Misery Loves Company

There’s a whole breed of folks today who like to say that they, “Go to meetings to hear what happens to people who don’t go to meetings.”

Does that sound a little sick to you? I mean, what kind of a person lives off of — and looks forward to — the misery of others? When did AA become a society of parasites?

In a small way it sort of reminds me of the NASCAR fan theory where fans flock to races not to rejoice with the winners but to take pleasure in the potential and actual wipe outs, injuries and suffering of others. You know . . . just having to look at the train wreck – there’s a sick pleasure in it for some. I happen to LOVE NASCAR racing -but I am one of those folks who get into the whole race – the car, driver and race histories – the particular race issues.

This brings to mind page 52. Most alcoholics I know can identify with what we call the “bedevilments”. I had opportunity just last night to look at these with a newly sober alcoholic at a treatment center. We laughed together just reading it as she blushed with total recognition. This is a common response. It accurately described the way she lives – the way we ALL live until we discover the truth about our malady, decide to do something about it and then vigorously pursue the solution.

If your Book is inconvenient (or your too lazy) here they are:

1. We were having trouble with personal relationships,
2. we couldn’t control our emotional natures,
3. we were a prey to misery and depression,
4. we couldn’t make a living,
5. we had a feeling of uselessness,
6. we were full of fear,
7. we were unhappy,
8. we couldn’t seem to be of real help to other people

My life was rife with every one of these – before AND AFTER I came to AA and became an ardent “Meeting Maker”. Just “showing up” is no panacea for misery I tell you.

Today that has been turned around 180 degrees – because I have recovered and when that happens we become God reliant instead – and so I don’t go to meetings looking for fellow commiserates with whom to identify and feel better.

These days I don’t HAVE to identify with another suffering alcoholic. I already went through that alcoholic identification when I was first twelve Stepped into the Fellowship of the Spirit by a man who was armed with the facts about himself – who KNEW something about alcoholism and KNEW how to tell me about it.

Now “Still suffering” alcoholics have to identify with ME! — So THEY can recover from WHAT I HAVE to bring to THEM!

I have ALREADY recovered and received my gift! Recovered folks such as myself identify with these bedevilments of the past and one of the reasons we seem so grateful after we recover is that although we recognize them – was also know that they are no longer integral posts of our existence, like they were before.

This is a wonderful lesson one can learn and practice out of the Big Book, “Alcoholics “. When just “reading” it – this is not be so apparent – but it DOES become operative once someone practices the few simple “RULES” detailed so precisely in that book. It is a well written and detailed set of proposals that becomes a new design for living.

Everyone has some sort of “Design for living” - whether they admit it or not. We tend to THINK we are free from such, when it is based upon self – but one thing I’ve learned is that we can also be SLAVES TO SELF. That is not freedom.

The Twelve Step design is different than that most of us live under because it is totally altruistic and ego deflating – and from that comes true freedom.

Un-recovered alcoholics can find themselves constantly looking for more out of their lives – discontent – going from meeting to meeting and listening for a new “Happy-thought” du jour - we can take with us so we can feel good about our lives – so we can forget that we are living on page 52 of the Big Book. God forbid.

Peace,

Danny S

Peace

of Ass.
If your ass falls off “Put it in a bag and take it to a meeting.”

Hardy Har Har. A regular riot. Now let’s get serious for moment – shall we?

If my “Ass is falling off” what that really means is that I must be living on page 52 of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous – and some of my creeping agnosticism is the order of my day.

That means I am off beam and not centered on God and His will, but MY will. It means that I probably haven’t done my Morning Prayer and meditation. The “Put it in a bag and take it to a meeting” suggestion is telling me to turn it over to human aid.

What will happen is that I may feel better at and perhaps for a short time after that meeting – but the reality is that I am still people centered and not God centered for my happiness. That is something which has been true all my un-recovered life.

This is how so many of us – me included – felt when we lived as “Meeting Makers” — without a Program and not as a recovered member of a Twelve Step Fellowship. Today as life throws its curves and bumps in front of me, there is no longer the urge to “Get to a meeting” to settle myself.

I no longer get “Squirrelly” if I miss a few days, or even a week of meetings. As far as I know, no one regularly characterizes me as a “Serene” man. But certainly I do KNOW serenity, which is one of the hundreds of promises made to me by the authors of the Big Book — provided I take other simple steps. (And in the case of “knowing serenity” – that means I’ve completed my amends)

If the lack of a meeting began to once again affect my serenity — to take me closer to a drink — I’d have to take a real serious look at my spiritual condition.

Being dependent upon meetings to keep my head on straight doesn’t sound like very much freedom to me – and freedom is what I want.

But there is a price for such freedom. They guy who goes from meeting to meeting to dump his crap in the face of the newcomers who have come my meetings looking for hope for a solution to alcoholism doesn’t need to hear how unmanageable life is even though I don’t drink. He doesn’t have to hear from me a bunch of slogans that don’t even have a root in the Program but come out of the brains of some psych-babblers in a treatment center.

He can instead hear me tell how freakin’ GREAT life is when I have a God in my life, a proven Program to keep me close to Him and away from the next first drink. THAT’S what he wants to hear.

His question is, ‘Is there some way – some how – that I can get up and go through a day without ending up drunk?“

And I can tell him YUP! AND you can be happy about it too! And then I can show him how. And believe me . . . it isn’t telling him “Keep coming back – it works if you work it”. My sponsor didn’t show me how to kill alcoholics. He showed me how to pass on a life SAVING Program for alcoholics.

But the complacent part is still a threat, I am warned that is easy to let up on this Step Ten practice and those four “Things”* – and before you know it unmanageability starts to creep in again and there I go heading for trouble – and eventually to alcohol – the subtle foe.

We are not cured of alcoholism. What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. “Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God’s will into all of our activities.” (85:2)

And THAT is living a day at a time. The twenty four hour plan. One Day At A Time – whatever you like to call it. It’s NOT about not drinking a day at a time – watching the clock and hoping to make it to midnight so I can say “I’m a winner – because I didn’t drink today”. That kind of sobriety is just about the shittiest life to live that I can imagine – I don’t want any part of it.

Man, I can’t EVER drink again for the rest of my LIFE! That’s a fact! But I can LIVE a day at a time, which is what I am taught by my Big Book and by those who follow this path.

I was a little leery when I first realized, “Holy crap! These people aren’t just praying in the morning and thanking God at night. . . they are doing this crap ALL DAY LONG!” – the ones that have recovered and stay that way anyway. The “Plug in the juggers?” and the “Just don’t drink today” folks – eh . . not so much.

I can’t EVER drink again and although I am not cured of alcoholism (I still have to follow the directions) my experience proves to me that I sure have made a full recovery and I don’t have to remain still sick and suffering from alcoholism anymore.
(“Oh don’t say “ever” – you’ll jinx your sobriety.” Oh really? When did the Program work VooDoo into it? Give me a break!)

Drastic problems require drastic actions – and although it wasn’t easy to adopt this new design for living, it sure has been simple. Not doing Step Ten continuously IS the complacency – doing Step Ten constantly IS the vigilance that rids me of it. It is the price of freedom.

Peace,

Danny S

* If you are a real alcoholic and don’t know what those four things are – then you probably haven’t even begun AA – I don’t give a crumb how much time you’ve got or how many meetings you go to. You are a newcomer and don’t know squat!

Peace

of Ass.
If your ass falls off “Put it in a bag and take it to a meeting.”

Hardy Har Har. A regular riot. Now let’s get serious for moment – shall we?

If my “Ass is falling off” what that really means is that I must be living on page 52 of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous – and some of my creeping agnosticism is the order of my day.

That means I am off beam and not centered on God and His will, but MY will. It means that I probably haven’t done my Morning Prayer and meditation. The “Put it in a bag and take it to a meeting” suggestion is telling me to turn it over to human aid.

What will happen is that I may feel better at and perhaps for a short time after that meeting – but the reality is that I am still people centered and not God centered for my happiness. That is something which has been true all my un-recovered life.

This is how so many of us – me included – felt when we lived as “Meeting Makers” — without a Program and not as a recovered member of a Twelve Step Fellowship. Today as life throws its curves and bumps in front of me, there is no longer the urge to “Get to a meeting” to settle myself.

I no longer get “Squirrelly” if I miss a few days, or even a week of meetings. As far as I know, no one regularly characterizes me as a “Serene” man. But certainly I do KNOW serenity, which is one of the hundreds of promises made to me by the authors of the Big Book — provided I take other simple steps. (And in the case of “knowing serenity” – that means I’ve completed my amends)

If the lack of a meeting began to once again affect my serenity — to take me closer to a drink — I’d have to take a real serious look at my spiritual condition.

Being dependent upon meetings to keep my head on straight doesn’t sound like very much freedom to me – and freedom is what I want.

But there is a price for such freedom. They guy who goes from meeting to meeting to dump his crap in the face of the newcomers who have come my meetings looking for hope for a solution to alcoholism doesn’t need to hear how unmanageable life is even though I don’t drink. He doesn’t have to hear from me a bunch of slogans that don’t even have a root in the Program but come out of the brains of some psych-babblers in a treatment center.

He can instead hear me tell how freakin’ GREAT life is when I have a God in my life, a proven Program to keep me close to Him and away from the next first drink. THAT’S what he wants to hear.

His question is, ‘Is there some way – some how – that I can get up and go through a day without ending up drunk?“

And I can tell him YUP! AND you can be happy about it too! And then I can show him how. And believe me . . . it isn’t telling him “Keep coming back – it works if you work it”. My sponsor didn’t show me how to kill alcoholics. He showed me how to pass on a life SAVING Program for alcoholics.

But the complacent part is still a threat, I am warned that is easy to let up on this Step Ten practice and those four “Things”* – and before you know it unmanageability starts to creep in again and there I go heading for trouble – and eventually to alcohol – the subtle foe.

We are not cured of alcoholism. What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. “Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God’s will into all of our activities.” (85:2)

And THAT is living a day at a time. The twenty four hour plan. One Day At A Time – whatever you like to call it. It’s NOT about not drinking a day at a time – watching the clock and hoping to make it to midnight so I can say “I’m a winner – because I didn’t drink today”. That kind of sobriety is just about the shittiest life to live that I can imagine – I don’t want any part of it.

Man, I can’t EVER drink again for the rest of my LIFE! That’s a fact! But I can LIVE a day at a time, which is what I am taught by my Big Book and by those who follow this path.

I was a little leery when I first realized, “Holy crap! These people aren’t just praying in the morning and thanking God at night. . . they are doing this crap ALL DAY LONG!” – the ones that have recovered and stay that way anyway. The “Plug in the juggers?” and the “Just don’t drink today” folks – eh . . not so much.

I can’t EVER drink again and although I am not cured of alcoholism (I still have to follow the directions) my experience proves to me that I sure have made a full recovery and I don’t have to remain still sick and suffering from alcoholism anymore.
(“Oh don’t say “ever” – you’ll jinx your sobriety.” Oh really? When did the Program work VooDoo into it? Give me a break!)

Drastic problems require drastic actions – and although it wasn’t easy to adopt this new design for living, it sure has been simple. Not doing Step Ten continuously IS the complacency – doing Step Ten constantly IS the vigilance that rids me of it. It is the price of freedom.

Peace,

Danny S

* If you are a real alcoholic and don’t know what those four things are – then you probably haven’t even begun AA – I don’t give a crumb how much time you’ve got or how many meetings you go to. You are a newcomer and don’t know squat!

Terror on The Penninsula of Doom

“Many of us have been so touchy that even casual reference to spiritual things made us bristle with antagonism. This sort of thinking had to beandoned.” (48:0)

Here on the Peninsula of Doom, Cape Cod, the “Bristling” with “Antagonism” at the mere casual mention of God in a meeting is sometime matched with direct implications of “Hey don’t listen to that God stuff. Just don’t drink, come hang with us in meetings and everything will be alright” and “Groups don’t drink, but people do” – and other phrases useless to the real alcoholic.

I mean, if that were true then the meeting makers would be making it – and we see that meeting makers relapse ALL THE TIME – even ones who go to two, three or four meetings a day. MAN! Can you imagine being so meeting reliant for sobriety? It’s no wonder so many newcomers get burned out and give up on AA.

This idea is further supported with their own experience “That’s all I did. My sponsor was GREAT because he never pushed that God stuff on me – and now I am great because I am not like that last guy who just shared – who mentioned God.”

Are these people lying? Probably not. I believe them. It’s their experience. Who am I to question it? If they say that If their will was sufficient to solve the drink problem, I believe it.

But I also know from experience supported by the experiences of the first 100 alcoholic co-founders – and clearly documented in “Alcoholics Anonymous” that anyone who can stop drinking or moderate without God – ALREADY HAS POWER over alcohol and isn’t “One of us”.

“WE” are powerless – and just because someone else exhibits power over alcohol – can utilize the human-aid of meetings and “Hanging in the middle of the pack” or “Putting the plug in the jug” - does not mean that everyone can do it – and how arrogant is it to tell others that THEY CAN! Some of us are truly powerless even if they are not.

Do you thing Ebby (See He Got Off His Ass) held back on the “God talk” because he was afraid to scare Bill W. off? Hell, no. That’s not the way it started and not the way it was done back then – when AA had a seventy-five percent success rate. Ebby even went further than that with Bill W when he said, “I’ve got religion!” – and STILL Bill managed to recover. Why? Because there is this little escape hatch for the religiously “Allergic”. It is called “God of YOUR OWN understanding”.

We don’t have to accept anyone else’s concept of God, as long as it IS GOD. My Big Book tells me that any human concept of God will be insufficient anyway – so why get bogged down on that? We don’t. And when I follow the directions in the Book – I LEARN that!

This may not be prevalent where you are located, but here on Cape Cod, it is. (I don’t want to say the entire Cape – I mostly attend meetings “Mid-cape” in the Hyannis area.) There are small crews of folks, men mostly, who seem to have made it their mission to contradict those whose recovery experience has been spiritual and in step with a God of their own understanding.

According to my Big Book – NOT solely my opinion – these people are probably not really alcoholic. If they are, MAN they must be miserable. (They even look miserable too – rarely smile, always seem depressed, and just have no life-energy about them. No twinkle in the eye that we hear about.)

No wonder these folks eschew the Big Book. They are TERRIFIED of it! Learning from it might show them the truth – they ARE in the WRONG PLACE!

What business is it of mine? Well, I nearly died listening to it. That’s all. Just death – leaving a fatherless family behind with my head blown off by my Winchester. No big deal. (See “Nearly Lost My Head)

I can’t change them – and I don’t even try – I can at least be aware of it – because it helps me de-program newcomers who have to hear it and then hear something totally different from me.

GOD CRAMMING

Peace,

Danny S

The Cure For Meeting Malaise

Meeting are a boring pain in the ass and YOU CAN’T WAIT to get out of each one! And that’s your DIRTY LITTLE AA SECRET!

I know – don’t bullshit me pal! You know it’s true.

So here’s the solution! I swear it is!

I get most of my guys right now from meetings. I get there early – I stay late. I circulate. I advertise. Prospecting IS promotion AND attraction. I leave the old misquoted sound byte for Tradition Eleven (Attraction not promotion) where it originates and belongs.

I let people know I am an active sponsor and always available. I hand out my little prospecting cards which tell folks I am available for work. I keep my eye out on the crowd and pretty much try not to groan out loud listening to the speaker. HA!

(Yes, Joe and Jane middle-of-the-road AA – you AND your sad-sack drunkaloge is one one big freakin’ bore to real alcoholics!)

Sometime people come to meetings specifically looking for me. Sometimes I have to chase them. Someone like Cliff B. may have to yell at me and tell me to get my ass down to the local Sally if find myself in a dry spell. And hurtin’ But I am always WITH CHILD when it comes to drunks with whom to work. THANK GOD!

AA as a Fellowship is not boring when I am using it as it was designed – as a society and supportive means of upholding our PRIMARY PURPOSE.

And if you are unable to do this, because you don’t work with others, or arent’ qualified to sponsor others because you havent recovered – then what the hell are you doing in AA meetings anyway?

Drinking our coffee? Trying to screw our gals? Pleasing the spouse, boss or courts? Fine –then suffer!

Is your “Drinking Story” boring? HOW TO KICK IT UP —-> KICK

Peace,

Danny S

Silly Ass Messages Can Kill

The “Shut up and listen” idea is grossly misunderstood – and I think largely fictionalized – nearly to the point of AA folklore. But the idea is valid even if those words are not verbatim the idea certainly is not to wield control over the newcomer for the sake of control. It is to keep our primary purpose intact.

The newcomer who comes to us for help needs to hear the voice of experience and knowledge – not a rehab graduates concept of experience, strength and hope. He has no experience, he is weak and he is hopeless, until he recovers.

THEN he has something to transmit. Hearing un-recovered (“recovering”) alkies or heavy drinkers who can NEVER recover from alcoholism – spouting their problems and no solution sent me right back out to the sauce. I needed to hear about God – from day one. My second run into a meeting a year and a half later at last put me in touch with someone who knew God was the solution and who loved me enough to let me know it. I stayed. And I am well.

If you want to know the origins of the “You have nothing to say” adage from the old-timer – THIS IS IT. They are not being mean.They are trying to protect THEIR Fellowship! OUR Fellowship. From YOU!

Unless you HAVE RECOVERED, what is it that you have to say that could possibly be of any value? “I just keep coming, that works for me”? – “Meeting makers make it?” “Just don’t drink and everything will get better”?

That crap might be YOUR method of staying sober – but for the real alcoholic who must have a spiritual awakening, these devices are deadly. Real alkies like me must hear the message that has depth and weight in it – not pith.

Lets carry the message, not YOUR silly ass message. And if your message isn’t the same one in the Big Book then maybe you should shut up and listen for a while too. Please!

Peace,

Danny S

"Come See What’s On The Slab"

Or who.

What is 90 in 90? It is not part of the AA Program. What it is – is a snappy suggestion made by folks – perhaps well meaning – who have no idea what else to tell someone when they first come in. People who do not have the Program tend to tell others to do the same.

They mean to say that they should go to meetings, which is true, they should go to meetings. Unfortunately, many newcomers take it to mean that if they just go to a lot of meetings, they will not drink, or that it will be easier to stay sober.

It is too bad because so many of us, myself included grasp onto something like 90-in-90 with the false hope of its efficacy toward sobriety and we wind up changing our dates, dead or leaving AA because it does not work. The newcomers see those people “Not drinking” and figure “It works for them, maybe it will work for me.” But if they are a real alcoholic is does not.

What we see is newcomers going to two and three meetings a day thinking the more meetings they make, the easier it will be to stay sober – then they drink anyway.

Then they go away thinking they must be either worse than we are or that AA is a sham, or if they DO manage to white knuckle it – they get so burned out on AA meetings they stop coming down the road looking for a better way – out of pure tedium.

These are the people who “bounce in and out” of AA. Some die before they hear the message that it is not the meetings you make — it is the steps you take.

Back when AA had a 75% success rate, the meetings, when there finally were meetings, were optional — and the suggested steps were mandatory for sobriety.

Today a newcomer hears that the meetings are mandatory and the steps are something optional or postpone-able till they “are ready” … (As if they know, a puking dying drunk is not ready now to find permanent sobriety, but will be later.)

Crazy. Absoutely crazy. And that’s why so many meeting makers just don’t make it.

Peace,

Danny S

Why Go To AA Meetings?

I go to meetings now for different reasons than I did early on. I used to go to meetings because someone told me that if I didn’t then I would drink. So I was afraid NOT to go. That is not very much freedom is it?

I go to different TYPEs of meetings for different reasons. But all of the types that I go to are because I LOVE them. That is quite a switch from spending years watching the clock and making “Deposits in the bank.”

First of all I have to realize that going to meetings and sharing is NOT carrying the message as delineated by the AA co-founders. According to them, carrying the message is done on 12 step calls. Ther is not even the slightest reference in my Big Book, which says anything about carrying the message at AA meetings. It would certainly be easier if it were, but the fact is, it is not.

I go to meetings because:
1) It feels good to be a part of something.
2) To meet newcomers and pick up new protogees.
3) Meetings are fun.
4) Meetings help fill the ample time I am left with because I am not wasting
my time drinking or recovering from a hangover.
5) It is one of my hobbies. (My job is being of maximum helpfulness)
6) Its good PR for me to promote my services; that I have recovered and I am
experienced in showing anyone interested in exactly how that happened.
7) To connect on a personal level with my “host of friends” who also go to
meetings
8) To get the speaking commitment schedule so I can show up to speak
9) To speak from podiums to the newcomer and tell him in a general way what I
used to be like, what happened, and what I am like now. Sort of a public 12 step call format, if you will. Not as effective carrying the message on-on-one, but I still try.

Here is NOT why I go to meetings:
1) To share my troubles because a problem shared is a problem halved. (I go to my sponsor with that)
2) To say something so profound that someon’s life is bound to be saved. (I blow all my profundity here and talking with protogees. LOL )
3) To convey something in my past which is so heartbreaking and scary that
someone may be compelled to join AA (Only works with heavy drinkers)
4) I will go to jail if I do not.
5) My wife will leave me if I do not.
6) Because meeting makers make it (Too much evidence that this is false)
7) To read the Big Book
8) To read the 12 X 12
9) To discuss any AA books. (I go to very few discussion meetings. Just one a week)
10) To learn how to not drink ( I already don’t)
11) To find “Chicks” ( I am married)
12) To recover (I have already recovered and it happened in my study at home, not
at a meeting)
13) To stay away from a drink ( Too late. I have already been separated from alcohol)
14) To piss others off by thumping my Big Book (Easy Does It, and I do enough of that in non AA venues like here.)

Peace,

Danny S