24

AA few years back I was sponsoring a Chaplain of the U.S. Marine Corps. The following is a cut & paste email that I sent to him. The reason for running it here is because he said that here found it very effective. (As do I and millions of recovered alkies as well as the co-founders of “Alcoholics Anonymous”) Here it is presented, unedited and exactly as it was sent to him. If its good enough for a USMC chaplain – it ought to be good enough for us!!

Message—–
From: Trudger57@aol.com [mailto:Trudger57@aol.com]
Sent: Tuesday, September 07, 2004 8:00 AM
To: dschwarzhoff@ft.newyorklife.com
Subject: (no subject)

Subject: (no subject)

This may be helpful to anyone following along who is just starting
out on this path. I keep a printed sheet of my night morning prayers
on my nightstand next to my bed so I don’t’ forget any of the prayers
which my Big Book tells me are part of this Program.

Maybe its it’s just me, but I WILL get lazy and complacent over time
and probably cut short these procedures unless I keep some prescription in
this manner. The following is exactly what I do each night and
morning in keeping up a healthy meditation and prayer life.

I believe this is how my Big Book tells me I should do this, but I do
not represent AA as a whole. These actions and prayers are not any
official part of this study, they are my own only, as I have
extrapolated from out Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous.

If I have left anything out, or if there is anything in this which
does not adhere precisely to the prayer portions of our Program of
recovery as outlined in the Big Book, then please ignore it. And
please correct me.

(But it is as exacting as I could get it)

EACH EVENING

I start with the 12 evening questions from P. 86 I try to be
constructive as much as possible. I try to look at the good I have
done during the day so I am not zeroing in on my objectionable traits
only. After all, God has made some changes in me.
1. Where was I resentful?
2. Where was I selfish?
3. Where was I dishonest?
4. Where was I afraid?
5. Do I owe an apology?
6. Have I kept something to myself, which should be discussed with
another person at once?
7. Where was I kind toward all?
8. Where was I Loving toward all?
9. What could I have done better?
10.Where was I thinking of myself most of the time?
11.Where was I thinking of what I could do for others?
12. Where was I thinking of what I could pack into the stream of life?

” Forgive me God for each of these areas where I have failed you and
fallen short of being able to be as effective as I could have been
for you. Forgive me and help me live Thy will better tomorrow by
showing me how to correct these errors. Guide me and direct me to do
better tomorrow. Remove my arrogance and my fear. Show me how to make
my relationships with my others right. Grant me the humility and
strength to do Thy will. Amen”

If I was resentful, dishonest, selfish, unkind, unloving, if I owe an
apology or if I have kept things to myself, I remember these for my
morning prayers so I can include these specifically and ask God for
help and improvement in these areas. If an answer comes to me, try to
remember it. (Some people do this as a written exercise, I personally
do not) When I say my morning prayers, I ask God for help in those
areas, if it is His will.

Now I spend 10-15 minute in meditation.

EACH MORNING
Upon awakening, prior to even rising out from bed, I take care of
these areas:

1) I think about the 24 hours ahead: I contemplate what I would like
to be and what God might want me to be.

2) I consider my plans for the day: I think about what God wants me
to do and how I am to live His will. I determine what my vision for
what God’s will is for me today. I already am remembering the amends
I’ve discovered from last night’s 10th step. I start out my day with
the making of these amends in my plan and I ask myself what else
would God want me to do today?

Now, I usually need to use the bathroom. I do so.

Upon returning I start these Big Book prayers. These are in addition
to my meditation, (Which many confuse with reading anything called “Meditation” and contemplative prayers) I keep my prayers & meditation as two very distinct activities.

“God I am yours to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt.
Release me at long last God from the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will.
Take away my difficulties, especially the trouble I am having with ___________________that YOUR victory these may bear witness to those I would help of Love, Thy Power and Thy Way of life. May I do Thy will always! Remove my fears and direct my attention toward what you would have me be, not what I would have me be. Instead God give me whatever intuitive thought, and inspirations you require for me to have in order that I may know your will and receive the power you give to carry that out. Help me to have an intuitive thought or a
decision with regard to __________________ which I face today. Father, help me to not struggle with this. Help me to relax and take it easy instead. Help me know what I should do, keeping me mindful that You are running the show.

Direct my thinking today God, and keep it divorced from self-pity, dishonesty and self-seeking motives. Help me employ my mental faculties, that my thought-life may be placed on the
higher plane of inspiration and help me to pay attention throughout
the day to this vital sixth sense.”

“My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, both
good and bad. I ask that you now remove from me every single defect
of character, which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my
fellows. Grant me strength, God as I go out from here to do Thy
bidding. Show me today how to find Patience, Tolerance, Kindness and
Love in my heart, my mind and my soul and help me demonstrate these
to my family and to those about me.

Remove from me my selfishness, all dishonesty, resentment and fear.
Whichever of these crop up today God, help me to immediately share
these feelings with others and guide me toward making immediate
amends if need be, that I might live serenely with the people about
me.

Lord, help me to not think of myself, instead, help me think of
others and help me be loving and tolerant toward them. Father, keep
me spiritually fit today, by helping me to not fight with anything or
anyone — even alcohol. Show me what I can do today for the man who
is still sick.”

“My Father, help me live the twelve steps of my recovery life, the
twelve traditions of my Group and my family life and all the
principles of AA in my entire life. Remove from me my character
defects, specifically profanity, dishonesty, arrogance, false pride,
sarcasm, judgment of others and fear, especially God the fear of what
others think of and about me.

Watch over me, protect me and care for me. Give me the strength,
courage and faith I need to do Thy bidding. Keep me mindful of Thy
presence Lord and help me know you better and help keep my house in
order.

“God, should I find myself agitated, doubtful or indecisive today,
give me inspiration. Show me all through this day, what my next step is to be. Give
me the strength, faith and courage I need to take care of the
problems in my life today. I ask especially Lord, that you free me
from self-will and fear. Amen”

Then I spend 10-15 minute in meditation. I use a simple non-religious
non “Eastern” method, which I find non-hypnotic, and extremely
effective.

Peace and Love,

Danny S – RLRA
Real Live Recovered Alcoholic

http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com

Kissing Alcoholic Ass

Alcoholics do not suffer from too LOW self esteem – we suffer from too HIGH self esteem.

Why do rehab centers fail so miserably in treating real alcoholics?  Because they have to kiss alcoholic ass for money.  This means telling alcoholics what they want to hear or else they’ll bolt. For a delusional sick alcoholic that is always going to be a lie  – usually about himself.

Because of this vampirish relationship treatment centers are nothing more than parasites; we alcoholics and addicts are the fat succulent hosts and we are all being sucked dry till we die.

It is easy to convince an alcoholic feeling like shit that that his misery is low self esteem. Hell you could tell him its a vitamin  deficient – he’ll do anything to be rid of it.  They truth is that alcoholics do not suffer from too LOW self esteem – we suffer from too HIGH self esteem. High Self esteem – or the high regard we hold for ourselves, our abilities as evidences by our our ambitious pasts is what gets us  into the  horrendous  predicament in which we find ourselves the first place.

We have been lied to by the brain doctors and the ‘treatment center” industry to believe the opposite of the truth of this. It is when no one else comes up to match the same high esteem we hold for ourselves that we fill up with self-pity and resentment for those who fail to give us the ‘good feeling’ we want from them – about our stinking drinking selves.

This is why a searching and thorough 4th step is so effective. It tends to reveal to us the horrible truth – the truth about ourselves – not give us a emotional masturbation session that most pay for treatment brain mechanics will give us.

It feels so shitty that when someone comes along and tells us we have ‘low self esteem” our ego says, “OF COURSE YOU DO!”  Then we seek out people to make us feel even MORE elevated! This makes us WORSE not BETTER. It takes us FARTHER from the real answer, the “destruction of self-centeredness.” Instead they shower us in new sick “self” esteem as as a new high comes to numb the pain of the truth about ourselves – that we don’t really deserve it!

Self pity for not measuring up to our own self-centered delusion we hold for ourselves is often called “low self esteem” but it is the opposite of that. Who would pay for deflation of ‘esteem”? No one.

That’s why the opposite ‘psychology’ is sold by counselors and psychiatrists. It is intentionally misleading. The 12 Steps is a Program that promotes a DEFLATION of self not one of INFLATION of self and that is why the rehab centers fail miserably in treating real alcoholics. Because they to kiss alcoholic ass for money. Treatment centers are parasites and alcoholics and addicts are hosts and we are being sucked dry till we die.

Even the most highly revered treatment centers in the nation – the 40-50-60 thousand dollar a shot facilities that celebrities and the wealthy can afford to tap have success rates that in ANY other industry would flag them for closure and criminal investigations by Attorney Generals in most States. We are talking in most cases fewer than ten percent and NEVER much over fifteen percent. I think the Betty Ford center has something like a high of seventeen percent at one point – if that number can be trusted – and that while they’re bragging! What happens to the other ninety or eighty percent who don’t get what they came for? Do they get a refund? No they are told – sit down for this one – “ITS YOUR FAULT!” Is this some racket or what?

They will never tell the alkie the truth. they will NEVER encourage a through and fearless 4th step or ardent practice of anything resembling a step 10,11 or 12. With treating people with genuine low self esteem perhaps they do OK — but not we alkies for whom ONLY deflation of ego to realistic levels and the leveling of pride takes us on a road of true recovery. The avenue of approach to that victory is a spiritual path.

This isn’t light matter. This alcoholism biz is heavy duty spiritual principles that are SO simple but we have been so brainwashed to believe the opposite of truths! It’s as if they want us dead! But first they want our money. If anyone can see what is being said here, please consider it.

Peace and Love,

Danny S – RLRA
Real Live Recovered Alcoholic
http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com

The Right and the Means of Distinction

Are you or are you NOT an alcoholic?

So how come “no right to say” only applies to the ‘sayin’ when it is what THEY want to hear? Why is it perfectly OK pronounce anyone at all as alcoholic without knowing a thing about them except that they have “shown up” while at the same time it is NOT ok to admit a dissatisfaction with ones qualification as alcoholic? The truth is it is fine to discern either. Refusing or intentionally remaining unable to distinguish the alcoholic from the nonalcoholic and yet think that it is just fine to pronou nce some as “ALCOHOLIC” is what hypocrites do. Unlearned-ed, ignorant and arrogant hypocrites. Does “We do not like to pronounce any individual as alcoholic,“ automatically mean that we also must not like to pronounce any individual as non-alcoholic? It doesn’t say that does it?

I’m just sayin’, man. Chill ok?

But never mind that . . . . . the truth is that non- alcoholics can never become members of AA – even if they say so – even if I say so – even if your sponsor says so – if someone on face book says so or even the old fart with the red nose and the white hair crouching and pretending to be “wise” and that “twinkle” in the eye actually being macular degeneration from twenty years of over-ogling young newcomer girls with thongs pulled-up-too-high over their lower lumbar ‘stamps’ – from the back of the church basement, says so – even if they have a desire to stop drinking or whatever their desires are.

We can twist the short-form of the Traditions all we want to make us think so -so we can be helpful to EVERYONE – but the long-form sets us straight without the need for stretching. And this is for the protection of the fellowship. The idea that non-alcoholics can become members of AA is also well debunked in virtually all subsequent written commentary coming from the co-founders on the subject. The idea a person can be considered a member of AA “when he says so” – is a privilege reserved for those who suffer from alcoholics only. ALCOHOLICS who fit “our description of the alcoholic” – not ‘anyone’s description of the alcoholic’. AA is a very exclusive fellowship. Like it or not.

Treatment Center indoctrination is difficult to navigate around. Treacherous. Today’s “Addictions” ‘experts’ – drug and alcohol counselors have become sophisticated in their hypnotic influences over hurting people and have become very good at tricking the weak while they are down. They have been very successful at establishing their undeserved ‘certifications’ and abject ignorance about alcoholism and convincing drug addicts and heavy drinkers that they can walk out of the center and become AA members full well ignoring that this is a lie- — that relapse after relapse can keep the cycle going as long as they are intentionally instructed to declare themselves “members” in a fellowship for which their can not qualify — and in which they probably will not get well.

Unfortunately then this rehabology doctrine leaches like DTT into our church basements and weakens our ability to keep Primary Purpose going.

Anyone who has been led to believe that ANYONE – even a non-alcoholic desiring to stop drinking can become a member of AA just hasn’t performed enough independent inquiry into the subject and is relying on heresy and uninformed opinions of others who have agenda (financial mostly) to push into the fellowship.

After you’ve buried a few non-alcoholics who die from another problem because EGO said “I CAN TAKE HIM THROUGH THE STEPS ANYWAY” and told him it was fine to call himself “alcoholic” and “member” even after not being satisfied that he was one (92:1) then you begin to see the importance of why all this is so and understand it deeply. You also understand other folk’s refusals to see it. Why they are unable to grasp the horrible truth that might actually apply to themselves – that maybe they themselves have been in the wrong place all along too.

The hardest words to day in any language are these: “I am wrong”

Anyone – non-alcoholics, alcoholic it does not matter – who isn’t working with others and helping them recover through the 12 steps – never get far enough into the trenches to grasp the concept so they must rely on opinions.

Who agrees with what the co-authors told us, right in the book about those first 43 pages in that book, “In the preceding chapters you have learned something of alcoholism. We hope we have made clear the distinction between the alcoholic and the nonalcoholic.” (44:0)

How good of an idea might it be – when sponsoring a new person – upon arriving at this page to turn it into yes or no answer affair?

1) Have you learned something of alcoholism from the preceding chapters? Y/N

2) Can you make the distinction between the alcoholic and the non alcoholic? Y/N

If the answer is “I don’t have the right” then we are done. There is no point in proceeding. The co-authors provide us with the means AND the right.

IF the answers are not YES and YES then we haven’t accomplished what the co-authors intended to be accomplished. We haven’t taken step one. For if we don’t know what an alcoholic is – how to tell if one is or isn’t alcoholic – then how on earth can we know whether or not we are ONE? Why would we want to try to belong to a fellowship that we do not even need to solve our problem or qualify for membership in? We can’t admit powerless over alcohol if we don’t know what the hell that means!

If they cannot make the distinction between the alcoholic and the non-alcoholic then they haven’t learned about alcoholism and anyone who cannot or will not do this has NOT taken Step one – even if they THINK they have.

If you haven’t learned about alcoholism hopefully you’ll ask questions and not proffer in meetings answers to questions you do not know anything about. By this reason opinions are not healthy in this recovery racket – not when they are represented as facts and knowledge when they are not.

Peace and Love and GO Siobhan!

Danny S – RLRA

Real Live Recovered Alcoholic

A Life Unmanageable

From Cradle To Grave?

“We admitted we were powerless over alcohol-that our lives had become unmanageable.”

They did, that eh? They admitted those things. According to the 1938 Encyclopedic Edition of The Winston Simplified Dictionary the word “unmanageable” means, “Not easily conducted or controlled. Disobedient; not subject to guidance.”

OK yes, we get to a place where we know that our drinking has become unmanageable. We get it and that getting it is a major concession. It means that the spirit decimating experience – that severe case of desperation founded upon a realization that a vicious cycle of obsession and craving is unimaginably dire and fatal. “WE GET IT”. It’s is a realization that is so nauseating that we gag on our own spittle trying to swallow the grossness of what has become our lives. It’s hardens like a knot – it sits in our belly and relief seems a hopelessness cause just gnawing at our once free — now crippled soul. A bullet in the back of the head can seem a viable way out. Many of us make the decision to take that trip.

Whoever came up with the idea that “Misery is optional” for alcoholics did not know much about what it is like to be inflicted with the malady for real.

For the real a alcoholic who is intent upon recovering from it misery is not an option. It is a bloody requirement. Later it turns out to have been a blessing.

But man! That wasn’t enough, was it? Did they have to impugn my drinking and my entire life as well? To what depth must this deflation go? And so early in ‘recovery’ too?

Isn’t such a broad admission overstepping bounds? To some it is and would prefer to rewrite that step to ‘dis-include’ the word “lives’ and limit the “U-word” to alcohol. But they do not.

Let’s see just what the co-founders thought about their (our) “lives”, shall we? We can do that by looking to see other instances where they talked about our “lives”

Here it goes:

• “Now we try to put spiritual principles to work in every department of our lives. When we do that, we find it solves our problems too; the ensuing lack of fear, worry and hurt feelings is a wonderful thing.” (116:3)

• “They appear to be in the nature of huge emotional displacements and rearrangements. Ideas, emotions, and attitudes which were once the guiding forces of the lives of these men are suddenly cast to one side, and a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them.”(27:3)

• “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.” (51:0)

• “For faith in a Power greater than us, and miraculous demonstrations of that power in human lives, are facts as old as man himself.” (55:2)

• “We did exactly the same thing with our lives. We took stock honestly. First, we searched out the flaws in our make-up which caused our failure. Being convinced that self, manifested in various ways, was what had defeated us, we considered its common manifestations.” (64:2)

• “We went back through our lives. Nothing counted but thoroughness and honesty. When we were finished we considered it carefully.” (65:2)

• “Notice that the word “fear” is bracketed alongside the difficulties with Mr. Brown, Mrs. Jones, the employer, and the wife. This short word somehow touches about every aspect of our lives.” (67:3)

• “Time after time newcomers have tried to keep to themselves certain facts about their lives. Trying to avoid this humbling experience, they have turned to easier methods.” (72:2)

• “At the moment we are trying to put our lives in order.” (77:0)

• “In nearly all cases, their ideals must be grounded in a power greater than themselves, if they are to re-create their lives.” (The Doctor’s Opinion)

Clearly when the co-authors write about our “lives” they mean OUR LIVES~! Not any single limited aspect of our lives. Not just our drinking. After all drinking is not our problem it is merely a symptom of a more complete picture of depravity. If we go back over the above extracts and substitute the word “drinking” for “lives” – the statements do not work. So clearly when they talk of our lives being unmanageable they are saying,

According to The Winston Simplified Dictionary, 1938 our “lives” is the “period of time from birth to death”. Now when that has become unmanageable, and it does, we are in the deepest of deep doodo.
One look at the life of an alcoholic can abundantly illustrate that un-manageability handily. Of course all lives are un-manageable to some degree. It is the alcoholic who needs to admit it! Living without that admission might be the luxury of normal man and woman but if we are to recover we have to deflate and admit that we are nothing without God.

Not only do they propose that we could not manage our drinking, but we could not manage our LIVES either.

Our drinking has affected EVERYTHING about us. It isn’t about the substance – it is about us as human beings where we are becoming more and more inhuman. As alcoholism progresses in severity we devolve in our original humanness.

It is at a level that would elude the lenses of an electron microscope — something that is far beyond mitochondria analysis and DNA patterning — so deep and so viscerally spiritual that science need see that it is they, the Johnny-come-latelies or alcoholic recovery, need to take a back seat to the effort. They need to leave this recovery business to the real Pros. They need to leave it to the spiritual mystics whose practices can actually help the real alcoholic. Some of them are in AA.

Somewhere sitting in that church basement, maybe next to the guy who “don’t know how this works” yet incredibly just “knows that it does” or maybe right behind the disrespectful and ignorant “alcoholic ANDA addict” who can’t tell anyone Jack Shit about his own truth and isn’t interested in it either, let alone help a newcomer discover truth – but who is very happy to share with all who can sit through it what some arrogant Traditions scoffing sponsor told him that his boring ass junkologue was somehow alcoholic “experience strength and hope” – there just might also be real live recovered alcoholic.

He might not collar the new one during that meeting. He is probably too respectful of his Group’s time. But he’s watching.

He is sizing him up – wondering if he is serious about recovering from alcoholism – if his time with the newcomer will be helpful or if it might detract from helping someone else who does want what he has to offer. He might take a run at him after the meeting – right upstairs in the parking lot aiming for him like a heat seeking missile. He has been given the power to help others. Why not you? Uhm I mean ‘him’.

Peace and Love,

Danny S – RLRA
Real Live Recovered Alcoholic

Mark Houston – Rest In Peace

Getting to . . . and Through . . . . a Fouth Step Inventory

It IS a RACE

Don’t you get at least a little cagey when you hear stuff regarding Inventories that comes from outside the AA Big Book — new terms, words and ideas not used by the co-authors? Does hearing non-Big Book phrases, terminology and ideas that cannot be reconciled with the Big Book itself make you feel a little bit uncomfortable? Maybe it is your God given BS radar alarm sounding. Maybe you ought to at least investigate and discover the truth. Yes, even if you read it here. Some of us like to take an already clear idea and re-title it – as if to re-invent it all over again. For example terms like “the turnarounds” when talking about about what the co-authors of the Big Book simply called “our mistakes”. What’s wrong with calling it “our mistakes”? NOTHING is wrong with it. It works fine. It may not be that big of a deal by itself but you will find that there is fire behind smoke, usually. Peek under the kilt of a Big Book Step sponsor blowing that smoke and you could be in for a shock. Things are not always as they appear – nor are people. If you fall for it without first looking you could find yourself ‘hooked’ and it is too late. But if you fall for it without first looking you could find yourself ‘hooked’ and it is too late. New ‘lingo’ and calling AA and that sort of thing just reeks of re-vised techniques that are the products of someones ego injecting its own juice into what is otherwise already clear and detailed precisely as intended. The original language isn’t good enough for some egos – it must insert its own so it can glean some credit for things. There are Big Book Study Groups and other kinds of groups that ‘attract ‘ such predators into their memberships the way Boy Scouts of America or a Summer Camp might subconsciously attract sexual deviants to those organizations to pursue avocational work. Newcomers need to be able to recognize those kinds of predatory individuals so they can attend those fantastically focused meetings and belong to those wonderful Groups without fear of being spirituality raped. You people with sponsors using the “12 & 12″ or Eckhart Tolle, Emmett Fox, Deepak Chopra, and Wayne Dyer books to assist in taking you through the steps know exactly what I am talking about – even if you won’t admit it. That stuff is all over the fellowship in different forms masquerading as the genuine article. But the genuine article is like water to their oil. Often there is more ‘meddling’ lurking underneath. When it come to AA’s spiritual Program of recovery – called The Twelve Steps – if it isn’t in the Big Book then it IS bullshit — and if it says it’s in the Big Book and it still isn’t . . . . then it’s lying bullshit.

PART II

Here is an interesting concept: “If you do a fourth step too soon you will relapse or commit suicide”. Or another favorite: “If you do a fourth step too rapidly you will not be thorough enough and you will relapse or commit suicide”

Have you heard either of these inventions? Most of us have. Could you imagine that advice being given to Bill Wilson when he and his “sponsor” Ebby Thacher did this work from Bill W’s detox hospital bed? How about Doctor Bob in Akron or Bill D the lawyer, Clarence Snyder — all of the co-founders? We can even hear this stuff from self-styled AA veterans who aren’t “old-timers” at all but are really just longtime fellow-ship addicts attending meetings meetings and more meeting – Jesus Christ, two three meetings a day- seven days a week, when do they ever “work with others” (they don’t) . Does this seem like freedom to you?

It is no wonder that we cannot keep folks in the fellowship for much longer than a typical five year ‘tour of duty’. We have people going to so many meetings, clinging to our selfish cultish clannish cliques that they become AA Burn-Outs – over-heated on their self-inflicted and guilt powered excessive fellow-shipping — always before they have ever even been properly introduced to the Twelve Steps. Most have never even been taken through Step One.

Where the Grand Daddies of Recovery – the co-founders of Alcoholics Anonymous were – back in the thirties and forties – turning out spiritually weakened recovered alcoholics – we are today are turning out hypnotized POP-AA zombies who continue a newer tradition of mantracized treatment center jargon, sing-songish recovery slogans masquerading as AA wisdom and holding fast like dingle-berries to their church basement folding chairs because “I don’t want want to drink today.” and “I need you people to stay sober today” — instead of rapidly moving through the Twelve Steps detailed in beautiful clarity in the Big Book, “Alcoholism Anonymous”. Don’t you just want to puke?

Yet there are folks who will push that idea of it always being “too soon for inventory” to newcomers in order to get them to delay their approach to the Twelve Steps–

– or at least slow down their progress toward the promised spiritual awakening. These are arrogant bastards – sorry but that is what they are.

Yet consider for the moment the person saying such a thing. When you do, for one crisp moment, the idea almost does carry some weight. Not a whole lot. Just some. Almost. Some.

There is reason for this. The painful past is of great value to the real alcoholic about to awaken spiritually and recover from his malady. The obsession to drink at all is about to be removed. It is a positive. Not so the heavy, hard drinker hanging out in AA meetings. To him the past really can be a trigger because he is someone who drinks (drank) solely to help him bear the strain of a painful past and maybe even a present. The drinking of the real alcoholic isn’t tied to pain.

Please pay careful attention to what you are about to read: Alcoholism is not tied to anything other than his insanity and proclivity to drink no matter what and his utter inability to stop once that mental aberration gets him started. That is all there is to the kind of alcoholism that is the “our description of the alcoholic” clearly delineated in the first forty three pages of “Alcoholic Anonymous.”

Alcoholism is not tied to ‘consequences’ (Sorry Dr. Drew you could not be more wrong that) It is not tied to behaviors. It is not tied to environment, slippery places, the wrong crowd. It is not even tied to post-traumatic stresses or youthful trauma.

‘Alcohol abuse’ might be but alcoholism is not. This is one of the reasons why non-alcoholics who erroneously call themselves alcoholic and who advertise themselves to newcomers as AA ‘members’ are dangerous to the AA fellowship and to a threat to the health, well-being and very lives of newcomers. Non-alcoholics in AA must de-spiritualize the process for themselves and others. They must diminish or even eliminate the requisite self-searching, pride leveling and admission of shortcomings that are in the fourth and fifth step process. If the pain of the alcoholic can be his touchstone of spiritual growth then for the heavy drinking non-alcoholic it may be a “trigger”.

It is not uncommon for someone doing a forth step to experience a ‘need’ to drown their sorrows somewhere in the process. Sometimes a barley resistible and even irresistible urge. This is not necessarily a horrible thing. If a real alcoholic hasn’t yet recovered – still being too soon in the process – it is actually to be expected. It isn’t “obsession” but it isn’t exactly a pleasant thing to endure either — but endurable it is. Urge is not obsession and obsession is not so weak. Urge is absolutely unendurable. There is no forethought in obsession.

In obsession, the alcoholic simply gets struck drunk! BAM! One Drink and then the vicious cycle is set off by the ensuing crave for more. For someone who isn’t really an alcoholic this desire to drink during a fourth step inventory is understandable.

Non-alcoholics drink because they don’t like the way they feel. Real alcoholics drink no matter how they feel.

If you are not an alcoholic such as is described in the first forty three pages of the book, “Alcoholics Anonymous” – if your idea of being alcoholic is based upon anything other than the “our description of the alcoholic” (60:3) - then you may not understand this. You may also be one of the arrogant assholes circulating within the AA Fellowship harming and maybe even killing us real alcoholics with your opinionated, agnostic treatment center drivel written about frequently on this blog site.

A man going through his forth step is supposed to feel like shit. What he discover is supposed to be “objectionable”.

Objectionable – Arousing disapproval. Unpleasant or undesirable. (The Winston Simplified Dictionary, 1938)

Feeling like shit is good business for the real alcoholic – not only so that he can finally once and for all admit to his innermost self his powerlessness over EtOH — but so that his pain will fuel the spiritually psychic energy he will need to perform a sixth and seventh step – a step devoted to the miraculous removal of defects.

If our defects aren’t objectionable enough then who would experience enough of the mortification to take such drastic measure as to permit the leveling of pride – relinquishing removal to another being – named God? A fourth step inventory frozen in midair might be tasty enough to lick for a moment but despite the sweetness in its promise for ultimate recovery unless one gets beyond it and moves toward being of maximum service as a spiritually fuel being then the physical inventory will ultimately prove not to have been the real dessert at all.

It’s more like a hor’d oeuvre for the main course that never arrives. Inventory Freeze will give you a headache worse than ice-cream. It’ll pull and tug and pinch your soul into a throbbing spiritual migraine finally you will drink. You will drink. That is not a blind prediction. It is based upon experience repeated through year of taking men through the twelve steps and repeatable at anytime.

Entire Groups sometimes sprout egos too. That’s right entire groups begin to ooze with the prideful juices of their own membership – thick and syrupy and congealed like fatty gravy. The object of being sponsored into AA and through these Twelve Steps is NOT to become a working Member type of any specific Group. The object is to have a spiritual awakening. The object is not to become a good little Primary Purpose Grouper or a BBSS guy or a Wally P. Aficionado – it is to have a spiritual awakening. Period! Those entities can be wonderful and can serve as virtual Houses of the Holy for alcoholics but motives are what counts — not affiliations – nor is any validation by things “man made”.

Motives falling outside of attaining sobriety – freedom from alcohol through the teaching and practicing the twelve steps, secret or bandied – blatant or subconscious – are deterrents to recovery from alcoholism – for the real alcoholic anyway.

For the heavy drinking non-alcoholic these are less of a hindrance and can actually serve to assist such ‘problem drinker’ in staying away from a drink and improving his lot in life – as long as he “keeps coming back” and “remembers the last drink” and look to “YOU PEOPLE” for human aided support instead to take the place of a loving God who can solve the problem once and for all.

Becoming a hypnotized Big Book Study Hobbyist or a POP-AA sloganeer – there is no difference – can work — unless one is a real alcohol. Non-alcoholic study hobbyists seem to have a knack for getting stuck in “Inventory worship” which is debilitating for a real alcoholic. A real alcoholic who is “still writing” his 4th step inventory after a month will be a monster – yet restless, irritable and discontent – not truly a “recovering” alcoholic in any sense. A person who is “still writing” four, five and ten months after making his beginning in Step Three is NOT ‘launched’ and not being “”vigorous.

Sitting in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous – un-recovered and not recovering from alcoholism – announcing to be “still writing” week in — week out– for months on end is not a badge of courage or honor. It is moniker of fear, doubt and faithlessness and a testament what happens when the Big Book is sodomized by ‘recovery perverts’ and it a disgrace to the process detailed in the book, “Alcoholics Anonymous.”

This is despicable. It is disgusting and nauseating thing to witness the wasted time and effort while pushing their own agendas under the guise of “Twelve Step Recovery” while real alcoholics are dieing from unterated alcoholism every day because they aren’t being presented with the “this” message of the wonderful book, “Alcoholics Anonymous”.

It is phony. It is deviant and predatory behavior.

When we hear “vigorous” some of us think we mean rigorous. We can confuse being rigorous with being vigorous.

Rigorous means demanding strict attention to rules and procedures; vigorous means strong and active physically or mentally. There is a world of difference.

Strong and active launch into action the first step of which is this inventory is necessary and the truth is that if your inventory is taking weeks or months then you are not being vigorous. Perhaps you sponsor failed to communicate to you what it is you are looking for in your inventory or you didn’t “get” what the Big Book directions gave — or perhaps you have forgotten, more than likely you are procrastinating. Procrastination is anti-”launch” and anti-”vigorous”.

If you believed that there was a great benefit to be had from walking across a bed of broken glass or hot coals – that you would be a better person once you successful got to the other side but you would have to suffer great pains as you crossed in order to receive that benefit– – do you think you would do well to get across it as soon as you possibly could – trudging and with purpose and dignity – or would you want to move as slow as possible to risk morbid wounding? What if you stopped part way across? There is no need to over-explain this — is there?

So how long is a forth step and how much time should it take to complete one? Look back to the result desired. The idea of a fourth step inventory is that there ought to be an effort that is thorough enough and honest enough to be contributory toward having a spiritual awakening. That is, “. . . the personality change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism” (Appendix II)

That’s it man! Nothing more than that. It is NOT to be thorough enough to provide an amateur psychoanalytic experience. Not thorough enough to keep one sober or happy or relived. Those are nothing more than an EGO trying to do something it hasn’t even the ability to do. A fought step had better be thorough. It had better be honest – it had better be launched, done with vigor and it had better be completed damned soon – before that deadly meteor hurtling though space and heading here right now – called the insanity of the first drink – breaks the atmosphere and strikes earth right where our man is standing.

Anyone pushing anything other than that is screwing with your head. Stay away. I don’t care how much they think they are doing “it” as laid out in the Big Book. They are not.

A man on a porcupine fence
Used me for an ashtray heart
Hit me where the lover hangs out
Stood behind the curtain
While they crushed me out
You used me for an ashtray heart
- Captain Beefheart – Ashtray Heart

Peace and Love,
Danny S – RLRA
Real Live Recovered Alcoholic

Bridge Traffic Jammed

The beautiful thing about the message of the Big Book is that once optioned, the spiritual awakening that occurs as the result of the Big Book’s Twelve Steps not only saves us from alcoholic obsession and solves all of our problems but it even saves us from reliance on the Big Book itself.

It doesn’t matter what it is – a woman, a man, a car a job or a ham sandwich, yes even the Big Book itself can become an obstacle to full recovery when it is abused – when it is put before God.

There is a mountain of difference between worshiping the Big Book and adopting the Twelve Step design for living that is its message. You may have experienced with folks so focused on THE BOOK and THE INVENTORY that they never seem to get unstuck from that ‘mid-span’ of the bridge — over to God and maximize their usefulness through continuous spiritual growth.

Having been on both sides and having been stuck in that jam some of us are happy to report that once we give up our addiction to the written word – stop worshiping the book and its message and instead live and practice it – our guidance, inspiration and direction comes direct and not out of the materials. The heavenly intuition at subconscious and conscious levels doesn’t come from “human aid”. Looking for inspiration and messages form God out of the Big Book is a misguided attempt to glean the spirituality of the co-authors off the written page is spiritually sophomoric and a distraction from the fact that we aren’t following the direction chronicled on the very pages of the vehemently place on a pedestal. Only God Himself is so deserving but when the Biog Book becomes our God . . . . . we worship ‘it’ instead of reflecting back a positive example to others – the fruits of living aligned with our Creator – then we will wind up revealing to others the hypocrisy of our self-described ‘spirituality’ which may indeed involve ‘spirti’ but the question is which one? There is more than one ‘spirit’ in spirituality and anyone pursuing the Spirituality of goodness will encounter its antithesis. Its axiomatic.

Big Book worshipers capable of reciting chapter and verse with incredible aplomb yet whose live remain entangled in abject manageability and obvious pursuits of character defects that still bring about harms and need for Fellowship ‘support’ and human aid that comes in in the form of “meetings, meetings, meetings” or “service, service and more service” are — good examples.

A hundred men and women were being spiritually awakened – had recovered from alcoholism and had begun living the Twelve Step design that is aligns its adherents with God’s will for many years BEFORE the Big Book was published telling us in printed prose precisely what they had done. So we know that the Big Book isn’t even the mandatory element of AA Twelve Step recovery. The Steps are. The binding and the glue and paper and ink of The Book are not.

Guidance and divine intuition comes coincidental to a spiritually awakened state that is proposed and chronicled by the the co-authors of the Big Book – not guidance and direction out of the Big Book. Not from Emmett Fox. Not from Joe and Charlie, or the “Twelve and Twelve” – not from some self-appointed Big Book Study AA Group poo-bahs, not blogs like this one, not from CDs and circuit speakers. Not even the Bible. These might all be good things and each worth a value of its own with something to offer. What they definitely do not do is serve as a source of spiritual direction and it is a given that they are each with severe limitations in-as-far-as being a central source of guidance.

Those who have tried it find out the hard way and it is their misery that is the evidence.

Why not do as the co-authors of the Big Book suggest and did themselves? The put their reliance upon a God has no limit.

Getting to a place where that line of communication opens up and happens through daily prayer & daily meditation (Step Eleven) and it grows and improves continuously in daily Steps 10 and 12. Things get a lot smoother. There is no middleman. There is no “preacher” – no spiritual ‘guru’ – no bullshitting creep with vibrating stones and tarot cards or steaming incense stenchers.

Now THAT’S REAL FREEDOM!

But some people get stuck in that book. It comes from not following the directions in their entirety

Of course you could always just get around to the Steps at some indeterminate date, just suit up and show up, read the Big Book ad infinitum, go to open discussion meetings and chant AA slogans and “Just don’t drink” “One day at a time.” grinning like a good little POP-AA Fellowship-bot

That’s worth something too. Probably.

But somehow it just does not seem worth the establishment of a huge worldwide spiritual fellowship when compared to the experiences just described in the first several paragraphs of this article, does it?

If you still think God speaks through people – who told you that? Your Big Book? Nope. Your Big Book tells you to avoid “human aid”. THE OPPOSITE!

Your Bible? No. No, Scripture is more a testimonial — not a set of directions. Your Sunday morning Preacher? . . . . .

. . . . Uh, wait a minute! I know who told you that God talks through people. It was ‘People’, wasn’t it? Probably “people” who similarity gets their spiritual “messages” through still MORE people. Nice of them to say. That’s quite an assignment reserved for “people” isn’t it?

That’s not exactly relying on God INSTEAD of people, is it?

It is no wonder then that so many of us are still a mess thinking that we have a design for living that supposedly works, has worked for so many others yet still seems to evade us.

We would rather put hours into studying the writings of Emmet Fox than the minutes in Step Eleven required to get our inspiration from God.

We still get caught up with bedevilment and unmanageably that should have been shed a long time ago. No wonder we go to meetings, thump our Big Books, go to church, thump our bibles and still our kids are on drugs, we can’t keep our ‘units’ inside of our own pants, are addicted to internet porn, smoke like chimneys and are going to early graves clutching Twinkies and Ho-Hos besieged by the physical ailments brought on by self-inflicted diabetes.

Oh crap, we might as well drink, no?

What if God has got something to say directly to you? Don’t you want to get hooked up? The answer to that is Step Eleven – prayer and meditation. Or else a burning bush. Waiting for a burning bush maybe?

“He had stepped from bridge to shore. For the first time, he lived in conscious companionship with his Creator. Thus was our friend’s cornerstone fixed in place. No later vicissitude has shaken it. His alcoholic problem was taken away. That very night, years ago, it disappeared.” (56:2)

Peace and Love,

Danny S – RLRA
Real Live Recovered Alcoholic

http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com/

Growth vs Ego

Can spiritual growth co-exist with human ego?

It had better because if it cannot then we are truly doomed. Have you ever noticed that a newcomer barely off the sauce for a scant thirty days is suddenly talking as though he is suddenly OK? Compared with his condition – emotional, physical, and financial – just two months ago it is easy to understand why he feels this way. Truly it is amazing. The contrasting lifestyle and mental outlook therein can be quite enjoyable and it does tend to elicit a bit of gratitude.

Yet one look at him and hearing sixty seconds of his ‘talk’ reveals that he is still quite mad – still un-recovered – and still suffering from self-absorbed delusional spiritual illness – but dry and feeling better.

The problem is that he maybe feeling just better enough to skip the Twelve Step part of the AA experience — or, being void of the desperation with which he was afflicted only weeks before – falls to temptation to adopt methods of achieving Twelve Step “knowledge” that had nothing to do with the actual spiritual awaking and full recovery from alcoholism. We have Big Book Study groups right here on the Peninsula of Doom – the deportment of which has been hijacked by individuals promoting half measures of “action” under the guise of Twelve Step adherence and fool a lot of people into thinking that they promote the Twelve Steps “as laid out” in the Big Book.

If ninety nine percent of what they do is laid out in the Big Book – it is the one percent that is of their own invention left to taint the otherwise pure spiritual process of recovery.

Hey, maybe they balk on a forth step by deciding to ignore the examples set by the co-founders and take a month or a year to complete it becoming subservient to cultish ‘sponsor-people‘ and quasi-Big Book Study methods – and relapsing as the result. There are proponents of that kind of happy horseshit in the AA fellowship – operating under the otherwise divinely inspired Big Book Thumping umbrella too.

They are not too difficult to recognize. You can spot an oddball immediately if you are attuned. Just like the KKK kook is not hard to recognize even in a roomful of otherwise conservative folks — nor are Marxists hiding out in the Democratic party difficult to spot – not once they open their mouths. They are impostors and they can be seen for what they are. That is called discernment. Discernment without resentment is not judgment. It is spiritually inspired vision and something we learn to live by once we know the age-old secret to accessing it.

Show me a man who is “taking a year” to complete a fourth step inventory and I will show you one still sick mutha with little hope of a Twelve Step induced spiritual awakening – having too long ago lost the original abject desperation of his last drinking debacle he will need to compel him to thoroughly complete the drastic work of the Twelve Steps – until the drinks again that is. And he will drink again if he is a real alcoholic. If not he may get away with it.

Half measures do work very well for non-alcoholics. After all our way of living does have benefits for all — even those who do not qualify for AA membership.

Maybe it is the absence of hangovers and perhaps he reachieved a little shot of confidence from his family or the work-front because he isn’t drunk today but he will still find himself wrought with doubt, indecision, misunderstanding and misdirection.

Or how about us Recovered Alcoholics? We talk about how we no longer live unmanageable lives, how the desire to drink has been miraculously removed and how until that happened we thought we alright by simply staying dry

But NOW? Now, we know better. “Today we are OK. “

We used to think we were OK but we were not really. We didn’t know that we didn’t know. Now we are “OH so much wiser” and ‘weller‘. The promises are being realized. Page fifty two is but a horrible memory and we are today so much closer to God and by golly dang-a-lang-a-ling-ding-dong-day – we are TRULY trudging the Happy Road of Destiny. Oh thank God we aren’t like we used to be!

Man, we’re even paving that sucker ourselves and painting the yellow lines on it so everyone is clear on which lane is ours – which is theirs and there is room for all if we just keep to the rules of the road.

Even a ten, twenty of thirty year veteran to Big Book spirituality will often speak of how messed up they used to be even AFTER taking the steps – even after having been spiritually awakened and how they used to think that was OK then … but NOW . . . NOW! They are REALLY OK!

Man I used to think I was spiritually awakened – and I guess I was but NOW – NOW I am REALLY REALLY REALLY there man!

Yes it is a little humorous but isn’t it just really human nature? Is it entirely harmless. No, but manageable if recognized.

It exists because of two things. Growth plus the never dyeing ego. Shrinking ego? Yes. Eliminated ego – it ain’t happening. We can and we do grow despite our utter inability to kill the ego. At best Ego deflates to a manageable size but I never goes away entirely. The most spiritual holy-man walking the face of the earth today – whoever he is – still has an ego that separates him just ‘this’ far from his Creator so that he will not walk on water or change water into wine or heal the sick with nothing more than the wave of his hand.

That space of separation, that crack, is the only thing keeping us from seeing a “heaven on earth” and the only thing keeping us from falling into in the “hell on earth” both – at the same time. We are either narrowing that schism or it is widening automatically depending upon how well we live or lives by doing ‘will, His work instead of our own. Once we establish conscious contact with God, and this is the very point of the Twelve Steps we are then in a position to keep that communication open with Him so we can know an receive two thing:

1. Knowledge of His will
2. The Power to carry it out

   THAT’S IT! That’s all we are here for. Of course what “His will” entails may be a load of footwork and action but its is His will not ours and their isn’t a damned thing we can do about that – matter how hard and how may times we have and my continue to try. That kind of struggle of ego is exactly what ego need to grow and will tempt us to fight it every time. Yet it’s destruction is what we are here for and we aren’t here to do anything less nor are we to live our lives by any other way – unless of curse it claims us. Every time we inject OUR will into the mix it pollutes the whole thing and what we have is nothing more or less than a toxic drink

Pray for Acceptance. POOF! GONE.

Pray for a cure to aunt Matilda’s cancer? Or for Haitian refugees Poof! and POOF!

OK OK Then for Haitian refugee CHILDREN! Surely if its for the kids it is noble enough. No?

POOF!

Pray to keep me away from a drink today? Bye Bye humility. Poof!

Oh . . . but it is for the “Good of others” we claim. and therefor altruistic and proper. Oh yeah like we humans know what is “good for others”.

We are to pray only for our USEFULNESS in this regard.

Maybe confronting a puffed up ego is what we need in order to grow spiritually and we can welcome opportunities to judge and allow pride to rule once again – and either become complete assholes by giving in — or else incomplete ones by letting go.

Peace and Love,

Danny S – RLRA
Real Live Recovered Alcoholic

 

 

 

 

“AA Doesn’t Work!”

Guest article

by Clifford B.

One of the saddest statements I have ever heard is, “I’ve been to A.A. and it doesn’t work.” There is no way I can count the number of times over the past couple of decades I have found an alcoholic coming off a drunk who made that statement. Just today, one of my protégés called to tell me of a man, holed up in a cheap motel room, he was asked to locate and see if he could help him.

My protégé was successful in locating the suffering alcoholic and did what he had been instructed to do on a Twelve Step Call. He told him some of the story of his drinking and how he had come to know it to be an illness over which he had no control nor did the medical profession have a solution.

The suffering alcoholic finally said, “You’re going to try to tell me about A.A. aren’t you?”

“That is where I found my Solution.” said Jake. “I have gone to A.A. meetings for the last eight months and did what they told me to do. It doesn’t work for me.”

“Did you take the Steps with a Sponsor who had been blessed with a spiritual experience as the result of having taken the Steps?”

The sick one said, “I think I did but the main thing they told me was just keep coming back and you’ll be OK. When I asked what else I should do, I was told, ‘Don’t drink and keep on going to more meetings.’ I did what they told me to do and A.A. just doesn’t work.”

Driven to Drink

A member of Alcoholics Anonymous found me near death in 1964 and told me he could help me. He said to me, “I understand. I have been where you are and I want to help you if you will let me.” I was willing to do anything. He took me to his A.A. Club and began sobering me up on Orange Juice with some honey mixed in it. When I began having Delirium Tremens, they added some Bay Rum to the mixture. There were no treatment centers in our area at that time and hospitals would not admit us for alcoholism. We either shook and sweat it out in jail or at an A.A. Club. By far, most of them made it to the end sober or they still are. I wasn’t one of them.

I saw an opportunity to return my ego to its earlier level by getting involved in a new and exciting profession and so I went for it. Sixteen years after my last drink; eleven years after my last meeting, on a day without a cloud in the sky, I thought having a beer would be a good idea, so being in a very dry county, I drove seventy miles for a Six-pack.

It took me two years to make it back to Alcoholics Anonymous — very, very drunk.

What a difference thirteen years can make! There were no alcoholics laying around the Club with dry heaves. There were no blood shot eyes, sweating faces, no vibrating bodies, the aroma of alcoholism was missing. There was no orange juice in the refrigerator nor honey near the coffee pot. There was no Bay Rum in the file cabinet. It was no longer needed because almost everyone had gone to “treatment” and been medicated through the process of what is termed “de-tox.”

They had missed those wonderful Golden Moments of the misery, suffering and pain of sobering up. At first, I thought the new approach was good but then I began to see the results. There was less and less commitment to the Group and the action necessary for long term emotional sobriety was being ignored.

There were very few Big Book Study or Speaker meetings but a large number of “Discussion/participation” meetings where everyone was given an opportunity to talk about whatever was on their mind whether on not they knew anything about alcoholism or recovery from alcoholism. There were even non-alcoholics participating in these meetings. This newer approach of learning to live with alcoholism was beginning to prove to be a dismal failure.

We Work ‘It’

I heard a tape of Joe McQ. and later attended a weekend of Joe McQ. & Charlie P. presenting their “Big Book Comes Alive” program. It then became very clear why so many were returning to the bottle. Not only were we without sick alcoholics laying around the meeting places, there was so little Program in our meetings, it was almost hidden from the newcomers. No wonder so few were finding more than a few months of physical sobriety. They were denied what is required for long term emotional sobriety.

Without the sick alcoholics laying round the meeting place, I had to find a place where I could again see and smell alcoholism. I needed a frequent reminder of where I came from and what was waiting for me if I didn’t continue to pay the price for emotional sobriety. Over the years since I have been blessed to have been given another opportunity to survive the deadliest disease known to mankind, I have volunteered in many wind-up places where those coming off a drunk are present and available to talk with. Again and again, I heard that sickening statement, “I went to A.A. and it doesn’t work.”

Of course, they are right. Alcoholics Anonymous does not work! We MUST WORK IT! But they were never told.

Where Are The Sponsors?

My Basic Text reads, “Rarely, have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path” The “Path” being the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous as outlined in a book titled “Alcoholics Anonymous.” My Basic Text does not read, “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of don’t drink and go to meetings…” It reads, “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and practice these principles in all our affairs.”

Our real problem is weak and ineffective sponsorship. Proclaimed members of our Fellowship who have never taken the Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous will assume the responsibility for the life of a newcomer and will proudly announce the number of “sponsees” they have.

As one of my dear friends said, “The manner in which we now fail our responsibility to the newcomer borders on slaughter.” The demise of our sense of responsibility to those seeking help for alcoholism is one of the greatest tragedies of our time in history. It works if we work it! That is a Promise. (A.A., pg. 84)

Cliff B.

CBBB164@aol.com