HELP! My Life Is a Mess. I Need Balance!

‘Oh If I Only I Could Find ‘Balance‘ – I Would Not Be So Crazy and My Life So Un-manageable’

We hear a lot of talk about “balance” in the meeting rooms and it id good to know that achieving “balance” in life is certainly a Big Book supported idea. In fact, there is exactly one strong and definite reference to achieving ‘balance’ in one’s life mentioned by the co-authtors of “Alcoholics Anonymous” – we might as well know what it is, right?

Whatever ‘balance’ means to you, by the end of this article you will know exactly what balance is in “Alcoholics Anonymous”.

You will know exactly how to achieve that balance and have it and that can happen before you lay your head down on your pillow this evening. I shit you not. So let’s get right to it shall, we?

“Balance.” What a nice idea. We seem to crave it when it’s not around and do not even notice it when it is. At times when everything is going “our way” – then we seem to believe we have things “in balance”. We may even thank God for it. “You God! Thanks for FINALLY listening to ME. I’ll call you in the morning to give you your new marching orders for Thursday.”

Yet let some event, situation or person DARE to violate our “plan’ for how things should be and we get all riled up with resentment – we then say our lives must not “be balanced”. We start look looking to re-balance our lives to get things back to the way we want it. We get pissed off at people at works – do we must be working too much. We get pissed off at other people in our social or community activities so we not be “balancing” family/ friends/ community /work properly. Yet in those rare moments when no one is actually ‘bothering’ us, we feel that these activities are all in the right proportions. Whether they are or not – we ‘feel good’ do things must ‘be’ good.

Does the Big Book, “Alcoholics Anonymous” talk about balance. Yes it does. Does it say that we ought to have it? Yes it does. Does it tell us how. Absolutely!

Unfortunately it is not the kind of balance many of us hope for when we cry “I NEED MORE BALANCE”.

To the co-authors of “Alcoholics Anonymous” ‘balance’ meant this:

“At the very beginning, the couple ought to frankly face the fact that each will have to yield here and there if the family is going to play an effective part in the new life. Father will necessarily spend much time with other alcoholics, but this activity should be balanced.” (131:2)

Now here’s further bad news, it doesn’t mean “lots of meetings” the “necessarily” and the “much” time he will spend they use the word ’will’ obviously because the assume he is following the directions in the book. -

They are suggesting community involvement OUTSIDE of working with other alcoholics. To them it is “Working with Others” them was something which might need to be balanced. But if the alcoholic is not sponsoring anyone – not working with others – there is no mention of balancing anything damned thing . They are not talking about balancing job and littler league, family and bowling night, they are talking about balancing TWELVE STEP WORK with the restore your life.

Most people want to take that “much time with other alcoholics” top mean meetings They have GOT to be shitting us! One or two hours a day in a folding chair in a church basement is “much time”? Oh brother! That is what you think you need to be balanced HOLY SHIT! When we work with others we give them a hell of a lot more time that that! They have no freakin’ idea – do they?

So now you know what balance means in AA and how to get it. Whatever it meant to you before and whatever it means to anyone else is another matter altogether and not an AA discussion topic. Or shouldn’t be anyway, unless you like going to those Open Disgusting meetings that have been turned into buck an hour, group therapy, circle jerks for un-recovered alcoholics and those who never intend to recover.

Everyone is entitled to have their own definitions and usage of words. I am sure you still be able to balance your checkbook, balance your social calendar and or exercise on a balance beam if that’s you r bag. Whatever “balance” means in the lives of unruly undisciplined ex-drinkers running around like headless Thompson gunners with no Program and no recovery – what matter to me is what the c0-authors of “Alcoholics Anonymous“ had to say about it.

So if all we are supposed to balance is our “working with others” activities, then isn’t there something we should be doing to balance everything else?

No.

The best way for this alcoholic to achieve “Balance” was to STOP TRYING. When I did – and instead put my trust in God and not my ability to maintain “balance” – balance came. Ironic huh?

If aspects of my life are suffering from foolish decisions, poor time management, fear, worry and being overworked, subject to “Bedevilments” and my best quip to a newcomer is “I didn’t drink today, so I’m a winner” do I REALLY think that he should want what I have? He’d be a fool.

Recovered alcoholics do not have to live this way. We have a better way.

Ironically, the only times my life has ever gotten imbalanced was when I tried to balance it. Prior to recovering, I often found myself restless, irritable and discontent, suffering from untreated alcoholism, in AA. What I learned, the hard way, is that things like “Double up on your meetings?” (To feel better) is not a treatment for alcoholism. It’s not a treatment for anything.

Just being dry does not overcoming negative feelings or being overwhelmed either – because as an alcoholic, when I stop drinking I do NOT get better. I get worse.

What they were telling me was to put my life in the hands of “Human aid” – instead of God aid. It took a loving, and experienced Big Book Thumper – who came along and showed my that I had no Program – no matter how many meetings I was going to – if I was a real alcoholic then I was beyond human aid, and a hundred meetings a week would not carry me.

At that time the need for balance in my life was the indicator that something was wrong.

Or should I say “cry” for balance, because isn’t what we do?

Everything I read in my Big book talks about my life coming into order, without me doing a balancing act. As an alcoholic who has lived a rather undisciplined life, I am told that what works is to instead let God discipline me – and I get the Eleventh Step Promises which are less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity, or foolish decisions.

I become much more efficient. I do not tire so easily because I am not burning up energy foolishly as I did when I was trying to arrange life to suit myself.

Isn’t that what I mean, when I say I need balance? Am I not saying that I want to arrange life to suit me?

Why struggle through life, when I have a new Director, and new Employer. I am the agent, He is the Principle, he is the Father and I am his child? If you are a Twelve Stepper, hopefully that has been helpful to you – and if you are not a Twelve Stepper hopefully this has helped you want to become one because maybe you see what has been missing in your life. Get what has been missing and balance it in. You will not regret it and neither will be the folks whose lives you help save.

Balance my life? Me? Yeah . . . and monkeys might fly out of my butt.

Peace,

Danny S

Rubber Meets The Road

The intent behind Singleness of Purpose is to prevent AA from being all things to all people. The idea was not germinated in the “Rubber Capital of the World” Akron, Ohio – but that is where the idea took off to the wholesale level.

The reason Roland Hazard (New England) was able to help Ebby Thacher (New York State) who was able to help Bill Wilson (New York City) who was able to help Bill Dodsen (Akron) who was able to help Clarence Snyder (Cleveland) and on and on – (You, me and the world) was because they – we - were ALL alcoholic.

They could have been a whole lot of other things too – over-eaters, coin collectors, drug addicts, douche bags, fly fishermen, introverts or transvestites – it did not matter what else they were as long as they had that one common condition of mind and body – alcoholism. (AA’s description – not Dr. Drew’s)

The breakdown that occurs in the fellowship happens right at the level of sponsorship which is Primary Purpose. It does not happen in monthly business meetings. It does not happen when someone doesn’t go to enough meetings. It does not even happen when someone fails to mention “doing the steps” from the podium.

It happens at eye-ball-to-eyeball level, right in the main trench of our own battlefield. On the firing line. When one alcoholic fails to talk to another alcoholic about the spiritual solution to alcoholism.

A look at this in our history testifies one hundred percent with my own experience today. I have NEVER been able to Twelve Step a non-alcoholic – call him addict, call him whatever you wish – if he isn’t an alcoholic, he just will not click at the deep level necessary to allow the deep inner and intimate trust necessary for the prospect to make the corresponding inner and deep commitment to so drastically change the way he lives.

He may get on knees and take Step Three – He may buy a notebook and start writing his fourth step – he may even do a fifth step – Hell, he might make some amends too! But he’ll skimp somewhere.

He’ll balk at some place in this process. His fourth step will be incomplete or he will hold back something vital in his fifth step or he’ll leave an amends unfinished. He may not sponsor others – putting it off for months or years. (Which has benefit because he will not have recovered either) Even more devastating – he could tart talking to newcomers as if it were OK to do it “his way”. The outcome will not be good.

All the while – if he were directed into the RIGHT Fellowship he might find himself recovered, useful and back with hi s Creator.

The turning of his life and will over to God is so major a decision that unless he knows that I have walked in his shoes, in his footprints – then the level of trust necessary will breakdown – especially once the pain of the last the debacle diminishes. The link that occurs by simply being, “two fucked up guys – with DUIs” is just not strong enough. IOh yeah, it is strong enough to hold together a “not drinkin’ today” social gathering of ‘happy joyous and free’ meeting goers - who share “experience, strength and hope” a few dirty jokes and a cup of coffee – but that is where it ends.

Changing “alcoholic” to “alcohol addict” or lumping everyone into “addictive personality” or whatever other word play that has become popularly espoused by outside interests – not AA – is irrelevant to the truth about alcoholism.

The folks who do this have money on the line and that is their truth that they wont’ admit to. I am talking about the ‘addictions” treatment industry.

The truth is that I am not a drug addict and therefore am not credible enough to a drug addict to be able to gain his extreme trust. At some point that addict tells me something about himself – maybe it’s how he sucked some guys dick for a vial of rock or how he bought some unidentified white powered from some unidentified person and cooked it and pulled blood out of his arm and mixed it up and shot it back in – and then looks me in the eye and thinks to himself, “Holy shit! This guy doesn’t know what I am talking about” or maybe even “God, I have no idea what he means when he talks of alcohol that way” and then he is dead — because the disconnect is right there and then.

He then says, “Well maybe that Danny is being a little drastic here – after all he doesn’t understand me – so maybe I CAN wait awhile on some of these amends.” Or maybe, “I can NOT sponsor anyone just yet until I have at last a year.” Or maybe, “I don’t have to finish my 4th step by next week. He’s a little drastic”.

DEAD DEAD DEAD! He is back out looking to score. Back into a detox. Back into a sober home and to meetings again and then back out on the street, saying “I must be a real piece of shit because those people in that detox and in that transitional services facility must be right – I DID NOT WANT IT BADLY ENOUGH!”

Wanting sobriety badly is NOT a sufficient reason for a real alcoholic or a drug addict to stop. It never has been.

I have killed drug addicts myself – arrogantly imagining that I had been given the power to help drug addicts. Where are they today? They are skeletons in the dirt. Their families and loved ones have lived without them now for years. Those families have no idea how they died except that they died of drug overdoses. They have no idea how intimate their loved ones had been with me and how much some guy named Danny knows about why they have lost their beloved. They have no idea of what I know about the exact reason they are now gone. And I cannot tell them. It is too late.

I have also helped alcoholics because I have been given the power to help them. I stick where both history and my personal experience tells me I should be – with other alcoholics!

This can all be hard to digest when so much information that is contrary to AAs Singleness of Purpose has run so rampant – perhaps in the circles in which you travel – nay . . PROBABLY in the circles in which you travel.

I have had many men undergo drastic spiritual awakenings and experiences right before my eyes and I have others fall apart and die before my eyes. I have these experiences to support what is told time after time, story after story, inside of the Big Book and outside of it, and I guarantee you that Singleness of Purpose – one alcoholic talking to another – is the only way this Twelve Step stuff works for alcoholics.

I don’t care how many people say they’ve “done the steps” via a sponsor with another “addiction”. Lots of people say that they have “taken the steps” and I say “So what.” Lots of people can hold a knife and fork too. That doesn’t always mean that they have eaten lunch.

Working with other alcoholics out in those trenches. THAT is where the battlefield is. That is where the rubber meets the road and that is where the hearts and minds combine. That is where lives are either lost or saved. That is the WHOLE DEAL right then – right there when that absolutely dejected and miserable man lost in his cups hears another man who has walked in his shoes tell him what he has been longing to hear – words of truth pouring out of the heart of someone who really understands the problem – the same exact problem – and who has found the solution. The same exact solution.

Loads of AA meetings, sharing problems, sober picnics, reading about spirituality and camaraderie with others don’t mean SHIT if that battle is not first fought in that trench!

Peace,

Danny S

‘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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Holiday Blues

When non-alcoholics tell real alcoholics how to get and stay sober – real alcoholics DIE!

By now you may have seen those silly little sheets sometimes passed around at meetings with “HOLIDAY TIPS” for staying sober.

Maybe someone has placed a stack near the literature rack or even passed them out in your own meeting. When I see that “stack” of flyers – know what I do?

I steal them.

Then I rip them in half and throw them into the garbage can with the wet coffee grounds. I am sorry but no one has the right to disseminate information that may be fine for heavy drinking, “Just don’t Drink” – One Day At A Time” assholes but will kill real alcoholic assholes like me.

You want some “Holiday Tips”? I got yer holiday tips, right here.

Holiday Tip For Staying Sober.

Some of us find that we can be plagued with waves of self-pity or resentment during the holidays. This is an indication that we are not on good solid ground. It happens to the best of us.

Either 1) You have not recovered yet or 2) Your recovery is unraveling. (Moving away from or toward a drink comes to mind) There is no reason to lose our heads during the holidays. Not if we have already been restored to sanity.

So what happens when the unraveling starts. Get it clipped- nipped and whipped!

There is no such thing as a “Sanity clause” in the Big Book, but we can take a cue for a remedy directly out of it anyway:

“Practical experience shows that nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. It works when other activities fail.” (89:0)

Working with other alcoholics means going out and finding a puking drunk to whom I can introduce to the twelve steps.

It does not mean making coffee, sharing my woes with others, giving out my phone number – hoping someone calls, or driving someone to a meeting. It certainly does not mean stuffing my fat face for two or three hours at an Alkathon.

There is nothing INTENSIVE about any of these fine (and not so fine) activities – but none of them constitutes working with others the way it is presented in AAs Program.

We are to be helpful yes – but what does it say? Doesn’t it say – help others RECOVER FROM ALCOHOLISM – and the only way we have have to do that is The Twelve Steps.

You stopped kicking your puppy in the head after he has shat on the rug. WONDERFUL! You’re a real saint! You put the cap back on the half-and-half container last night at the speaker meeting? Be still my heart – you are some kind of wonderful!

Being a good Samaritan is great and neccessary too – but it isn’t a solution to ALCOHOLISM and it doesn’t pass on recovery. The guy you loaned a fiver to last week for a pack of cigarettes not expecting to be repaid – will NOT result in a spiritual awakening for him! Twelve Steps will do that.

What we do is “pass on” a Program that takes a spiritually bankrupt, sick in the soul, broken man or woman and AWAKENS them so they can live again – free from alcohol. Getting someone a cup of coffee will not do that for them. It might fool YOU into thinking you are a fantastic AA – it may even fool someone who noticed that you did it -although he was probably too busy putting away not one but TWO chairs – hoping YOU’D notice HIM to see it - but beyond that – NOTHING!

I’ve done ALL this bullcrap in the Fellowship! That’s how I know that YOU do it!

What is presented in the Big Book is one-on-one work. EYEBALL-EYEBAL – book in hand, intense WORK!

What I have done in the past is make sure that I ask God to put another alcoholic in my life with whom I can work. Then I place myself out in the trenches, in sordid places, where I can be of maximum service.

During the holidays that may mean helping out at the salvation army, going to the house of someone I know is still drinking -

You know — the one they all call “Poor Joe” or “Poor Sally” – “He’s still out there” – “He’s not ready” “He wants to do it his way”. While everyone is feeling sorry for them, who is knocking on that persons door, helping and staying sober?

Making an appointment to Twelve Step a wet drunk (and showing up) – getting to the meeting I hate to go too because of all the nonsense that goes on there.

Getting a hold of my doctor and asking if she knows of anyone that I can go see.

Asking my local minister for a lead to a suffering alcoholic family and knocking on the door. (With my Big Book) – and if the one suffering will not have me – then maybe the family will.

There are very many ways to place ourselves in service and when we are thinking about helping someone else, we cannot drink. It has been proven.

Get involved in working with others and being of service can turn a bad holiday into a good one, and an already good one into a fabulous one!

Go get em!

Peace and Merry Christmas to all,

Danny S

Holiday Blues

When non-alcoholics tell real alcoholics how to get and stay sober – real alcoholics DIE!

By now you may have seen those silly little sheets sometimes passed around at meetings with “HOLIDAY TIPS” for staying sober.

Maybe someone has placed a stack near the literature rack or even passed them out in your own meeting. When I see that “stack” of flyers – know what I do?

I steal them.

Then I rip them in half and throw them into the garbage can with the wet coffee grounds. I am sorry but no one has the right to disseminate information that may be fine for heavy drinking, “Just don’t Drink” – One Day At A Time” assholes but will kill real alcoholic assholes like me.

You want some “Holiday Tips”? I got yer holiday tips, right here.

Holiday Tip For Staying Sober.

Some of us find that we can be plagued with waves of self-pity or resentment during the holidays. This is an indication that we are not on good solid ground. It happens to the best of us.

Either 1) You have not recovered yet or 2) Your recovery is unraveling. (Moving away from or toward a drink comes to mind) There is no reason to lose our heads during the holidays. Not if we have already been restored to sanity.

So what happens when the unraveling starts. Get it clipped- nipped and whipped!

There is no such thing as a “Sanity clause” in the Big Book, but we can take a cue for a remedy directly out of it anyway:

“Practical experience shows that nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. It works when other activities fail.” (89:0)

Working with other alcoholics means going out and finding a puking drunk to whom I can introduce to the twelve steps.

It does not mean making coffee, sharing my woes with others, giving out my phone number – hoping someone calls, or driving someone to a meeting. It certainly does not mean stuffing my fat face for two or three hours at an Alkathon.

There is nothing INTENSIVE about any of these fine (and not so fine) activities – but none of them constitutes working with others the way it is presented in AAs Program.

We are to be helpful yes – but what does it say? Doesn’t it say – help others RECOVER FROM ALCOHOLISM – and the only way we have have to do that is The Twelve Steps.

You stopped kicking your puppy in the head after he has shat on the rug. WONDERFUL! You’re a real saint! You put the cap back on the half-and-half container last night at the speaker meeting? Be still my heart – you are some kind of wonderful!

Being a good Samaritan is great and neccessary too – but it isn’t a solution to ALCOHOLISM and it doesn’t pass on recovery. The guy you loaned a fiver to last week for a pack of cigarettes not expecting to be repaid – will NOT result in a spiritual awakening for him! Twelve Steps will do that.

What we do is “pass on” a Program that takes a spiritually bankrupt, sick in the soul, broken man or woman and AWAKENS them so they can live again – free from alcohol. Getting someone a cup of coffee will not do that for them. It might fool YOU into thinking you are a fantastic AA – it may even fool someone who noticed that you did it -although he was probably too busy putting away not one but TWO chairs – hoping YOU’D notice HIM to see it - but beyond that – NOTHING!

I’ve done ALL this bullcrap in the Fellowship! That’s how I know that YOU do it!

What is presented in the Big Book is one-on-one work. EYEBALL-EYEBAL – book in hand, intense WORK!

What I have done in the past is make sure that I ask God to put another alcoholic in my life with whom I can work. Then I place myself out in the trenches, in sordid places, where I can be of maximum service.

During the holidays that may mean helping out at the salvation army, going to the house of someone I know is still drinking -

You know — the one they all call “Poor Joe” or “Poor Sally” – “He’s still out there” – “He’s not ready” “He wants to do it his way”. While everyone is feeling sorry for them, who is knocking on that persons door, helping and staying sober?

Making an appointment to Twelve Step a wet drunk (and showing up) – getting to the meeting I hate to go too because of all the nonsense that goes on there.

Getting a hold of my doctor and asking if she knows of anyone that I can go see.

Asking my local minister for a lead to a suffering alcoholic family and knocking on the door. (With my Big Book) – and if the one suffering will not have me – then maybe the family will.

There are very many ways to place ourselves in service and when we are thinking about helping someone else, we cannot drink. It has been proven.

Get involved in working with others and being of service can turn a bad holiday into a good one, and an already good one into a fabulous one!

Go get em!

Peace and Merry Christmas to all,

Danny S

How Many Ways To Carry the "THIS" Message?

Let Me Count The Ways

Some guy told me today that, “There are many ways the message of AA can be carried”.

That would be his unstudied opinion – but not a fact. The ONLY directions for carrying the “THIS” message of Alcoholics Anonymous is clearly detailed in Chapter seven, “Working With Others” - and that is by taking others through the Twelve Steps.

There are no “many” ways described – and if anyone thinks there is then they have believed someone unfamiliar with the Big Book who told them that – or they are very inventive themselves – because they ain’t in the clear-cut directions detailed in the book. The method of “Carrying this message” is VERY specific and the way the co-founders did it was to “Work the steps” with newcomers.

That’s what they did and why the first 43 pages of the Big Book, “Alcoholics Anonymous” goes to great lengths to illustrate this – the exact opposite of this guys claim. I can’t blame him though – there is SO MUCH opinion about AA out there – even within the fellowship itself – it gets confusing.

If only such crap were limited to this one persons opinion – but it is not. The problem is that so many of us don’t take the Steps and recover ourselves – which means we don’t much get into the directions in the Big Book – ergo, we have no recovery or Program to offer others, visa-vi the directions – so we make stuff up — Stuff like, “There are many ways to carry the message”. See: Depth – Weight

Oh I forgot the mention that this guy ALSO went further to imply that Bill W didn’t take the steps because he hadn’t written the Big Book yet. I actually hear this once in a while from others too – even within our fellowship. Some believe this and that is is that Bill is a hypocrite and that a real alcoholic does not really need AA or the steps to give up the sauce – since Bill apparently did not drink after starting AA.

Well, that contains about as much logic as saying a cake recipe won’t work because the chef who developed the recipe did not have the recipe to follow yet. The main purpose of the Big Book is to show us how they did it. “To show other alcoholics PRECISELY HOW WE HAVE RECOVERED is the main purpose of this book.” (Forward – First edition)

It isn’t to give us some idea so we can come up with “Many ways” on our own – or to “interpret”. It is a chronicle of PRECISELY what they did. And if we do PRECISELY what they did, we get PRECISELY what they got – we recover!

The fact is Bill W’s complete account of his own taking of the 12 steps are on pages 8 thru 14. What I read there is Bills recount, and claim, that he did indeed “Do the work” that set him free from alcoholism.

Even someone with the most casual recognition of the 12 steps can easily pick them out of these pages, all performed while Bill was still in Towns Hospital, with his sponsor, Ebby T, prior to the publishing of the Big Book.

In that hospital he did the work, had a spiritual awakening, the desire to drink was removed and he went on to help others do the same if they were to do the same. Simple!

If more of us in the fellowship would read the freakin‘ book they might learn stuff that won’t assist them in placing their feet in their deceitful little mouths – by giving opinions without experience or facts. I know I used to do that allot too until I actually read the Book and experienced its proposals. Perhaps time and excruciating pain will change that for them – as it did me.

Peace,

Danny S

How Much "Time" Ya Got?

Here’s one for the folks who love to flash their sobriety medallions around – or who just cannot resist continuously mentioning their time credentials in meetings. It’s just one more reason that sobriety medallions don’t carry much weight around here. NEWS STORY

Here’s a guy who for all we know, just picked up a new protégée, because that newcomer thought it a good idea seeing “What he had” – and he wanted that too – thirteen years sober and a good job. How scuhroowed might that newcomer be now? Just a thought.

Now, is it likely that he was working with others? Well . . . . eh . . . I don’t know – you can come to your own opinion on that. I do know that, “Practical experience shows that nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking a intensive work with other alcoholics. It works when other activities fail. This is our twelfth suggestion: Carry this message to other alcoholics!”(89:0)

And that means only one thing: Working with others in teaching and practicing the twelve steps.

It’s nice to be able to handle a knife and fork – – but HAVE WE EATEN LUNCH YET?

This poor fellow must have been starving! It would do good to keep his well-being and perhaps future recovery in our thoughts – and perhaps someone reading this – who may know him – could get the “THIS” message to him.

I would much rather be sponsored by someone with a year or less sobriety “time” who has recovered and practices these principles some someone with thirty years of sobriety “time” and has yet to recover (“still recovering”)

The former would be one of my AA HEROES – the latter – just another hard drinking dry fool.

Peace,

Danny S

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How Much "Time" Ya Got?

Here’s one for the folks who love to flash their sobriety medallions around – or who just cannot resist continuously mentioning their time credentials in meetings. It’s just one more reason that sobriety medallions don’t carry much weight around here. NEWS STORY

Here’s a guy who for all we know, just picked up a new protégée, because that newcomer thought it a good idea seeing “What he had” – and he wanted that too – thirteen years sober and a good job. How scuhroowed might that newcomer be now? Just a thought.

Now, is it likely that he was working with others? Well . . . . eh . . . I don’t know – you can come to your own opinion on that. I do know that, “Practical experience shows that nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking a intensive work with other alcoholics. It works when other activities fail. This is our twelfth suggestion: Carry this message to other alcoholics!”(89:0)

And that means only one thing: Working with others in teaching and practicing the twelve steps.

It’s nice to be able to handle a knife and fork – – but HAVE WE EATEN LUNCH YET?

This poor fellow must have been starving! It would do good to keep his well-being and perhaps future recovery in our thoughts – and perhaps someone reading this – who may know him – could get the “THIS” message to him.

I would much rather be sponsored by someone with a year or less sobriety “time” who has recovered and practices these principles some someone with thirty years of sobriety “time” and has yet to recover (“still recovering”)

The former would be one of my AA HEROES – the latter – just another hard drinking dry fool.

Peace,

Danny S

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Easier Softer Way

There are people who attend AA meetings and have never cracked a Big Book, and are sober. They can’t help others. They are here to help THEMSELVES. (“I go to meetings to stay sober” - “I go to meetings to see what happens to people who don’t go to meetings” - “You people keep me sober” - “I get what I need”. ect)

Human aid helps them and I wouldn’t dream of having them give up their human aid offered by the Fellowship in favor of drinking. Alcohol kills a hell of a lot of non-alcoholics too. People with drinking problems, hard drinkers, and heavy hitters – whatever you wish to call them, non-alcoholics all – can get sick and die from that poison just as easily as I.

But when they tell the man I am sponsoring and who is making progress and the Sunlight of the Spirit in beginning to shine on him, his wife is considering reconciliation, the desire to drink has been abated and an entire transformation is happening right my eyes —-

—– and he is taken out of that fourth dimension of existence by promises of an easier way out – a way paved with meetings, meetings and more meeting, and postponement of the spiritual progress the Program offers . . . and that stops growing, his sobriety unravels and he drinks, dies and leaves his little kids fatherless – his wife devastated . . and future alcoholics he might have helped to the same fates – well then you know why I wish for them to “STAY THE HELL AWAY!”
And you think this is OK? MAN! You must not work with many others, huh? Not enough to have lost some to the elusive middle-of-the-road solution – the promise of the easier softer way that we have never found. Not in the Twelve Steps. Not in the Big Book.

Peace,

Danny S

The Most Embarassing Page In The Big Book

Want to get a little “red faced”?

Here is an important Big Book quote you will NEVER see cut and pasted on the Internet….

….you will NEVER hear quoted in a discussion meeting.

It is page 97 and it is just too dammed embarrassing:

“A kindly act once in a while isn’t enough. You have to act the Good Samaritan every day, if need be. It may mean the loss of many nights’ sleep, great interference with your pleasures, interruptions to your business. It may mean sharing your money and your home, counseling frantic wives and relatives, innumerable trips to police courts, sanitariums, hospitals, jails and asylums. Your telephone may jangle at any time of the day or night.” (97:1)

You don’t need my comments on this, do you?

Peace,

Danny S

http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com/