Unwilling And Unable To Recover?

I run a little online Big Book Study group* and one of our members, Georgette from New York had this to say, “I wanted to use the word recovering so I could justify my slips by saying I am after all only a recovering person. I am not done, just more excuses. I have come to understand today that if I want what the BB says and I am willing to do the work, that I will be recovered one day at a time. And I will no longer debate the issue, only do the work. For that I am truly grateful. There is a lot to learn. And I learn from everyone.”

Still recovering? Or recovered. Which is preferable?

This idea and Georgette’s EXPERIENCE (Not her OPINION) clearly brings to the front of the class that perhaps not everyone WANTS to recover. I have been saying for years that not everyone who attends AA meetings CAN recover from alcoholism because not everyone one who attends AA meetings has GOT alcoholism.

No one can recover from an illness they haven’t got!

But what if someone like Georgette, a real alcoholic,who IS ACTUALLY AFFLICTED with alcoholism DOES NOT WANT TO RECOVER? What if someone WANTS to remain in charge of caring for their own life and their own will? (Behaviors and thoughts) What does that mean?

Well what that means is that we have someone who is refusing to turn life (behaviors) and will (thoughts) over to the God of ANYONE’S understanding – let alone their own understanding.

That must be some crappy place to live That is someone who is actually STUCK on Step Two – unable to make the decision of Step Three. (They will THINK they are stuck on Step Three because they THINK they are TAKING IT. But they haven’t even begun.)

Can you imagine taking Step One by identifying the humanly unsolvable problem – taking Step Two by being convinced that only God could solve that problem – and then staying right there? In THAT prison?

It must be a pure hell – to be stuck like a painted turtle on a rock in a stream – flailing its legs, unable to reach the nourishing waters that lap at it’s own shell – struggling in it’s own unnatural predicament.

I am not speaking of the heavy drinker who calls himself “Alcoholic” yet is not one and therefore is incapable of recovering from alcoholism. I am NOT talking about Middle-of-the Road mongers, the AA Fellowship hobbyist (“Don’t drink and go to meetings”) who are killing real alcoholics.

There are people, alcoholic or not, who cannot recover because the haven’t the capacity for honesty. That honesty dictates admitting ones own truth. Sometime that truth is “I AM in the wrong place”

- – like a hypochondriac who never gets well from the sicknesses which they have only
imagined – with which they are not really afflicted – with which they simply CANNOT or WILL NOT admit they haven’ t got — for whatever selfish reasons they may have.

I AM talking about real alkies, fitting “Our description of the alcoholic” (60:2) – not anyone else’s description or definition – who have not recovered and who live in a disturbingly degenerative world that is very different from that of someone who has experienced recovery. It is a place that can only be entered through the ages old iron gates of mental insanity – whereupon once entering one must adapt and survive on terrain so treacherous that only a tiny percentage of those who enter ever find the way back- alive.

They somehow live in that world – and as folks who HAVE found and grabbed onto the common solution we ought to remember what it was like for us – but not so that we do not drink. Remembering would not be enough to keep us from it. Recovered alkies ALREADY do not drink.

But we might want to remember it so we can muster a compassionate attitude for their deplorable situation.

For few if any of the un-recovered ever live long or happily.

These people have been unwilling and therefore unable to return from that bleak and hideous place – to become fully restored to their sanity.

They cannot reconstitute their lives or ever really begin the fairly tale ending of life’s journey of the recovered alcoholic, because thus far – while hope has been presented – the solution has not been grasped.

But there is more for us to do than for these hapless mutants than feel compassionate. We can express that compassion. We can offer them ourselves – a piece of our own heaven – and the occasional person who picks up the tools we lay at their feet will sometimes show us that the effort is well worth it. They are worth it. We can chase these folks like it’s part of our job description. It is.

Please have a little compassion for those who call themselves “Still recovering.” There is loving correction that will hold us in a position to remain helpful. We have been given the power to help others.

We CAN and must transmit what we DO have because it only on loan from a loving God.

Peace,

Danny S

* Primary Purpose BB Study Group On Line
Check it out.

Are You a "Recovering Alcoholic"?

Or Are You A LIAR!
“I am crazy and sick, you know. Yeah . . . That’s the ticket! Insane. Have no power whatsoever. THAT’S why I behave this way. Crazy as a loon. That’s me.”

This idea that we go around for the rest of our lives still sick, still powerless, still crazy and still running our defects on the world around us because or “After all . . . I AM an alcoholic (Or drug addict)” OR MAYBE “That’s my disease” – gives recovery a bad name. Who wants to associate with someone who belongs to a “club” of crazies?

It’s no wonder some people want to keep anonymity as a secret society of members so well. When people suspect we might be in a Fellowship – they THINK we are all NUTS! Who’d intentionally hire or want to hang with a self admitted screwball!

I wish people would stop doing that.

Either recover, drink or get the hell out – or do something – but don’t push your character defects on the world and then tell them you’re “Recovering” YOUR NOT!!

If you want to go around telling the world that YOU are crazy and will never be anything but (Because it’s progress not perfection, right?) that is you’re prerogative – but it is NOT YOUR RIGHT to tell the the world that ALL of us in AA are as crazy as you are!

Some of us have experienced a return to sanity and recovery and it harms us to have your arrogance speak for all of us in the Fellowship. STOP IT!

Peace,

Danny Schwarzhoff

Looking For A New Sponsor For Christmas?

I have been asked often how to find a sponsor. My answer never varies. Get a sponsor who has experience in taking others through the 12 steps and identifies him/herself as someone who has recovered.

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

If someone is “Still recovering” then either whatever they are doing hasn’t worked OR they may be trying to recover from an illness they haven’t’ got. In either case – you’re screwed.

Disregard how “Nice” or “Knowledgeable” the still recovering person seems. 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 person’s method may KILL you – as earnest and nice as they seem.

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

He/she’ll know EXACTLY what to do with you from there and you can trust that without reservation.

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 of the Big Book. And THAT’S the ONLY description that counts in this Program — not mine, yours, Dr, Phil’s or our family’s & friends — not even the old-timer in the meeting who hasn’t cracked a Big Book in ten years other than to read at his turn at the old “Big Book meeting.”

If a potential sponsor 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.

This is important –-> 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.They don’t know when YOUR next first drink will come along. No one does!

Just because they had the luxury of sitting on their thumbs – getting comfortable in meetings and reading AA literature – you may NOT have that same luxury. Not if you are a real alcoholic. YOU might obsess for your next drink this afternoon! It’s no skin off their back if you do. And you might not live through it. They will.

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 life by the New Year – FREE for the first time in your life!

Too simple? Your DAMNED right it is! Ho Ho Ho

Peace,

Danny S

What Is Your Truth?

I am a recovered alcoholic.



Is them fightin‘ words?

Someone who has has the spiritual awakening as the result of these steps and who practices these principles in all of their affairs wouldn’t be looking for a fight – if they have recovered then they have ceased fighting anything or anyone, even alcohol – even other AA members. Their motives would not be so questionable.

I can tell you why I identify as “Recovered”.

I am saying something different because I am having a different experience in AA and have had different results from being a member than many others who aren’t recovered and aren’t recovering either.

When I identify with my truth – that I have indeed recovered – oftentimes someone will come up to me afterwards to ask me to explain it to them. That one word is sometimes a walking billboard of more hope than they have yet to hear in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I am more than happy to oblige them and take advantage of the opportunity. I have gotten sponsees this way.

Lives have been turned to God and people have recovered, because I identify as a “RECOVERED” alcoholic. No one has EVER asked me to explain “Recovering”.

As a real alcoholic newcomer, and not a Disco Drunk, it was a dismal prospect to think that I might never recover and would be sick and insane for the rest of my life. I would not want what a person who never recovered has, no matter how great they thought it was to not have to work with a headache, get into bar fights or how much they thought it was a boon to their existence to have a drivers license back.

I couldn’t give a tittly toot about their DMV issues or how unhappy they have been without their kids Those were never issues for me and I know plenty of people who never drink that have those same issues or worse.

And damn the grimacing torpedoes of middle-of-road disco drunks who disapprove and hold contempt for the miracle.

Many people just don’t seem to understand how low and how deep the soul sickness of a real alcoholic like me gets. “Recovering” holds no banner of hope for me. It carries has no depth – no weight, hardly any promise at all. “Recovered” is an offer of the hope held out, for inspection, ready to be passed on. And Damn the grimacing torpedoes of middle-of-road disco drunks who disapprove and hold contempt for the miracle.

“Recovering” is not attractive to me as a real McCoy. A life filled with work problems, divorces, fits of anger fear and loathing, because after all “I’m STILL RECOVERING, I am NOT A SAINT, I AM LEARNING TO LIVE MY DEFECTS” with no alcohol to ease the misery is no offer of hope to me. I wouldn’t want it!

“Recovered” on the other hand, is VERY attractive. It may be repulsive to the non-alcoholic who can never recover from a disease he hasn’t got, whose drunkologue and whose sad-sack bottom sounds like a cakewalk to the real alcoholic – but to me as a real alcoholic I want what “Recovered offers.” Not what “always be sick” and recovering offers, which is nothing but fellowship and a lifelong commitment to meeting addiction.

Personally I can’t imagine an unrecovered alcoholic having the nerve to say m>“I am a recovered alcoholic” even when looking for a fight. His yet unaddressed fears or what people might think would prevent it. And those who aren’t even real alcoholics who say it, aren’t’ my concern.

Hopefully they’ll just peter out of the fellowship in a few years anyway once they figured out that they aren’t powerless over alcohol and CAN stop on their own willpower.<!–p>

I don’t EVER enjoy fighting with ANYONE over these issues or what I say in a meeting. There is such a thing as healthy debate - but looking for fights in AA over my own experience is a waste of time. I don’t need to prove anything to anyone thank God.

Peace,

Danny S