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