‘Pop-AA’ – The Easier – Softer Alcoholics Anonymous

In our little Big Book Study we were on page 89 which talks about “Working with others.” I was taught that working with others means being a Good Samaritan – you know, being a newcomer chauffeur, making coffee, sweeping up after meetings. Yes I am old enough to have even cleaned a few AA ashtrays in New York City where I first joined the Fellowship.

Doing these things is a wonderful experience. It is participatory and proactive work. We know that newcomers benefit greatly from that kind of “out of self” activity. I know that I did.

But is it the “working with others” that the co-founders discovered was key to permanent sobriety?

I was TOLD that the “work” prescribed in the Big Book was “old-school” and that most of it could not be performed “these days” that many ideas in the Big Book was antiquated so they had to be reconsidered – so I needed instead to play the Good Samaritan and just be helpful in any way I could. “Put out a hand” - whatever the hell that means. I think I means just being friendly and giving out phone numbers in the church parking lot. Stuff we should be doing anyway – just to be civil – not part a “Program”.

Then I realized that the folks who had converted the “working with others” prescribed in the Program to these more modern methods weren’t really Twelve Steppers. “You know that Big Book was written in the 30’s and things have changed. We can’t do what they did back then.“

Oh and here’s my favorites: “The rehabs have taken over. We don’t get that work anymore.” Really? The rehabs are taking alcoholics through the Twelve Steps and the “clients” are having spiritual awakenings as the result of the step they take in rehab?

You’re kidding, right?

Keep dreaming and YOU WISH! What a great way to excuse yourself from working with other alcoholics. I suppose they also think that AA is nothing more than a “ongoing – outpatient treatment” facility for the Treatment Industry.

That’s what the Treatment Centers use AA for – do they not? I wonder how much money they send to AA for that. Nothing! It is called Theft Of Services - and AA, by it’s own Traditions, being the altruistic Fellowship it is – cannot object.

I figured, “Well if just being a nice and helpful guy” - combined with “putting the plug in the jug” were all that was needed – then why is it that I HAVE to do it in AA? I can be nice, helpful, and exert my will ANYWHERE. Why should I have to “go to meetings” too? The answers where incredible. “There’s magic in the coffee pots”, is a gem – of course my Mr. Coffee at home could be as “magical”, no?

There are folks in AA who actually have convinced themselves and others that bringing cake and making coffee and baking cookies is STEP TWELVE. Astonishing! (See: Coffee & Cake 12 Stepping)

I was brainwashed and ‘more fool me’.

Yes, the ‘Pop-AA’ fellowshippers had a way of making my un-recovered and still aching ass feel guilty if I didn’t “go to enough meetings”. They tried to instill fear in me that if I didn’t do it “their way” that I would drink and die.

The problem is that “their way” was NOT the way of the co-founders who had found a solution to alcoholism. What those fellowshipers had found a solution to was something other that “Our description of the alcoholic” It was THEIR own “Description of the alcoholic” – and the two descriptions just did not jive. In many instances they are 180 degrees apart form each other.

For example, (i)AA proposes that no matter what an alcoholic cannot WILL himself sober – that help must come from God and that help is permanent if spiritual principles are followed. They have no choice in the matter of drink.

(ii) Pop-AA meeting hobbyists say that they stay sober by willing themselves NOT TO DRINK – no matter what. They CHOSE not to drink a day at a time – and can either take or leave spiritual principles – they will STILL not drink if they stick with other people.

Those two ideas are exact opposites of each other.

Many of the folks I encountered we “Fellowshippers” staying sober by “just not drinking” and going from meeting to meeting, day by day, for support and human aid. They didn’t HAVE a Program or if they did it was this newer and supposedly improved program that gave great lip service to some major AA principles but was practiced sporadically, at best, and not at all at worst.

Oh sure, I bumped into the occasional – read that as “hardly ever” - recovered alcoholic who HAD had a spiritual awakening as the result of the steps and who WAS willing to carry the “this” message to me by taking me through the steps – but as many alkies, a good ol’ 90-in-90 provided enough relief so that the path of LEAST RESISTANCE – which is middle-of-the-road solutions based sobriety provided by “just showing up” – was FAR more attractive than taking the drastic and arduous actions prescribed by the co-founders in the big Book, “Alcoholics Anonymous”.

The man who originally Twelve Stepped me into the spiritual solution died suddenly and I needed a rudder by which to steer. I gave up the spiritual approach in favor of the easier-softer-way. I was a fool.

Experience tells me that there was probably a good and “Godly” reason why the recovery path is just this way many of us – rife with mistakes that kills other alcoholics while some of us get through alive. Some of us so not. None of us do this perfectly – maybe if only so we can tell the story as I have just done.

Peace,

Danny S

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"Not Drinking" Is Secondary

I can hear it already. “Well if I don’t stay sober then I can’t help anybody.”

And now that you ARE sober you’re searching out other alcoholics and taking them through the steps , right? Puhleeze!

Just bear with me for a moment, OK? Sparky?

Some attitude I have, huh?

Have you ever wondered how folks who say they “practice these principles in all their affairs” manage to do it without “working with others” – with no one to sponsor and they aren’t looking either.

“Working with others” IS Step Twelve.

I don’t wonder. The world is full of liars. Even in AA.

Chapter Seven is a living, visible and experiential set of instructions that brings incredible joy and meaning to our lives. Especially since by now in the process WE HAVE RECOVERED! That means “We have been given the power to help others”. Our lives and daily activities are NO LONGER focused on NOT DRINKING. Something new happens.

Watch: “These men had found something brand new in life. Though they knew they must help other alcoholics if they would remain sober, that motive became secondary.”(159:2)

Sobriety is SECONDARY? Holy smokes!

I was always told that my SOBRIETY CAME FIRST! No wonder I couldn’t stay sober – even after years of meetings and “Keep coming back” and “Just show up.”

“It was transcended by the happiness they found in giving themselves for others. They shared their homes, their slender resources, and gladly devoted their spare hours to fellow-sufferers.” (159:2)

I couldn’t stay sober because I hadn’t helped others and I couldn’t help others because I had not been given the power, and I hadn’t been given the power because I had not had a spirtual awakening and I had not had a spiritual awakening because I had not taken the twelve steps and I had not taken the twelve steps because I had not been shown HOW and I had not been shown HOW because no one else knew how and no one else knew how because they had been told all we have to do is “Keep Coming Back” and we all just kept coming back, just not drinking a day at a time until finally the insanity of the next first-drink came and smacked me broadside like a runaway freight train – and I was sitting down on the tracks – not doing a damned thing except making coffee, mopping the floors and “sharing” in meeting after meeting after freakin’ meeting.

What a fucking mess! No wonder we can’t recover anymore. No wonder we want to save face by changing the promised of being recovered alcoholics to “recoverING” alcoholics. No one is actually experiencing full recovery anymore – like we used to – not in the average AA group – not anymore. The outside treatment organizations have fully infiltrated our “recover speak” and have managed to get most of us to eschew the steps as originally practiced. And why not? KEEP COMING BACK has come to mean “Keep coming back to rehab” and bring your checkbook or credit card !

Speakers in meeting now BRAG about how many times they’ve been in rehab – many dozens of times for a lot of them – as if it shows how “bad” and qualified they are to be in AA.

Shit, all that proves is that REHABS DON’T WORK.

WOW. How different was the experiences of our co-founders – such a contradiction to today’s status quo, ‘Pop-AA’ thinking and half-measured, treatment center, fee based “addictions counseling” propaganda that has leeched like a failing septic tank into our once effective, growing and God centered Fellowship based on the teaching and practice of the Twelve Steps.

Peace,

Danny S

"Not Drinking" Is Secondary

I can hear it already. “Well if I don’t stay sober then I can’t help anybody.”

And now that you ARE sober you’re searching out other alcoholics and taking them through the steps , right? Puhleeze!

Just bear with me for a moment, OK? Sparky?

Some attitude I have, huh?

Have you ever wondered how folks who say they “practice these principles in all their affairs” manage to do it without “working with others” – with no one to sponsor and they aren’t looking either.

“Working with others” IS Step Twelve.

I don’t wonder. The world is full of liars. Even in AA.

Chapter Seven is a living, visible and experiential set of instructions that brings incredible joy and meaning to our lives. Especially since by now in the process WE HAVE RECOVERED! That means “We have been given the power to help others”. Our lives and daily activities are NO LONGER focused on NOT DRINKING. Something new happens.

Watch: “These men had found something brand new in life. Though they knew they must help other alcoholics if they would remain sober, that motive became secondary.”(159:2)

Sobriety is SECONDARY? Holy smokes!

I was always told that my SOBRIETY CAME FIRST! No wonder I couldn’t stay sober – even after years of meetings and “Keep coming back” and “Just show up.”

“It was transcended by the happiness they found in giving themselves for others. They shared their homes, their slender resources, and gladly devoted their spare hours to fellow-sufferers.” (159:2)

I couldn’t stay sober because I hadn’t helped others and I couldn’t help others because I had not been given the power, and I hadn’t been given the power because I had not had a spirtual awakening and I had not had a spiritual awakening because I had not taken the twelve steps and I had not taken the twelve steps because I had not been shown HOW and I had not been shown HOW because no one else knew how and no one else knew how because they had been told all we have to do is “Keep Coming Back” and we all just kept coming back, just not drinking a day at a time until finally the insanity of the next first-drink came and smacked me broadside like a runaway freight train – and I was sitting down on the tracks – not doing a damned thing except making coffee, mopping the floors and “sharing” in meeting after meeting after freakin’ meeting.

What a fucking mess! No wonder we can’t recover anymore. No wonder we want to save face by changing the promised of being recovered alcoholics to “recoverING” alcoholics. No one is actually experiencing full recovery anymore – like we used to – not in the average AA group – not anymore. The outside treatment organizations have fully infiltrated our “recover speak” and have managed to get most of us to eschew the steps as originally practiced. And why not? KEEP COMING BACK has come to mean “Keep coming back to rehab” and bring your checkbook or credit card !

Speakers in meeting now BRAG about how many times they’ve been in rehab – many dozens of times for a lot of them – as if it shows how “bad” and qualified they are to be in AA.

Shit, all that proves is that REHABS DON’T WORK.

WOW. How different was the experiences of our co-founders – such a contradiction to today’s status quo, ‘Pop-AA’ thinking and half-measured, treatment center, fee based “addictions counseling” propaganda that has leeched like a failing septic tank into our once effective, growing and God centered Fellowship based on the teaching and practice of the Twelve Steps.

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

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

Let This Cat Out!

I’m letting you in on a little secret. It shouldn’t be a secret – but it is. To let this out of the bag means that we would have expose ourselves and whether or not we are dead weights in this Fellowship or not.

How would you like to have those haunting character defects removed? You know you would! Well, I have an answer to that. Go work with another alcoholic – not just ANY work – but THE work.

I am not taking about buying a newcomer a chicken sandwich and a cup of coffee – or driving him to a meeting – or picking him up from the courthouse. That’s not what the co-founder tell us to do – you lazy AA dead-weight! I mean perform your work well – the REAL work – the work described in the Chapter “Working With Others” - and do what we are supposed to be trained and have experienced ourselves in order to do – as passed on to us.

Take him through the Twelve Steps!

Look, I have my share of defects – that much I guarantee – but I know serenity. I know courage. I know what it is to have that elusive happiness, joyousness and freedom. But I have never had to tell a protogee, “Excuse me for a moment – we will get back to this step after I call my sponsor before I drink.” It just never happens.

Do you know why? Because character defects have NEVER cropped up when I was taking another man through the steps. NEVER EVER! The more I am working with others in this way – the further I get away from these. It is the ONLY way I know of to be free. And it also happens to be the only real purpose of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I know – you thought it was to stop drinking. Well, “Sooprize Sooprize Sooprize Sargent Carter!”

Being a good Samaritan never has never removed my defects – only to the extent that I can be useful – never to the extent that I can claim any virtue for myself – have they ever gone away.

We even have the seventh Step Prayer that qualifies WHICH defects of character I can expect to be removed: “defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows.” Get it?

The rest I can sit an suffer with – until the next sick, puking alcoholic is in front of me and we go to work. You I and both know people who can’t understand why it is that they STILL have all these character defects haunting them around the clock.

The answer to them is simple: They haven’t got a sick and suffering alcoholic to take through the twelve steps. Some folks NEVER do that!

They want to “do service” - they want to “not hurt anybody” – they want to “be a powerful example” – they want to “just show up” and fantasize that THAT’S how they help others – and whatever else they can do EXCEPT take another alkie through the steps. They are missing a great deal.

They still suffer with their defects too. No one told them.

Our character defects aren’t removed so we can feel good – so we can get spiritual – so we can “not drink”. PUHLEEZE! Our defects are removed to the extent that we use our new selves and free states of being for the benefit of God’s work and helping others. Get anything else out of your self-centered greedy little mind.

It’s very simple – the more we work with others – the less our character defects “Crop up” If I want less “Cropping” – then I do more working.

Are you already doing this? Beautiful! You know what it’s like to have your character defects removed – how to remain humble enough to live with the ones that crop up and you are NOT a dead weight in a Fellowship of dead-weights.

You are my AA Hero and I thank you for being on the Broad Highway with us.

Peace,

Danny S

Just Off The Sauce

This article originally appeared 8/16/05

What would I tell someone just off the sauce?

Get yourself a copy of “Alcoholics Anonymous” and read the first 43 pages, which is designed to help you make a determination whether or not AA is for you. In other words, “Are you REALLY an alcoholic?”

You may not be. In fact the chances are good you are NOT. (Only roughly 10% of the world population actually is.) If you are, its like winning the lottery with odds like that . (Because we have a solution.)

Unless I had LEARNED to answer that question – it was impossible to know if I was “In the right place” – AA members say they don’t like to proclaim individuals as alcoholic (Those don’t betray their own precepts that is.) — so I had to do it myself. Luckily the book showed me how, just as it was designed to do.

Then when YOU decide that you are “One of us”, or if there is anything you don’t understand about how to make that determination, tomorrow go to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and get a sponsor who has experience in taking others through the 12 steps and identifies him/herself as someone who has has recovered.

If someone says they are still “recovering” politely pass, and keep looking till you find someone for whom the Program has actually worked.

Disregard how “Nice” or “Knowledgeable” the “Still recovering” person seems. “Still recovering” is the same as “Un-recovered“. If you want to be that person’s friend, fine – but do not permit yourself to fall under their sponsorship – unless they have recovered from alcoholism. “Not drinking” today does not count. YOU may NEVER drink again and this persons method to stop may KILL you – as earnest and nice as they seem,and as well as their method seems to be working for them.

Your sponsor will refer to him/herself as “RECOVERED”

He’ll know EXACTLY what to do with you from there, and you can trust that without reservation. WARNING: These knowledgeable people can be a chore to find – even in AA meetings, unfortunately. But don’t give up – show up as a student and the teacher will show up.

Do not let anyone sponsor you whose solution is “don’t drink and go to meetings”, or “Just don’t drink” or “One day at a time”. These concepts are not part of our Program, but they are rampant never the less. If that is their solution, and it works for them, it may KILL you, if you are a real alcoholic as described in those first 43 pages.

If you determine from that book that you are a “Real alcoholic” then that kind of advice does not work. Never has, no matter what they tell you.

If anyone tells you “Aren’t ready to take the steps” RUN! If anyone tells you they did it slowly, therefore so can you RUN! They may not be “one of us”.

If anyone tells you that you ARE an alcoholic, just because you showed up. RUN! We don’t like to pronounce any individual as alcoholic. YOU must ascertain it yourself, by those 43 pages.

Take the 12 steps as fast as you possibly can. It is a race. You must recover before the next first drink comes along, and don’t let anyone tell you that THEY know when that is for you. You do not have to be prey to arrogance.

And then after you have worked the Program in the book, and the desire to drink has left, (That’s a promise that it will), then you will be in a position to go find another alcoholic to work with as your sponsor has done and pass it on to another in the position you are in now.

Soon you will be free from alcohol, sponsoring others and joining us in the trenches. Your life will have become usefully happy and whole.

You could be recovered and enjoying the life by summer. Now THAT’S simple.

What would I tell a drug addict?
Nothing. Although I’ve abused a lot of drugs, especially cocaine, I don’t know a thing about recovering from drug addiction — because I have NEVER DONE IT.

I put the drugs down on my own willpower and did not need any help with it. Over alcohol I was powerless and had to find a new power. I found it through the AA Fellowship which deliver the 12 Steps to me. When I picked it up, I recovered. That “It” is God.

Good Luck,

Peace,

Danny S

I Love My Perm

I was asked to sponsor a guy a few days ago. Whenever someone asks me to be their temporary sponsor I say ” No I will be your SPONSOR, and if you do not like like me you can fire me.”

This way it releases the uncomfortable feeling the guy is looking for in the first place and makes it a real sponsor/protegee relationship in the second place.

AAs with temporary sponsors sometimes think it is different than a permanent sponsor and develop a way of saying “Well he’s not my REAL sponsor, he’s just my Temporary Sponsor so I do not REALLY have to take him THAT seriously.”

Can you imagine asking person of the opposite sex “Will you be my temporary girl/boyfriend?” What does that say about the seriousness of the proposal?

The last time I told a guy yes on a temporary basis, he never called me. I had to go looking for him. Never found him.

If that guy was just a disco drunk — not problem.

But if he was a real alcoholic? – who knows what may have happened to him.

Can you imagine asking person of the opposite sex “Will you be my temporary partner?”

ACCOUNTABILITY goes out the window in temporary relationships – sponsorship, courtship, business — whatever. You know it’s true.

Peace,

Danny S

Ira – The Protogee

The first alcoholic I ever sponsored was a guy named — if you want to call what I did with him “Sponsorship“

I had no idea what to do with him except what was the conventional “working with others activities” I saw being performed – like driving him to meetings, talking about life, taking his phone calls and letting my own abstinence and good fellowshipping habits serve as a the “Power of example”.

I had not taken the steps myself. I thought we were all supposed to be “Recovering” alcoholics and I had no power to help others.

Me and Ira had a good deal of it for about two months. “Meeting buddies”. That’s what we were. And MAN did I look good walking into the group with that guy!

One Saturday night I dropped Ira off in front of his palatial Tudor home in Queens. It was after a meeting where he had admitted to the group and me that he had “slipped” several days prior. I thought he was going to cry, but he didn’t. Her just looked forlorn and depressed for the evening.

With his left foot still inside my car – the right already firmly on the street pavement Ira turned his head toward me. His eyes looked wet and his face haggererd with a sadness that most alcoholics know well. “Danny, I am not getting it. Why can’t I get it.” he said.

“Just keep coming and eventually you will” I said. Later that night Ira drank. By morning he was dead. His mother found him.

Sorry Ira. I didn’t know what else to tell you at the time my friend. I am really sorry. I hope to see you again one day.

See: Working With Others/Pre-Sponsorship “Speech”)

Peace,

Danny S

Is EVERYONE Alcoholic?

If it’s Friday night and someone is in a church basement full of drunks – then they MUST be in the RIGHT PLACE!”

RIGHT?

Tell me now . . . how intelligent is that? It is no wonder people come away from AA meetings with the impression they have just visited a cult gathering. In some cases, perhaps they have.

It is so important to “QUALIFY” the prospect before expending much time with him/her. And that’s EXACTLY what Step One does. The caveat for continuing to work with a candidate for AA is, “If you are satisfied that he is a real alcoholic . . . (92:1)

What happens if we can’t get no satisfaction? How do we get satisfied? If we don’t know how take a prospect through Step One then we can never get it.

Coming out the other side of Step One, the prospect either will or will not be able to admit he/she is alcoholic – but only IF alcoholism is explained properly to them using the first 43 pages of the Big Book (Step One) and our own experience as a real alcoholic (Allergy combined with obsession) - which hopefully is already aligned with the chapter about alcoholism.*

SO many of us are looking to make sure that EVERYONE who has a problem with alcohol comes to believe that they ARE alcoholic.

Why? This is a huge disservice to those who are not alcoholic and certainly to a Fellowship that is already top-heavy with meeting-goers who are don’t even know what AAs description of the alcoholic is and therefore may indeed not be “in the right place”.

What we have is insane crap like, “No one gets here by accident” and “If it’s Friday night and your here you MUST be alcoholic.” Here AAs are pronouncing others to be alcoholic – something the co-authors were loath to do. “And be careful not to brand him as an alcoholic. Let him draw his own conclusion.” (92:1)

I was at a meeting just a few days ago where some guy, in the middle of his “sharing” looked across the room at a “first-timer” and said, “I never met you before. But I KNOW that you are an alcoholic!” What arrogance! What arrogance it is for ANY of us to proclaim someone is or isn’t alcoholic. ONLY THEY know their own story to the degree necessary to make that determination.

When we don’t know how to show them the method of doing that , then WE FAIL our Primary Purpose!

This is about recovering from a life threatening malady – but no one ever recovers from a malady they have not GOT! And to automatically tell everyone who shows up that they HAVE IT – as in done every night of the week in meetings all around the world – is cruel and indecent.

I have sponsored folks using Step One, right OUT of AA because they could not meet the description. That is what we are supposed to be doing – not getting everyone we can INTO AA. We aren’t running a membership drive. We aren’t on commission for Christ’s sake! Yet we still look an AA group or meeting and rate its success by how many people attend! The larger the group, the better it is! That is egotistic lunacy.

I had a guy from England last year contact me and thank me for helping him understand that he was not “In the right place” and to understand why it was that he felt like a square peg in round hole – going to AA meetings for over a decade. He no longer goes to meetings – AND he was successfully “Not drinking” anymore too.

Let’s stop robbing people of learning THEIR OWN TRUTHS buy telling them what our uninformed opinions are – because when we are wrong we are phucking them up as well as the Fellowship

Peace,

Danny S

* Of course you know which chapter that is, right? I hope so.