Click on "START"

What do you do after clicking the “Start” button?

You begin clicking through some more – going through your Programs – getting work done. Right? You wouldn’t pay $1,000 for a Start Button that didn’t take you further than that – would you?

But if you don’t click beyond “Start” – nothing more happens – except that you’ve STARTED. All you get is an expanded menu of possibilities (Suggestions?)

When this whole business about “Higher Power” and “Power greater than ourselves” is discussed by the co-authors of “Alcoholics Anonymous” – does anyone find it as interesting and as pertinent as I do that these concepts are prefaced and qualified with other expressions like “In the beginning” and “To make a start”?

Once we go beyond Step Two – these concepts are completely dropped and the power always comes from God. It’s a God of our own understanding – that makes sense to us – but God all the same.

Many of us who chose NOT to participate in the full Program portion – the Twelve Steps – never get beyond the “Start” or the “Beginning” – and we all know what happens to real alcoholics who fail to get beyond the beginning – they drink.

To WIT: Jim the salesman, Fred the Accountant, me, (I did) maybe you too, and don’t forget those with whom we work with daily who balk – perhaps on amends, meditation, prayer, inventories and sponsoring.

It is common for example to hear folks say “I’ve taken the steps” – but what they do not say is that they HAVE NOT completed their amends and/or don’t take others through them. (I know. . . I know . . . we have ALL been told that it’s OK to take YEARS to finish amends. Tell that to the guy who just called me last week after a three month tear – who just took that advice he heard in “the rooms”)

Many I’ve seen and with whom I’ve worked – drink eventually on unfinished amends. Even worse – until till they complete amends, present conflicting pictures of recovery with their own life as an example. They are often still experiencing the emotional and spiritual difficulties associated with untreated alcoholism. All the while telling the newcomer “I’ve done it” flashing sobriety dates as the proof!

I notice this to be particularly the case with folks who seek out alternative heavily “Buffered” methods of “Step taking” like AWOL. The AA Program, unadulterated, is just too tall an order and they cannot go through with it.

You’ll see this when people qualify their “program” by mentioning their sober time – usually under the guise of giving hope to the newcomer. I know that when I want to give hope the newcomer it’s telling him how I recovered and I bring him to my home to see how I live – NOT try to impress them with how much time I’ve got. There are WAY too many non-alcoholic hard drinkers with whom the real alcoholic newcomer DOES NOT IDENTIFY – playing THAT card, diluting any positive effect that may have.

The old “If I can do it – so can you” idea is just plain ineffective. It’s like, “SO WHAT?” “My sister hasn’t had a drink in that long either — and she’s a freakin‘ mess! But if that’s all you know, I suppose that’s all you have to offer – a “Good word” is a hell of a lot easier than “Good work”.

Does anyone REALLY THINK that some poor slob about to pull that steering wheel and shoot into the parking lot of the liquor store is going to suddenly get stricken sober and get a boost of sudden WILLPOWER with the thought, “Wait a minute, old Pete has 30 years – I can do it too,” -and then steer straight past that store?

If they do – then they DON’T understand alcoholism.

Yeah, I guess they do think that. PHULEEZE! Hard drinkers might be capable of such a thing – but I don’t identify with them at ALL!

I am sure most of us remember the from Paul Simon album title, “Still Crazy After All These Years.”

It ain’t pretty. (Down-right ugly!)

Peace,

Danny S

Unfinished Amends

A warning about unfinished amends . . not only among those who never set out on this path, . . .

. . . (maybe who “read the Big Book” and “Go to Big Book meetings – but never take the Program wholly into their lives) . . .

. . . . but among those of us who otherwise are living this way of life – who carry this message – who are considered Big Book Thumpers – who pray and meditate everyday.

I work with many men. More than one has relapsed after having come this far from unfinished amends.

Very often, they were unwilling to buy the plane tickets. They were unwilling to drive the 8 hours and pay for a hotel room. They were unwilling to do whatever was necessary to pick up the phone, pickup the 8th step list and make the appointment and show up in person (Direct amends) to set right the wrongs they had done.

Often they thought amends was about mending fences, and gaining back the approvals of others long lost. It’s not. That’s self-centered amends-making.

There are people I needed to see and set right with – who thought and perhaps STILL think I’m a compete asshole. They couldn’t give a hoot about how spiritual I have become these days, or that my errors where while suffering from untreated alcoholism. They want they’re freakin‘ money back! THAT’S IT!

THAT is setting things right . . . RESTITUTION . . . not winning back affections or approval.

Needless to say, someone who has NEVER even set out on this path, who is still trying to “stay sober” by going to meetings and sharing and whatever else the middle-of-the-road folks are telling them to do – still may have mostly ALL of their amends unfinished . . .

. . . . but how many of us ON THE PATH won’t make it after a while, because all of the housecleaning has not been done fearlessly from the start? Perhaps five, ten even twenty years ago?

There isn’t really much ability to keep my house clean on a daily basis as long as all of the corners holding the dirt of the past haven’t been swept out fully and sometimes it is what has been hidden or simply ignored – under couches – that the we keep a secret that ensures we are have never been completely clean.

I know that when I had completed my amends, the difference between prayer and meditation before and after were astounding – to the point where I’d have to say I really couldn’t pray or meditate and if I went through the motions it was just that, because I hadn’t been unblocked from the Sunlight of the Spirit yet.

It was often like picking up a dead phone line – with no one on the other end talking back. Today God comes through – there is two-way communication – not just one way praying into a void.

If the blocks are still there, there can never be a meaningful Step Eleven – growing communication with God.

Peace,

Danny S

http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com

What Amends?

Someone told me today they were almost afraid to go forward with the step, fearing step 9 amends. The goods new for that person is that the Big Book’s got THAT covered too, But you know, ALMOST scared from going forward is not the same as being TOO scared to go forward. I scared some people too, when I was drinking, so
what right do I have to be free from “scare” to make good?

But that point aside, this feeling is a common experience for
many I’ve worked with who haven’t made much of beginning. It’s
largely imaginary until the previous steps have been taken.

Until I took the previous steps 4 through 8, I didn’t even KNOW what
amends would have to be made, or what would be involved. So what basis am
I using to get myself all riled up with “scare” until I know what I
am “scared” of? I have no idea of how difficult or easy ANY of my
amends are going to be when it comes time to make them. I don’t even
know what they ARE yet?

By the time I, and most people who follow this path, get to step 9,
a psychic change has already either begun or completely taken place
and we have been actually ANXIOUS to begin. I was. I am working with
two men right now who were bemoaned step 9 and who are now CHOMPING
at the bit to get it done. One preparing for a trip to Chicago.
Another is going over his bills and making phone calls to creditors
he has no money to pay off. They are DOING THE DEAL. And they have
recovered. It’s a wonderful thing.

Until I was able to “object” to the blockages and flaws in my make
up which had kept me from the Sunlight of the Spirit there really
was not enough motivation to take step 9 either. Maybe that’s why it
is step 9, the last of the 4 thru 9 series, and not Steps 2 or 5.

That is my experience.

But the Big Book also reminds me about amends: “If we haven’t the
will to do this, we ask until it comes. Remember it was agreed at
the beginning we would go to any lengths for victory over alcohol.”
And that means to take step THREE. Make a decision.

How does anyone KNOW their amends will are to feared? And if they know, are
they praying for willingness? Have they made the list yet of amends to
be made yet? Have they made the decision to carry through with this
in step three? My experience with these question would have me guess
no and no. Yes?

The question I was asked by my sponsor was “How “well” do you want
to get?”

Peace,

Danny S