Tolerating Intelopers

This recovery deal is a life and death thing. Hearing watered down baloney from people who have no idea what they are talking about – no experience to back up their garbage can certainly be a Step Ten exercise.

Not because I care about my experience being contradicted – I don’t give a tittly- toot about that – but because alcoholics freaking’ die when they hear and follow crap solutions from crap spewing Pop-AA club-housers and meeting goers. Seriously.

I know a lot of people read this blog – from all over the world – India, all through the UK, Israel, Korea, Scandinavia, European countries and that means that some folks are going to think I’m an asshole. (One or two – MAX!) It’s in the numbers. Sometimes they’d be right – broken clocks are right twice a day aren’t they – and I am a frail human being.

But Goddamn it – how much bullshale do we have to endure while watching our fellow alcoholics die at the hands of people calling themselves AA “SPONSORS” who haven’t got a clue of the responsibility that goes with that. And who insist upon hating this blog and sending me silly ad hominem attacks. It is silly and it is a waste of time.

I’ll say it again – only those who recover can sponsor others. RecoverING alcoholics have no recovery to offer.

Being a good Samaritan isn’t what this program is about. Many of us want to believe it’s about that but that is only when we have nothing else to offer. This Program is about finding God, experiencing the miracle of recovery then getting similarly lost people to God so He can work His miracle on them, fix them up and then pass the process onto others. It goes on and on. It’s got nothing to do with just not drinking or using and becoming a tax payer.

Unless you redefine “sponsorship” to mean being a phone, meeting, coffee & life-coach buddy. But that isn’t what Step Twelve s is about and it isn’t what “working with others” is about either.

Recovered alcoholics who do NOT sponsor others do not stay recovered. Nor are they practicing these principles in all of their affairs.

Step twelve means to take others through the steps – THAT is the only help we are qualified and prescribed to pass on as the result of having a spiritual awakening as the result of the steps.

It is an epidemic inside of our own Fellowship – that so many people have NO IDEA what Step Twelve means.

They think they do but they have not embraced or understood the importance of the prescribed method of “helping others” is. They just make it up as they go along – whatever they think is good in the moment – make the coffee, drive a newcomer to a meeting, become the “greeter” – hell I know people who think that just “being nice” to people is STEP TWELVE, carrying the this message.

I have bad news for them. Your SUPPOSED to do that stuff anyway. Dufus! As a social human being! That is not not the this message.

Then enough similar people who haven’t experienced what’s in that Big Book either go along nodding their heads – “Uh huh – Uh huh” – and I swear we can hear the marbles rattling around in those skulls because they’re just hypnotized Pop-AA zombies with their OWN Program that is not even CLOSE to the Twelve Steps – but some sort of cafeteria style hybrid.

The poor REAL alcoholic comes along, hears that stuff, tries it and dies. Meanwhile the chicken shit drug/alcohol abuser - not alcoholic – with the chicken shit ‘sponsor’ who also got sober through non-spiritual means stays dry, gets a job and starts getting laid on a regular basis and now all of a sudden, “AA WORKS!” God help us. Apparently nothing could be finer than to be in her vagina – not even a spiritual awakening.

THIS IS THE FELLOWSHIP HE CRAVES.

Culpability lies with THAT middle-of-the-road solutions person who proposed non-spiritual means in the first place – like what is given in books such as Living Sober. That has got to be the most disgustingly insipid bit of AA “Conference Approved” drek that AA Publishing, Inc. has ever produced. Living Sober does NOT contain the solution to alcoholism. The Twelve sand Twelve does NOT contain the solution to alcoholism. The Big Book DOES contain the solution to alcoholism – in its entirety. No further authentication is needed.

You push books like those on a newcomer BEFORE bringing him to the solution in the Big Book and very often he is as good as murdered. Anyone who has not experienced this themselves – who doesn’t take people through the steps and watch to see who dies and who lives and what they did to get what they got have NO IDEA and may differ in their opinion – but opinion are no match against experience – I’ve been through it more than once. Too many times and not enough times – depending on the result.

Please look at this: (From the 53rd General Service Conference of AA)

“The basic responsibilities in a sponsorship relationship are to work the Twelve Steps as outlined in Alcoholics Anonymous, read the Big Book, the Twelve Traditions, the Twelve Concepts, and other Conference-approved literature.”

There isn’t much unclear about that is there?

So, to answer my first question: How much bullshale do we have to endure? Apparently a whole lot. All we can do is ask God to show us how to show patience, tolerance, kindliness and love toward all – even POP-AA interlopers who kill real alcoholics.

Peace,

Danny S

Tolerating Intelopers

This recovery deal is a life and death thing. Hearing watered down baloney from people who have no idea what they are talking about – no experience to back up their garbage can certainly be a Step Ten exercise.

Not because I care about my experience being contradicted – I don’t give a tittly- toot about that – but because alcoholics freaking’ die when they hear and follow crap solutions from crap spewing Pop-AA club-housers and meeting goers. Seriously.

I know a lot of people read this blog – from all over the world – India, all through the UK, Israel, Korea, Scandinavia, European countries and that means that some folks are going to think I’m an asshole. (One or two – MAX!) It’s in the numbers. Sometimes they’d be right – broken clocks are right twice a day aren’t they – and I am a frail human being.

But Goddamn it – how much bullshale do we have to endure while watching our fellow alcoholics die at the hands of people calling themselves AA “SPONSORS” who haven’t got a clue of the responsibility that goes with that. And who insist upon hating this blog and sending me silly ad hominem attacks. It is silly and it is a waste of time.

I’ll say it again – only those who recover can sponsor others. RecoverING alcoholics have no recovery to offer.

Being a good Samaritan isn’t what this program is about. Many of us want to believe it’s about that but that is only when we have nothing else to offer. This Program is about finding God, experiencing the miracle of recovery then getting similarly lost people to God so He can work His miracle on them, fix them up and then pass the process onto others. It goes on and on. It’s got nothing to do with just not drinking or using and becoming a tax payer.

Unless you redefine “sponsorship” to mean being a phone, meeting, coffee & life-coach buddy. But that isn’t what Step Twelve s is about and it isn’t what “working with others” is about either.

Recovered alcoholics who do NOT sponsor others do not stay recovered. Nor are they practicing these principles in all of their affairs.

Step twelve means to take others through the steps – THAT is the only help we are qualified and prescribed to pass on as the result of having a spiritual awakening as the result of the steps.

It is an epidemic inside of our own Fellowship – that so many people have NO IDEA what Step Twelve means.

They think they do but they have not embraced or understood the importance of the prescribed method of “helping others” is. They just make it up as they go along – whatever they think is good in the moment – make the coffee, drive a newcomer to a meeting, become the “greeter” – hell I know people who think that just “being nice” to people is STEP TWELVE, carrying the this message.

I have bad news for them. Your SUPPOSED to do that stuff anyway. Dufus! As a social human being! That is not not the this message.

Then enough similar people who haven’t experienced what’s in that Big Book either go along nodding their heads – “Uh huh – Uh huh” – and I swear we can hear the marbles rattling around in those skulls because they’re just hypnotized Pop-AA zombies with their OWN Program that is not even CLOSE to the Twelve Steps – but some sort of cafeteria style hybrid.

The poor REAL alcoholic comes along, hears that stuff, tries it and dies. Meanwhile the chicken shit drug/alcohol abuser - not alcoholic – with the chicken shit ‘sponsor’ who also got sober through non-spiritual means stays dry, gets a job and starts getting laid on a regular basis and now all of a sudden, “AA WORKS!” God help us. Apparently nothing could be finer than to be in her vagina – not even a spiritual awakening.

THIS IS THE FELLOWSHIP HE CRAVES.

Culpability lies with THAT middle-of-the-road solutions person who proposed non-spiritual means in the first place – like what is given in books such as Living Sober. That has got to be the most disgustingly insipid bit of AA “Conference Approved” drek that AA Publishing, Inc. has ever produced. Living Sober does NOT contain the solution to alcoholism. The Twelve sand Twelve does NOT contain the solution to alcoholism. The Big Book DOES contain the solution to alcoholism – in its entirety. No further authentication is needed.

You push books like those on a newcomer BEFORE bringing him to the solution in the Big Book and very often he is as good as murdered. Anyone who has not experienced this themselves – who doesn’t take people through the steps and watch to see who dies and who lives and what they did to get what they got have NO IDEA and may differ in their opinion – but opinion are no match against experience – I’ve been through it more than once. Too many times and not enough times – depending on the result.

Please look at this: (From the 53rd General Service Conference of AA)

“The basic responsibilities in a sponsorship relationship are to work the Twelve Steps as outlined in Alcoholics Anonymous, read the Big Book, the Twelve Traditions, the Twelve Concepts, and other Conference-approved literature.”

There isn’t much unclear about that is there?

So, to answer my first question: How much bullshale do we have to endure? Apparently a whole lot. All we can do is ask God to show us how to show patience, tolerance, kindliness and love toward all – even POP-AA interlopers who kill real alcoholics.

Peace,

Danny S

A Hedge Against The Next First-Drink

I have read “Living Sober”. I read it before I had recovered — and after I had recovered. After I had recovered, there was absolutely no useful information in anymore – because the desire to drink has been removed. I had already recovered.

What do you with a book that is contains concepts that seem so contradictory to AA’s Big Book, “Alcoholics Anonymous” that you have to wonder if it wasn’t designed as some sort of pre-computer age “virus” designed to thwart the recovery of alcoholics?

So what do you do? Do you throw in the garbage? Do you burn it? Do you quarantine it in a sterile zip lock bag and hide it in dark corners of your closet? And what do you say to a real-live “Living Sober” Thumper?

I really don’t know. The book seems to me to be directed toward people ON THEIR WAY to recovery – those few difficult days in-between taking step one and actually having the spiritual awakening, when a person can probably say they are “Recovering” and actually be accurate about that.

For me it was a temporary, non-spiritual hedge offering some useful tips that could substitute for real recovery until I could hit the spiritual angle of the Program. Not a solution – just a catalogue of evasive actions to help me stay away from a drink while I was still white knuckling being dry – until such time as I could be ” placed in a position of neutrality – safe and protected.”

After that, thee book was a dinosaur. When I see folks sober one two even TEN or TWENTY years using “Living Sober” I have to ask, ” Why do YOU still need that book?”

I shudder to think that I would be their taking cues from that book for very long.

As I real alcoholic I cannot begin to imagine what it would feel like to be a “Living Sober” Thumper. I do not EVER want to go back to being in a place where the information in that book is helpful and meaningful to my recovery.

I mean if you are in AA – not drinking for a year and still carrying candy bars in your pocket and carrying quarters to weddings and retying to decide whether or not you need to take the steps — MAN, you is in deep doo doo! And that is the stage of recovery this book addresses.

Looking back, I see that there was no advice in there that could not have been provided by a good sponsor. And certainly nothing in it that could bring about recovery. It was mostly time wasted that should have been used with a Big Book, where the solution is presented.

“Conference approved” does not mean AAs good housekeeping seal of approval – or a UL guarantee. All it does is tell GSO where to put the proceeds from the sale. Many who have been involved in service (No, NOT making coffee and putting out pamphlets) – within our service structure, come to realize this before long. It is not bad. It is just misunderstood.

But the truth is, when someone doesn’t want to put time into working with a puking drunk, and is not familiar with the Big Book – they’ll toss him a Living Sober – now THAT’S their kind of sobriety! – Because as they will admit “I’m always going to be a newcomer”.

“Yes…Yes . . . I believe you always will be.”

Peace,

Danny S

A Hedge Against The Next First-Drink

I have read “Living Sober”. I read it before I had recovered — and after I had recovered. After I had recovered, there was absolutely no useful information in anymore – because the desire to drink has been removed. I had already recovered.

What do you with a book that is contains concepts that seem so contradictory to AA’s Big Book, “Alcoholics Anonymous” that you have to wonder if it wasn’t designed as some sort of pre-computer age “virus” designed to thwart the recovery of alcoholics?

So what do you do? Do you throw in the garbage? Do you burn it? Do you quarantine it in a sterile zip lock bag and hide it in dark corners of your closet? And what do you say to a real-live “Living Sober” Thumper?

I really don’t know. The book seems to me to be directed toward people ON THEIR WAY to recovery – those few difficult days in-between taking step one and actually having the spiritual awakening, when a person can probably say they are “Recovering” and actually be accurate about that.

For me it was a temporary, non-spiritual hedge offering some useful tips that could substitute for real recovery until I could hit the spiritual angle of the Program. Not a solution – just a catalogue of evasive actions to help me stay away from a drink while I was still white knuckling being dry – until such time as I could be ” placed in a position of neutrality – safe and protected.”

After that, thee book was a dinosaur. When I see folks sober one two even TEN or TWENTY years using “Living Sober” I have to ask, ” Why do YOU still need that book?”

I shudder to think that I would be their taking cues from that book for very long.

As I real alcoholic I cannot begin to imagine what it would feel like to be a “Living Sober” Thumper. I do not EVER want to go back to being in a place where the information in that book is helpful and meaningful to my recovery.

I mean if you are in AA – not drinking for a year and still carrying candy bars in your pocket and carrying quarters to weddings and retying to decide whether or not you need to take the steps — MAN, you is in deep doo doo! And that is the stage of recovery this book addresses.

Looking back, I see that there was no advice in there that could not have been provided by a good sponsor. And certainly nothing in it that could bring about recovery. It was mostly time wasted that should have been used with a Big Book, where the solution is presented.

“Conference approved” does not mean AAs good housekeeping seal of approval – or a UL guarantee. All it does is tell GSO where to put the proceeds from the sale. Many who have been involved in service (No, NOT making coffee and putting out pamphlets) – within our service structure, come to realize this before long. It is not bad. It is just misunderstood.

But the truth is, when someone doesn’t want to put time into working with a puking drunk, and is not familiar with the Big Book – they’ll toss him a Living Sober – now THAT’S their kind of sobriety! – Because as they will admit “I’m always going to be a newcomer”.

“Yes…Yes . . . I believe you always will be.”

Peace,

Danny S

Living Sober

I have read Living Sober, before I had recovered — and after I had recovered. After I had recovered, there was absolutely no good info in it because the desire to drink has been removed.

The book seems to me to be directed toward people ON THEIR WAY to recovery – those few difficult days in-between taking step one and actually having the spiritual awakening, when a person can probably say they are “Recovering” and actually be accurate about that.

For me it was a non-spiritual hedge, with some useful tips that could substitute for recovery until I could hit the spiritual angle of the Program. Not a solution – just a temporary hedge to help me stay away from a drink while I was still white knuckling being dry. After that, it was a dinosaur. When I see folks sober one two even TEN or TWENTY years using “Living Sober” I have to ask, ” Why do YOU still need that book?”

I shudder to think that I would be their taking cues from that book for very long.

I do not EVER want to go back to being in a place where the information in that book is helpful and meaningful to my recovery.

I mean if you are in AA – not drinking for a year and still carrying candy bars in your pocket and carrying quarters to weddings and retying to decide whether or not you need to take the steps — MAN, you is in deep doo doo! And that the stage of recovery this book addresses.

Looking back, I see that there was no advice in there that could not have been provided by a good sponsor. And certainly nothing in it that could bring about recovery. It was mostly time wasted that should have been used with a Big Book, where the solution is presented.

“Conference approved” does not mean AAs good housekeeping seal of approval – or a UL guarantee. All it does is tell GSO where to put the proceeds from the sale. Many who have been involved in service (No, NOT making coffee) – within our service structure, come to realize this before long. It is not bad. It is just misunderstood.

But the truth is, when someone doesn’t want to put time into working with a puking drunk, and is not familiar with the Big Book – they’ll toss him a Living Sober – now THAT’S their kind of sobriety! – Because as they will admit “I’m always going to be a newcomer”.

“Yes…Yes, I believe you always will be. Fool!”

Peace,

Danny S