The Secret of Love, Tolerance and Air Conditioning

_{Warning: Self-indulgent and preachy article}
Being a writer who has come to “specialize” in alcoholism is not bad. It is not as limiting as one might think. Actually, all genres are open.

Even the fiction that eructs from somewhere within has a thick thread of the malady called alcoholism running through it. Not only do I get to examining the illness; the brain, the body and the spiritual aspects but I also get to entertain with psychology, law, courts, medicine, family, career, even politics. Alcoholism touches so many of us and so much of our society I could write a book about cops and robbers and then low and behold – there is alcoholism. I can write an article about Barak Obama and . . . BINGO - he says his Dad was an alkie – - I’m in!

I can write about George Bush – Catholic priests, High School Students, Soccer Moms, Little League Coaches, Oprah’s Book Club, and Bada Bing!. . . alcoholism is all there. Libertarians, Conceptual Continuity, Cognitive Dissonance, Rock and Roll, good and evil, Heaven and Hell, Ozzy and Sharon, Inagodadevida Baby - it’s all got alcoholism running through it like it’s own blood! I will never be short ideas. I will always be able to write topically about alcoholism.

One of my favorite ‘off-topic’ topics about which I write and speak of is ‘love’. The only thing better than ‘love’ is ‘hate’ – and with good reason as I shall later explain. Writers, poets, teachers, gurus, preachers and lovers of all ilk and persuasions have been trying to define love for centuries and they have come up with all kinds of descriptions. As with most things however, I find simplicity to best and it is a very poplar notion to agree with that – at least verbally . . . in actual practice? Eh….not so much.

Some people’s idea of simplicity seems very complicated. I know some Simple Simon’s who think that avoiding Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous is”Keeping It Simple”. Can you believe that?

The kind of simplicity I like is the kind that is so elemental that even it’s simplicity is simple – the kind of un-embellished truth that is so plain and unobtrusive that it is overlooked most of time and the only time we see it is when intellect reminds, say through reading an article like this one. In practice, while yet in the thick of it, it cruelly evades conscious discovery – until it is too late and has either come and gone or remains sitting heavily on our chest pinning us to the floor while we struggle without the strength to shake it off of us.

In AA we have a code. Our code is “Love and tolerance” and this is introduced to us by the co-authors of the Big Book, “Alcoholics Anonymous” in their prescription for recovery – a new design for living for us – during Step Ten. We are either followers of the code or not.

Step Ten is when we deal with the daily slaps in the face we get – the waves of stresses – the pebbles under the soles of our feet as we traverse this planet. These are our very own twinges of angers, dishonesties, fears and selfishness. These crop up all the time and we are continuously on the lookout for them for when they do we have a four point “system” to protect and free ourselves of them. I won’t go into those now. If you are in AA you should already know and practice them.

As alcoholics – or as any spiritually sick segment of humanity – we seem to have more than our fair share of hatred and we love little if at all. That is not exaggeration and I know it may even be a little offensive. But many of us define “love” as something “we feel” – something that “pleases us”. That we know. We spend our entire lives pleasuring ourselves.Go forbid if we should experience any discomfort at all – then all hell breaks loose. Do you know how to tell an alcoholic in a restaurant? Simple. He’s the one demanding to see the owner.

Love is simply the absence of hate. Living without anger, resentment and negative emotions is being a loving person and that frees us to show love. Self-centered people only think as love as something “they feel” – that they sit and wait for – that get done to them – but it really is something to do – to show – to proactively spread and can be as small an act as as being helpful to someone without resentment even though we would rather be doing something else or it can be as large as devoting a portion of ones life to care for a terminally ill person. These are showings of love when they are without expectations of recompense – either emotional, mental, physical, direct or indirect.

I like to think of air conditioning. When I was a kid growing up in D’ Bronx during the summers were hot and humid. I did not like them. My mother had a room air conditioner for sleeping at night while we kids just sweat through those dog-nights. Stores had huge Fedders units that blew hot smelly air that reminded me of stale pretzel rods and dripped water onto our heads as we passed under them because they were mounted right over the entrance to the store. We had to run quickly under it and into the store or else receive that warm blast or smelly exhaust and maybe even get dripped on. The most considerate store owners ran a garden hose along the door jamb and up to catch that extra condensation – just like a little roof gutter system for a house.

When you are a kid you assume that that big noisy grey smelly machine is what has magically through the miracle of science- turned the air inside from warm to cool. It had not done that at all. It is not true. What it has done is that it has sucked out all of the heat from the air and then returned it into the room — but sans the hot air. That’s what that uncomfortable blast in the face was in the doorway – it was heat formerly in the room! It turns out that air conditioners do not pump in cold air – they remove the hot air and the default is devoid of heat – COLD! Damn!

What is light but the absence of dark? What is goodness? Isn’t it the absence of evil? Dry means nothing more than ‘not wet’. Even male is very simply the absence of female – perhaps not in biological terms but in spirit and purpose.

Properly translated “Love thy neighbor” instead conveys “Do not hate your neighbor”. By not hating, not resenting, not getting sore, no feeling threatened or hurt – we bring love through our personal portals to earth. Our spot here where we live is either a piece of heaven or it is a living hell depending on how we react to all the cruelties that people toss in our direction. We won’t always be able to duck them. We don’t grow through them if we do. It is how we react when they land on us and that’s all there is to being happy joyous and free or else restless, irritable and discontent.The choice is ours.

“Love and Tolerance is our code” and Step Ten is where it’s at in order to keep alive not only sobriety, but love and tolerance themselves. No wonder the co-authors were sure that unless we practice Step Ten daily that we would be headed for trouble. They called it resting on laurels.

Peace,

Danny S

Feeling All Right

Not Feeling Too Good Myself

or

“How To Get Rescued From Happy Horseshit”

In the cobwebs of the mind there are morsels of “events” lodged that are long dead. Yet a new type of life spanws as they cling and rot – like maggots on chopped chuck.

We call them resentments. Resentments are not the only special of captured ‘bug’. There are others, but nothing is more deadly to our health that these festering pieces of dead memory. (see the BB page 84) You never know when a new ‘bug’ will get caught. The trick is to clean it out before it infects its disease. As I have grown spiritually I don’t think they have lessened their appearances at all. What has changed is the way I handle them. I do the process and it has become so much a part of my life by now that I can’t go back and recall specifics anymore. It works THAT well. Fears are still very regular though. Fear of not getting what I want are pretty much old too. And they usually involve the fear of being found out .

When I first begin practicing Step Ten on a regular basis – we are going back almost ten years now – it was during a time when I had a lot of financial fears. I had just had surgery and had my business wiped out the very afternoon of 9/11 and even though I was now a “step guy” and real power was about to flow – but I had been resting on my laurels – which in BB context means not practicing Step Ten. It does not mean cutting back on meetings because now I am dry and complacent, as so many people seem to have converted it.

I was getting desperate. I wanted to feel better. My Big Book told me that God wanted me to be “happy joyous and free” and I felt that He owed me. I’m going to lots of meetings God, c’mon and deliver!

I didn’t realize that happy joyous and free was not a promise. It was just an observation or opinion about what God “wants” from the co-authors. The do not swear it is so – just that they are sure it is. They also admit that they truly have no idea what God really “wants”. They weren’t that arrogant.

Hell. I don’t know if God”wants” the earth to spin for at least the next twenty four hours – but I am reasonably sure that He does want it. I’ll let you tomorrow if I was right

But I had been resting on my laurels – which in BB context means not practicing Step Ten. It does not mean cutting back on meetings because now I am dry and complacent,

I had resorted to reading page 449 – the “Acceptance” page, over and over and over trying to cram Dr. O’s ideas and his experience into a feeling that I could own too. Pilfering is really w hat I was trying to do. Which had worked in the past but had lost its efficacy. It has lost because it wasn’t real. It was Dr. O’s acceptance that he wrote of – not mine. Dr. O was describing a Twelve Step experience that I wasn’t having. And why should I – I wasn’t doing what he did – which was practicing these principles in ALL my affairs and that meant Step Ten as much as it meant all the rest. Like many others, I wanted to feel as groovy as Dr. O without doing the work that Dr. O did to get there!

I had begun to “mantracize” his experience as he wrote it. As a student of hypnosis I should have realized that all I was doing was self hypnosis. But I was desperate to “feel better”. During this same depressive time I was scheduled for a Fifth Step. The night after that fifth step the promise of “our fears fall from us” which is in the fifth step came like water to a drowning man. The spiritual experience everyone seems to find so elusive began. NO QUESTION. It just happened. No human inspiration gleaned from a dead mans writings.

From that fifth step, as most of us already know, I was brought straight through 6,7,8 began work on 9 and then incorporating Step Ten practice into my daily regimen. I have not suffered from fear since. I get afraid, of course I do, but those are dealt with on the spot and they melt like ice cubes on a griddle.

Not living on page 52 is dependent upon me practicing Step Ten daily. It frees me up to be helpful and keeps from falling into the deadly trap of willfully trying to live in a spiders web that life on life’s terms afford. It replaces those with life on God’s terms.

Life on life’s terms – well, life kicks my ass. God has not once ever raised a harmful hand to me.

I am such an ass that a simple trip to the grocer and back could easily smack me into three or four resentments, fears, opportunities for dishonesty and selfish thoughts or acts. Yeah I am that much of an asshole – trust me.

They can be so subtle that in the past I would not even have noticed them. I might even have told you that my trip to the store was uneventful, when it wasn’t at all – not deep inside, not when the lady in front of me had thirteen items on a twelve item line, or when some girl in short-shorts asked me if I was “in the band” that headlined last night at he melody tent, she’s a groupie and look at that piece of ass – or I couldn’t bring myself to pay the TWO-FER price for a pound of coffee – that would save me five bucks n the long run – because I was afraid of not having an extra three dollars in my pocket. It gets those low levels and it is high level depression in the aggregate.

Yeah it gets that petty and ridiculous.

Step Ten keeps me free an clear of this kind of living as I keep the broom swishing back and forth, all day long. This is a HUGE chuck of “practicing these principles” in all of my affairs. It is Steps 4,5,6,7,8, and nine all rolled into one.

And here’s a BIG PLUS: My Eleventh Step is shorter and sweeter when I get to bed at night. The Step Eleven Q & A machine that we run through each evening has more positive answers and goes faster, so I get to fall off to sleep sooner – and meditation is sweeter without falling off to dreamland when I am trying to do just the opposite. The head hits th pillow and I end up not end in an exhausted sleep but in a contented state of rest for body mind and spirit.

Acceptance is not the answer to all of my problems. God is. “Father, remove my fears today and direct my attentions toward what YOU would have me be – not what I would have me be”.

Imagine asking God to keep you away from a drink today when we have a prayer like THIS ONE available? – and calling that a “Program of recovery”.

Peace,

Danny S

Feeling All Right

Not Feeling Too Good Myself

or

“How To Get Rescued From Happy Horseshit”

In the cobwebs of the mind there are morsels of “events” lodged that are long dead. Yet a new type of life spanws as they cling and rot – like maggots on chopped chuck.

We call them resentments. Resentments are not the only special of captured ‘bug’. There are others, but nothing is more deadly to our health that these festering pieces of dead memory. (see the BB page 84) You never know when a new ‘bug’ will get caught. The trick is to clean it out before it infects its disease. As I have grown spiritually I don’t think they have lessened their appearances at all. What has changed is the way I handle them. I do the process and it has become so much a part of my life by now that I can’t go back and recall specifics anymore. It works THAT well. Fears are still very regular though. Fear of not getting what I want are pretty much old too. And they usually involve the fear of being found out .

When I first begin practicing Step Ten on a regular basis – we are going back almost ten years now – it was during a time when I had a lot of financial fears. I had just had surgery and had my business wiped out the very afternoon of 9/11 and even though I was now a “step guy” and real power was about to flow – but I had been resting on my laurels – which in BB context means not practicing Step Ten. It does not mean cutting back on meetings because now I am dry and complacent, as so many people seem to have converted it.

I was getting desperate. I wanted to feel better. My Big Book told me that God wanted me to be “happy joyous and free” and I felt that He owed me. I’m going to lots of meetings God, c’mon and deliver!

I didn’t realize that happy joyous and free was not a promise. It was just an observation or opinion about what God “wants” from the co-authors. The do not swear it is so – just that they are sure it is. They also admit that they truly have no idea what God really “wants”. They weren’t that arrogant.

Hell. I don’t know if God”wants” the earth to spin for at least the next twenty four hours – but I am reasonably sure that He does want it. I’ll let you tomorrow if I was right

But I had been resting on my laurels – which in BB context means not practicing Step Ten. It does not mean cutting back on meetings because now I am dry and complacent,

I had resorted to reading page 449 – the “Acceptance” page, over and over and over trying to cram Dr. O’s ideas and his experience into a feeling that I could own too. Pilfering is really w hat I was trying to do. Which had worked in the past but had lost its efficacy. It has lost because it wasn’t real. It was Dr. O’s acceptance that he wrote of – not mine. Dr. O was describing a Twelve Step experience that I wasn’t having. And why should I – I wasn’t doing what he did – which was practicing these principles in ALL my affairs and that meant Step Ten as much as it meant all the rest. Like many others, I wanted to feel as groovy as Dr. O without doing the work that Dr. O did to get there!

I had begun to “mantracize” his experience as he wrote it. As a student of hypnosis I should have realized that all I was doing was self hypnosis. But I was desperate to “feel better”. During this same depressive time I was scheduled for a Fifth Step. The night after that fifth step the promise of “our fears fall from us” which is in the fifth step came like water to a drowning man. The spiritual experience everyone seems to find so elusive began. NO QUESTION. It just happened. No human inspiration gleaned from a dead mans writings.

From that fifth step, as most of us already know, I was brought straight through 6,7,8 began work on 9 and then incorporating Step Ten practice into my daily regimen. I have not suffered from fear since. I get afraid, of course I do, but those are dealt with on the spot and they melt like ice cubes on a griddle.

Not living on page 52 is dependent upon me practicing Step Ten daily. It frees me up to be helpful and keeps from falling into the deadly trap of willfully trying to live in a spiders web that life on life’s terms afford. It replaces those with life on God’s terms.

Life on life’s terms – well, life kicks my ass. God has not once ever raised a harmful hand to me.

I am such an ass that a simple trip to the grocer and back could easily smack me into three or four resentments, fears, opportunities for dishonesty and selfish thoughts or acts. Yeah I am that much of an asshole – trust me.

They can be so subtle that in the past I would not even have noticed them. I might even have told you that my trip to the store was uneventful, when it wasn’t at all – not deep inside, not when the lady in front of me had thirteen items on a twelve item line, or when some girl in short-shorts asked me if I was “in the band” that headlined last night at he melody tent, she’s a groupie and look at that piece of ass – or I couldn’t bring myself to pay the TWO-FER price for a pound of coffee – that would save me five bucks n the long run – because I was afraid of not having an extra three dollars in my pocket. It gets those low levels and it is high level depression in the aggregate.

Yeah it gets that petty and ridiculous.

Step Ten keeps me free an clear of this kind of living as I keep the broom swishing back and forth, all day long. This is a HUGE chuck of “practicing these principles” in all of my affairs. It is Steps 4,5,6,7,8, and nine all rolled into one.

And here’s a BIG PLUS: My Eleventh Step is shorter and sweeter when I get to bed at night. The Step Eleven Q & A machine that we run through each evening has more positive answers and goes faster, so I get to fall off to sleep sooner – and meditation is sweeter without falling off to dreamland when I am trying to do just the opposite. The head hits th pillow and I end up not end in an exhausted sleep but in a contented state of rest for body mind and spirit.

Acceptance is not the answer to all of my problems. God is. “Father, remove my fears today and direct my attentions toward what YOU would have me be – not what I would have me be”.

Imagine asking God to keep you away from a drink today when we have a prayer like THIS ONE available? – and calling that a “Program of recovery”.

Peace,

Danny S

Resting On Laurels Is Hardly Enough

Look at Step Ten. If you think I mean read the summary of Step Ten off the Twelve Steps shades hanging on the wall or what can be gleaned off of page 59 — I do not.

I mean read the directions for taking Step Ten. They are on page 84 followed by some unbelievably wonderful promises to be had as the result.

Now, here’s where some life changing challenges comes in. We begin to see that practicing these principles in all of our affairs is much more than a week or month long spurt of 4th step inventory writing and an afternoon of fifth step talking.

It means changing the way we approach our daily lives – moment by moment and day by day. It takes commitment – a commitment that is not so hard for those of us who have by now felt a miracle and are experiencing a new flow of power into our lives. We have come to believe and making drastic changes is now possible where before it was not. But it can be impossibly difficult for anyone who has not taken the previous steps and consequently begun to have the spiritual experience promised.

People who “take the steps” through AWOL programs or by reading the 12 & 12 may not get the powerful new flow of Gods grace. If they do, it seems short-lived.

There is no continued growth in effectiveness They “wait”. And they “wait”. And they “wait”. And they read. And they read. And they read. And they discuss. And they discuss. And then they argue over what a spiritual awakening is. Attempting to living off of a spiritual experience had years or months ago is not growth. It’s resting on laurels. And for real alcoholics it is deadly.

There are thousands of us out there going to Big Book meetings, and Twelve and Twelve meetings – reading Twelve and Twelve essays, the stories in the back of the Big Book – who are so self centered that we have resorted to turning Dr. O. into a demigod and page 449/417 into a mantra for feeling good. Many of us would rather savor some of the fine insights of someone like Emmet Fox than perform daily Step Ten exercises throughout the day and engage in nightly inventories as prescribed in the Twelve Steps.

We think that we have the AA Program in our lives. And we don’t. And we lie about it to others.

We rubber-stamp our half-assed actions with “to the best of our abilities” and it isn’t. And we are still crazy – still suffering from the slings and arrows that life shoots at us, still have financial fears and worries and are telling newcomers that, “This Program Works” when it is apparently that for many of us it isn’t.

But we have an inspection sticker on the car and a job and so we brag – as if these have been fruit that matters of sobriety. To the newcomer without a sticker, or a car for that matter, this seems an improvement over his own lot – and for a spell we are attractive – until the next first drink hits that newcomer like a freight train hits a stalled car on the track.

Then we tell him, “You must not have really wanted sobriety” or to “Double up on your meetings.”

We are full of shit!

And so we figure it must be some lifelong, never quite get there, hardly noticeable but it must be so experience. Let’s go with spiritual experiences of the educational variety – yeah, that’s the ticket. And then we continue to struggle and fight through life. If we are real alcoholics we will probably relapse and come back – and relapse and come back over and over. If we are not real alcoholics we might stay dry and crazy and figure we must be recoverING because we have been attending all these dammed meetings and haven’t had a drink – even though it has been on our own willpower that this is so.

We are nuts. We are dishonest. And we are killing people.

It is no wonder that some people leave AA feeling like it has been a CULT experience. IT HAS BEEN! We have allowed what probably began as a small clutch of non-alcoholic, hard drinking, problem drinkers evolve into a glut of alternative solutions masquerading as AA and it is now so top heavy that it has weighed down the entire fellowship to the point were interlopers and generations of non-AA thought has dragged the Fellowship into a throw-back of its former self. We are made out to be a laughing stock.

If only we would do what real alcoholics have to do in order to recover- if we wouldn’t change the words of the Big Book and call it “semantics” as if “semantics” is an excuse to re-write the directions to fit middle-of-the-road solutions more agreeable to addictions counselors and treatment center “for profit” philosophies – their apodictic tone in direct conflict with AA’s Big Book experience. Then we might see some of the Step Ten promises come true.

They have come true and for that I am truly grateful that these 12 promises and of course the 9th step amends promises have become operative in my life.

• And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone – even alcohol.
• For by this time sanity will have returned.
• We will seldom be interested in liquor.
• If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame.
• We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically.
• We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it.
• We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation.
• We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality – safe and protected.
• We have not even sworn off.
• Instead, the problem has been removed.
• It does not exist for us.
• We are neither cocky nor are we afraid.

Not too shabby, huh? This is my experience and these are all delivered every single day, when I maintain my spiritual fitness through the daily 10th step practices prescribed by the first one hundred alcoholics.

So what do you want to do? Do you want and read and quote Emmett Fox – or do you want to recover from alcoholism and show others how to do the same?

Peace,

Danny S

Resting On Laurels Is Hardly Enough

Look at Step Ten. If you think I mean read the summary of Step Ten off the Twelve Steps shades hanging on the wall or what can be gleaned off of page 59 — I do not.

I mean read the directions for taking Step Ten. They are on page 84 followed by some unbelievably wonderful promises to be had as the result.

Now, here’s where some life changing challenges comes in. We begin to see that practicing these principles in all of our affairs is much more than a week or month long spurt of 4th step inventory writing and an afternoon of fifth step talking.

It means changing the way we approach our daily lives – moment by moment and day by day. It takes commitment – a commitment that is not so hard for those of us who have by now felt a miracle and are experiencing a new flow of power into our lives. We have come to believe and making drastic changes is now possible where before it was not. But it can be impossibly difficult for anyone who has not taken the previous steps and consequently begun to have the spiritual experience promised.

People who “take the steps” through AWOL programs or by reading the 12 & 12 may not get the powerful new flow of Gods grace. If they do, it seems short-lived.

There is no continued growth in effectiveness They “wait”. And they “wait”. And they “wait”. And they read. And they read. And they read. And they discuss. And they discuss. And then they argue over what a spiritual awakening is. Attempting to living off of a spiritual experience had years or months ago is not growth. It’s resting on laurels. And for real alcoholics it is deadly.

There are thousands of us out there going to Big Book meetings, and Twelve and Twelve meetings – reading Twelve and Twelve essays, the stories in the back of the Big Book – who are so self centered that we have resorted to turning Dr. O. into a demigod and page 449/417 into a mantra for feeling good. Many of us would rather savor some of the fine insights of someone like Emmet Fox than perform daily Step Ten exercises throughout the day and engage in nightly inventories as prescribed in the Twelve Steps.

We think that we have the AA Program in our lives. And we don’t. And we lie about it to others.

We rubber-stamp our half-assed actions with “to the best of our abilities” and it isn’t. And we are still crazy – still suffering from the slings and arrows that life shoots at us, still have financial fears and worries and are telling newcomers that, “This Program Works” when it is apparently that for many of us it isn’t.

But we have an inspection sticker on the car and a job and so we brag – as if these have been fruit that matters of sobriety. To the newcomer without a sticker, or a car for that matter, this seems an improvement over his own lot – and for a spell we are attractive – until the next first drink hits that newcomer like a freight train hits a stalled car on the track.

Then we tell him, “You must not have really wanted sobriety” or to “Double up on your meetings.”

We are full of shit!

And so we figure it must be some lifelong, never quite get there, hardly noticeable but it must be so experience. Let’s go with spiritual experiences of the educational variety – yeah, that’s the ticket. And then we continue to struggle and fight through life. If we are real alcoholics we will probably relapse and come back – and relapse and come back over and over. If we are not real alcoholics we might stay dry and crazy and figure we must be recoverING because we have been attending all these dammed meetings and haven’t had a drink – even though it has been on our own willpower that this is so.

We are nuts. We are dishonest. And we are killing people.

It is no wonder that some people leave AA feeling like it has been a CULT experience. IT HAS BEEN! We have allowed what probably began as a small clutch of non-alcoholic, hard drinking, problem drinkers evolve into a glut of alternative solutions masquerading as AA and it is now so top heavy that it has weighed down the entire fellowship to the point were interlopers and generations of non-AA thought has dragged the Fellowship into a throw-back of its former self. We are made out to be a laughing stock.

If only we would do what real alcoholics have to do in order to recover- if we wouldn’t change the words of the Big Book and call it “semantics” as if “semantics” is an excuse to re-write the directions to fit middle-of-the-road solutions more agreeable to addictions counselors and treatment center “for profit” philosophies – their apodictic tone in direct conflict with AA’s Big Book experience. Then we might see some of the Step Ten promises come true.

They have come true and for that I am truly grateful that these 12 promises and of course the 9th step amends promises have become operative in my life.

• And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone – even alcohol.
• For by this time sanity will have returned.
• We will seldom be interested in liquor.
• If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame.
• We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically.
• We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it.
• We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation.
• We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality – safe and protected.
• We have not even sworn off.
• Instead, the problem has been removed.
• It does not exist for us.
• We are neither cocky nor are we afraid.

Not too shabby, huh? This is my experience and these are all delivered every single day, when I maintain my spiritual fitness through the daily 10th step practices prescribed by the first one hundred alcoholics.

So what do you want to do? Do you want and read and quote Emmett Fox – or do you want to recover from alcoholism and show others how to do the same?

Peace,

Danny S

How Long Is Any Length?

Please skip this article if you are a “Pop-AA” sobriety hobbyist who uses meetings to stay sober One Day At A Time and who does not sponsor other alcoholics through the Twelve Steps.

This may not be a good day for you if you continue.

Some folks I run into take the following quote as the defining instruction for Step Ten:

“This thought* brings us to Step Ten, which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along.” (84:2)

- and then invent their own method for doing it. That usually consists of some vague and occasional stepping up to the apology plate when they get into a conflict with someone and think that that is practicing Step Ten. It isn’t.

Step Ten is not as casual as the still self-centered, Pop-AA “not drinking today” AA club house member may prefer. Step Ten is very specific and well defined in the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous.

If you are not already practicing these principles, I won’t make you go to the book- you probably haven’t cracked it in a long while – if ever, anyway. But here is the list of things that we who have adopted this new way of live do, everyday, for the rest of our lives:

“Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear.” This is the eternal vigilance of this way of life – “staying away from slippery places” is NOT vigilance – it’s still living in bondage and being a slave to alcohol.

” When these crop up,” (selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear.)

• “we ask God at once to remove them.
• we discuss them with someone immediately and
• make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone.
• Then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help.” (84:2)

Chances are if you haven’t spoken to your sponsor, spiritual guide or mentor in a few days, then you are not practicing Step Ten, which is a part of “these principles in all our affairs) And if you think that you are ,then that is too bad for you – and even worse for the poor son-of-a-bitch who thinks that you are sponsoring him.
.

Personally I was shocked when I came across this in the beginning. I had been lead to believe – by listening to others in meetings - that that the relationship with God necessary to be a Twelve Step practitioner meant something like, “asking for help in the morning and thanking Him at night”.

Talk about half-measures – man, that kind of “program” isn’t even a squirt in the Twelve Step Program pond!

It turned out that the co-founders and those who actually practiced this new way of life where doing much more. Not only were they praying and taking such actions mornings and nights, but they were doing it ALL-DAY LONG!

Holy Toledo! I thought that only Lubavitchers and Franciscan Monks did things like that – not regular guys like me! Boy was I wrong. Me? Praying morning noon and night – as each fear, resentment, selfish/dishonest thought/act presented itself? I might as well just join a cloister, right? (NO STOOPID! Step Eleven is like an Errors & Omissions insurance policy, I learned.)

This realization can be the deadly stumbling block for the person who IS NOT willing to go to ANY LENGTH for freedom. Too many of us are told that “any length” means going to lots of meetings, like some sort of prison “sentence” or speaking in meetings when we don’t want to – or signing up for the coffee & cake job — and for many I suppose it is. But ANY LENGTH means a hell of a lot more drastic actions and adoptions than that bull-shale. If you are not a real alcoholic – you simply will never go through with it.

And for you I have good news – YOU DON’T HAVE TO. You will not have to be fearless and thorough. Just “put the plug in the jug” and go about your business. Just don’t kill any real alcoholics by suggesting that THEY will be able to do that too. OK? Thanks.

Peace,

Danny S

* “this thought” is that the ninth step promises will always materialize IF we work for them. If we don’t work for them – they do not always materialize.

How Long Is Any Length?

Please skip this article if you are a “Pop-AA” sobriety hobbyist who uses meetings to stay sober One Day At A Time and who does not sponsor other alcoholics through the Twelve Steps.

This may not be a good day for you if you continue.

Some folks I run into take the following quote as the defining instruction for Step Ten:

“This thought* brings us to Step Ten, which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along.” (84:2)

- and then invent their own method for doing it. That usually consists of some vague and occasional stepping up to the apology plate when they get into a conflict with someone and think that that is practicing Step Ten. It isn’t.

Step Ten is not as casual as the still self-centered, Pop-AA “not drinking today” AA club house member may prefer. Step Ten is very specific and well defined in the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous.

If you are not already practicing these principles, I won’t make you go to the book- you probably haven’t cracked it in a long while – if ever, anyway. But here is the list of things that we who have adopted this new way of live do, everyday, for the rest of our lives:

“Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear.” This is the eternal vigilance of this way of life – “staying away from slippery places” is NOT vigilance – it’s still living in bondage and being a slave to alcohol.

” When these crop up,” (selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear.)

• “we ask God at once to remove them.
• we discuss them with someone immediately and
• make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone.
• Then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help.” (84:2)

Chances are if you haven’t spoken to your sponsor, spiritual guide or mentor in a few days, then you are not practicing Step Ten, which is a part of “these principles in all our affairs) And if you think that you are ,then that is too bad for you – and even worse for the poor son-of-a-bitch who thinks that you are sponsoring him.
.

Personally I was shocked when I came across this in the beginning. I had been lead to believe – by listening to others in meetings - that that the relationship with God necessary to be a Twelve Step practitioner meant something like, “asking for help in the morning and thanking Him at night”.

Talk about half-measures – man, that kind of “program” isn’t even a squirt in the Twelve Step Program pond!

It turned out that the co-founders and those who actually practiced this new way of life where doing much more. Not only were they praying and taking such actions mornings and nights, but they were doing it ALL-DAY LONG!

Holy Toledo! I thought that only Lubavitchers and Franciscan Monks did things like that – not regular guys like me! Boy was I wrong. Me? Praying morning noon and night – as each fear, resentment, selfish/dishonest thought/act presented itself? I might as well just join a cloister, right? (NO STOOPID! Step Eleven is like an Errors & Omissions insurance policy, I learned.)

This realization can be the deadly stumbling block for the person who IS NOT willing to go to ANY LENGTH for freedom. Too many of us are told that “any length” means going to lots of meetings, like some sort of prison “sentence” or speaking in meetings when we don’t want to – or signing up for the coffee & cake job — and for many I suppose it is. But ANY LENGTH means a hell of a lot more drastic actions and adoptions than that bull-shale. If you are not a real alcoholic – you simply will never go through with it.

And for you I have good news – YOU DON’T HAVE TO. You will not have to be fearless and thorough. Just “put the plug in the jug” and go about your business. Just don’t kill any real alcoholics by suggesting that THEY will be able to do that too. OK? Thanks.

Peace,

Danny S

* “this thought” is that the ninth step promises will always materialize IF we work for them. If we don’t work for them – they do not always materialize.

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

Sweet Promises

“The Ninth Step Promises” are sweet for sure. Still, to me they pale when contrasted with the Tenth Step promises. Now THOSE are something into which I can REALLY sink teeth.

We don’t hear of them in meetings much – perhaps because they point too handily toward to
Power greater than ourselves which is God.

Neither the Ninth or Tenth Step promises is extravagant, because they are far too common amongst we who meet the ‘conditions’ of each. Many of us are doing the deal. The condition of the Ninth Step promises being “if we work for them”. That means that if I do not work for them then there is little hope of them ever materializing.

The condition of the Tenth Step promises is ‘if we keep in fit spiritual condition.

Experience also abundantly confirms to me that to let up, or ‘rest on my laurels’, results in my being sent back DOWN the down UP escalator – just by standing.

If I keep in fit spiritual condition AND work for them, I am guaranteed that I WILL receive all of the promises of both steps Nine and Ten. My experience in both cases is that they do indeed come true.

My experience also abundantly confirms to me that to let up, or ‘rest on my laurels’, results in my being sent back DOWN the down UP escalator – just by standing still.

Staying on that ride brings me straight to the basement
where that insidious insanity of the next first-drink lurks in wait.

The maintenance portion of the Program I follow does not call for getting spiritual, being spiritual, reading spiritual or feeling spiritual.

It DOES call for spiritual GROWTH. I know people who get a little “happy feeling” after a prayer one day – the next they are Jesus Christ. There is no way I am going to stay sober and helpful to others riding on a spiritual awakening or holy orgasm I had two years or one week ago. I’ve got to GROW to stay in the deal – or else I am OUT!

I think many of us get the promises of sobriety – of establishing a relationship with God – a taste of spirituality and its so darned good we go with THAT. It’s better than what we had.

But it’s only the tip of the iceberg. AA is a spiritual Kindergarten, not a spiritual paradise. There IS a lot of heaven to be found when we begin to live in the Fourth Dimension – but there is so much more. The co-authors knew that they knew only a little. MOTRs LOVE to toss out that line, out of context to PROVE that what we DO know is probably wrong. If only they knew how foolish that sounds.

Peace,

Danny S

It Should Continue For Our Lifetime.

What is step ten asking us to do? Five things, right? Now where do these five “things” come up elsewhere in the Program.

Watch:

“This thought brings us to Step Ten, which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along.

We vigorously commenced this way of living as we cleaned up the past. We have entered the world of the Spirit. Our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness. This is not an overnight matter. It should continue for our lifetime.

1) Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. (Step 4)

2) When these crop up, we ask God at once to remove them. (Steps 6 & 7)

3) We discuss them with someone immediately and (Step 5)

4) Make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone. (Steps 8 & 9)

5) Then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help. (Step 12)

So Step Ten was EVERYTHING to do with other Steps.

It is the daily practice of Steps 4,5,6,7,8,9 and 12.

Is it not?

We are practicing these principles (The Steps) in all of our affairs. And Step Ten goes along way toward ensuring that we are doing exactly this – “Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God’s will into all of our activities.” – not just when “Going through the steps” for the first time. It IS a daily affair.

Aren’t’ you practicing Step Ten daily, continually throughout the day? I hope so. If not, take some grilled cheese toast from yer Aunt Fanny and get to work today! (And save me a slice – cut into soldiers, thank you very much)

I will be happy tell you of how this step has saved my ass many, many times.

And how the warning of skipping this step has brought down many a “recovered” alkie in my experience.

THE WARNING: “It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. We are headed for trouble if we do, for alcohol is a subtle foe.”

Peace,

Danny S

http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com