Thursday 31 May 2012

May 31 2012 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 5 Admit And Accept Alcoholics Anonymous

May 31 2012 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 5 Admit And Accept | Alcoholics Anonymous Today's AA daily reflection: "readiness to serve others…" Ready to help? Yes I am. Service is not being servile, and certainly not servile to one other person, especially not to a sponsor. A sponsor is a sounding board, someone who understands the twelve steps and does not try to impose their view of life on me. A sponsor encourages me to live life with freedom of choice in all respects today…

There will be over seven billion emotional and spiritual experiences today. Emotional, understanding and expressing our true feelings in the moment of now, or not as the case may be. I am truly grateful that I'm closer to knowing how I feel about life right now and how it affects my thinking and my actions today. Progress not perfect is true, most of the time my feelings fit with reality when life is tough and when life is difficult and when life is simply joyful…

Without the experience strength and hope shared every day, from wise people and from confused people how on earth would I get to know the difference in my own life? What is important me is to continue to understand life as it is and not how I would wish it, I can influence outcomes and negotiate activities, I can be realistic about what can happen and what cannot happen and keep on learning the wisdom to know the difference day by day…

I do read and listen to the experience, strength and hope of many people in our society and in the broader society. Then with the senses I have, including common sense and intuition I have the right and responsibility to be myself and follow what works and put into practice what I keep on learning. Sometimes I learn things just don't work out and sometimes everything works just fine, emotional and spiritual, feeling okay in the moment of now is pretty good just for today…

DonInLondon 2005-2011

Love Truth - Love People... Truth is timeless, stuck in old attitudes and behaviour, truth is elusive. As we open up and see people, places and life as it is now... As our earth revolves around a sun, the sun a star, a star in an infinite universe, truth and love changes everything in the moment...

"Honesty becomes part of our "tool kit" to free us from our past... Included, we learn to share and express, courage to be vulnerable. As a consequence we let go old fears of shame and guilt... Listening and not judging our fellows, open and willing we can change and find freedom today.

AA Daily Reflections ~ "READINESS TO SERVE OTHERS... our Society has concluded that it has but one high mission — to carry the A.A. message to those who don’t know there’s a way out. TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 151

The “Light” to freedom shines bright on my fellow alcoholics as each one of us challenges the other to grow. The “Steps” to self-improvement have small beginnings, but each Step builds the “ladder” out of the pit of despair to new hope. Honesty becomes my “tool” to unfurl the “chains” which bound me. A sponsor, who is a caring listener, can help me to truly hear the message guiding me to freedom. I ask God for the courage to live in such a way that the Fellowship may be a testimony to His favor. This mission frees me to share my gifts of wellness through a spirit of readiness to serve others."

May 31 2007

Gratitude - DonInLondon ‘Day In the Life’

We British people are not so good with gratitude. We can feel it and it makes us feel deeper emotions sometimes we have lost touch with as we get more mature in years. There have been tears from me today as things unfolded over the day. This morning reading some of my post from readers of the blog, and also news from family and support. Between both I am humbled and grateful. And this I do mean sincerely as the words are described. Love is what we need and love is what we fear losing most in this world.

It’s always been one of my hardest battles, to accept help or any sort of praise for anything really. And it still feels hard to cope with the feelings I now get as do all normal people as daily events unfold. Seeing the world as is and how it used to be makes me realise the journey to sobriety has been worth the torment and struggle. Most people don’t make it into sober life without grudges or some self-hate, unless they get help and understanding.

Help And Understanding

I decided to pop down the road a mile or two in the rain on the bicycle to see my Mum. I had shared some of the words sent and she wanted to understand more about what I was doing with the writing each day. It was good as always to see her and you know we are forgetful so often how much parents do, have done and how much wisdom they have to share if only we had been able to listen! Well these days I do.

I hope we came to an understanding about the nature of addiction and how impossible it is without the right support to get a person on anywhere near the road to recovery. And another point was manifest.

Blame Shame and or Guilt

For anyone close to an addict the sheer destructive force of addiction comes home as the person with and those helping get to realise the horror of this illness. An illness it is of the mind and body. No amount of help seemed ever to help and no amount of promises to give ever yielded one shred of success. These things we learn hardest first hand. And the torment is immense.

There is no blame, shame or guilt because even if we know we have gone too far, we cannot stop once the malady is manifest. The alcoholic is despairing as much as those who love them, and no amount of self will ever seems to make a dent in the return to drink in my case or drugs in others.

I hope today my Mother can accept she had never done the wrong thing, or dropped me on my head or had in any way caused this malady in me. Indeed both nature and nurture are confounded by this awful illness. It comes and never goes away. And is not the fault of anyone at all after the first sample has been taken.

Reservations about such a bold statement?

If we cannot blame ourselves how then do we apportion blame? The answer is there may be patterns of life which lead to fear and awful emotional states. The truth is some work themselves through and understand that life happens and there is no rhyme reason or blaming to be done. What needs to be done is healing and growing out of whatever hardships have happened.

Road Map

There is no road map to life and there is no set of instructions to keep a person on track.

Self Will

The torment in all this is often our self-will trying to get out of the problem and getting more stuck. The greater the self will the harder it seems to me to let go and let fellowship or indeed love find a way to help a person find time and effort to grow all over again.

As time has gone by

I might have wondered whether nature or nurture had caused me so hard a time. And all the truth I have points to depression being a big factor for years and years, and utilising alcohol as a means to damp down all feeling and become more and more reliant on coping strategies like more drink and working harder and harder till I cracked up.

The gap inside

That gaping wound of life not understood, filled with anything to take away the tremendous emptiness. Alcohol causes it to grow and any fix will do as we become more and more alienated from true feelings and the truth of life. Hard boiled and immune to our feelings, then alcohol rips us wide open and the depths just go deeper and deeper into black and dark times.

So Today

I hope my Mother does understand that she and my Father are not the agents of this malady in me. It was nature and my gap inside, my way of coping. And in this truth I feel acceptance for life is always on life’s terms.

Blame has no place in my recovery these days. And actually what I learn most is how I react or respond and have better tools and wisdom developed along the way.

Even in a simple meditation, accept those things I cannot change (anything, people places and things) and change the things I can, me and my attitudes.

Tonight

It’s been pretty full on today and tonight. As we listen in fellowship meetings to experience strength and hope, we hear our own story over and over. And of course we hear the ways to deal with, the wisdom of the years in others and the truth of living in the day.

Physical Emotional and Spiritual Progress

Comes in daily doses I find today and tonight. Hearing another’s story makes me feel just right and accepting of everything.

Gratitude?

Is a word we only get to truly understand through experience of living.

I am certainly in a good space tonight, and simply feel a good deal of help has been worth the effort. Just for today, and hopefully another day..

Cycling home tonight

I saw a friend, a psychiatrist walking along the path, I waved and smiled as did he. One day we may discuss all this over a cup of tea. I would like that. I wonder if he has my number. I guess not today and I have lost his sometime back. We never know where and when and happenstance and chance connections.. Life rolls on.

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause: there's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life;

-/- Shakespeare

-/-

AA Official Site Daily Reflections

AA Official Online Site: Big Book And Twelve And Twelve

-/-

"Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Chapter 6, Into Action, Big Book From: Page 72 Thru: Page 75, the bottom of the page. 12 And 12 Step 5."

May ~ All About Step Five:" Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs"

Step 5 "Admit And Accept" Reading Video Link:

Step Five 12 & 12

-/-

May ~ Video Reading Chapter Six Into Action Link:

Chapter Six Into Action

I do not speak for Alcoholics Anonymous I speak for myself. Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of unique and authentic people who speak for themselves where they will to share experience, strength and hope about recovery on a daily basis. Anonymity affords

sanctuary to find how to live sober and be open, honest and willing to learn life day by day. For me "truth," "love" and "wisdom" offer the best spiritual experience by living reality today. Into the fabric of recovery from alcoholism are woven the Twelve Steps and the

Twelve Traditions, steps to be open, honest and willing to learn, traditions to live unity, service and recovery.

-/-

Spiritual principles ~ Forgiveness Acceptance Surrender Faith Open-mindedness Honesty Willingness Moral-inventory Amends Humility Persistence Spiritual-growth Service

-/-

Wednesday 30 May 2012

May 30 2012 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 5 Admit And Accept Alcoholics Anonymous

May 30 2012 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 5 Admit And Accept | Alcoholics Anonymous Today's AA daily reflection: "our primary purpose… To carry the message." What type of message? I need to remind myself that every single person who learns from experience, strength and hope of others and life experience will have their own unique way of sharing their truth. Their truth and my truth is as good as it gets just for today…

We are the broadest church when it comes to inclusion in our fellowship. The last chance saloon as I used to describe it. A place where people find redemption from being driven mad by life and alcohol. The insanity of not being able to stop and having developed an addiction for a substance called alcohol. Then in my case the realisation, once the alcohol stopped, I needed the experience strength and hope of everyone, even those still mad and holding very different opinions about life: to help me make sense of how to put twelve steps into action and learn how the traditions improve fellowship and my whole life a day at a time…

Carrying the message, giving it away to keep it and realising that our personal message is equal to anybody else sharing their message. We may be angry when we hear very different opinions and beliefs systems we would never adopt ourselves. But everyone has a right to express themselves. If we listen to one person in recovery, it won't work in my experience, I need every experience and listen for it in meetings and from friends. It is working just for today…

One day at a time as we carry the message, hopefully what works is shared and understood. Along the way we do meet people who appear to know everything, in the old days in the wild West they might be described as "medicine men" with their snake oil and smarmy charm. They become obvious over time. In my case the more I know, the less I know. From being gullible in my early days to being as sensible as I can be just one day at a time…

DonInLondon 2005-2011

Truth In The Moment Of Now... Truth moves on, we keep in step as we let go and open up to wisdom around us, enough fear to develop our faith and confidence, to listen, to feel life now, share be included... As we accept "life is difficult," together, we have courage to change...

Our Primary Purpose, "I must remember that A.A. has no monopoly on miracle making." Our miracle is sharing experience strength and hope, we learn what works and live. Fellowship and ..? The experience of many, each voice and presence as vital as the next, we find our path..

AA Daily Reflections ~ "OUR PRIMARY PURPOSE... The more A.A. sticks to its primary purpose, the greater will be its helpful influence everywhere. A.A. COMES OF AGE, p.109

It is with gratitude that I reflect on the early days of our Fellowship and those wise and loving “foresteppers” who proclaimed that we should not be diverted from our primary purpose, that of carrying the message to the alcoholic who still suffers.

I desire to impart respect to those who labor in the field of alcoholism, being ever mindful that A.A. endorses no causes other than its own. I must remember that A.A. has no monopoly on miracle-making and I remain humbly grateful to a loving God who made A.A. possible."

-/-

AA Daily Reflection:

-/-

May 30 2007

A reply to an email sent, one of a number today.

[ Hi and Thank You

a heartfelt thank you. Seems the world tells me and you in particular on this cloudy Wednesday morning, that it’s worth it to keep the blog going.

It gets quite rough sometimes and the strength of fellowship helps with most elements of life encountered. I appreciate beyond words what you say and the understanding you have from experiences over the years.

Some things you mention touch home and make me recognise the path some take is without conscious thought. I know my fate was sealed in early teenage years as I learned my living. There is no blame ever these days for how life has turned out, especially for family and the times lived. I see the door open in my mind's eye, the weight of life on my shoulders and already dependent, the halfhearted forgetfulness we have when we open the genie in the bottle.

No matter what anyone might have said, and the number of occasions in the 35 years of drinking I can count on one hand when anyone suggested I drank too much.. I was hiding my secret of course and like a man blind to self-knowledge I saw it in everyone else. And not me. A tough outside and broken inside. Coping as one can with extreme living, we need find the highest mountain to climb and fall into an abyss of exhaustion. Material success and so much more blighted the sensitive one inside me. And I guess in the final years where everyone expressed their concern, was when I had no power to stop. A cocktail of abject depression, drink and a strong desire for oblivion haunted every step. I had to lose everything material and anything spiritual to see the ghastly truth of ruin. Rock bottom.

Without doubt nothing stops the alcoholic or their behaviour. We are driven and in denial. Your resolute and open mind saw the danger, and accepted the warning. A gift indeed. And one I expect we all have. The choice of path I guess is what lies beneath truth and honesty.

Whether its nature or nurture is not the real issue for me or most who get to recovery. It’s simply how to live and love life, people places and all elements of our world.

For you to share and be kind and take the time to write says so much about you. And the good news is you and those close are gifted with love compassion and understanding learned from life. We may be powerless over everything, at the same time love helps the sensitive soul listen and recover their sensibilities. Hope is never lost, merely buried until eyes can open and clarity is sharp enough to accept truth.

I guess where children are concerned, I don't have any so I am guessing it can so frustrating. As we develop into adulthood, our capacity for risk is greatest as life opens Pandora's Box. Like any Treasure chest, life offers so much and we can be so easily beguiled by self-will and confidence which can be so easily turned to ego and fear, and of course secrets. Secrets keep us in the deep of silent endeavour to the good or less so.

We can share what we know and then as we humans are so designed we make choices through informed eyes or with filters as we push against the grand design of life and ego wins the day.

Hope is back, the only element not lost from the box of ancient times, for me and your words today will carry me along, so timely and so appreciated,

with best regard]

The Wonder of Silence

In silence lies the ability to listen; to listen to ourselves, to others and to God. Listening is a lost art. Without it we cannot communicate, we cannot relate to each other and so we cannot live life meaningfully. We need to learn to listen. Sitting in silence allows us to listen to ourselves and to understand. This silence can heal. The worries, the pain can be healed when we listen. Spiritual medicine is ever-present in the soul. Whenever we need it, to whatever extent we need it, we can find it within.

AA Official Site Daily Reflections

AA Official Online Site: Big Book And Twelve And Twelve

-/-

"Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Chapter 6, Into Action, Big Book From: Page 72 Thru: Page 75, the bottom of the page. 12 And 12 Step 5."

May ~ All About Step Five:" Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs"

Step 5 "Admit And Accept" Reading Video Link:

Step Five 12 & 12

-/-

May ~ Video Reading Chapter Six Into Action Link:

Chapter Six Into Action

I do not speak for Alcoholics Anonymous I speak for myself. Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of unique and authentic people who speak for themselves where they will to share experience, strength and hope about recovery on a daily basis. Anonymity affords

sanctuary to find how to live sober and be open, honest and willing to learn life day by day. For me "truth," "love" and "wisdom" offer the best spiritual experience by living reality today. Into the fabric of recovery from alcoholism are woven the Twelve Steps and the

Twelve Traditions, steps to be open, honest and willing to learn, traditions to live unity, service and recovery.

-/-

Spiritual principles ~ Forgiveness Acceptance Surrender Faith Open-mindedness Honesty Willingness Moral-inventory Amends Humility Persistence Spiritual-growth Service

-/-

Tuesday 29 May 2012

May 29 2012 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 5 Admit And Accept Alcoholics Anonymous

May 29 2012 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 5 Admit And Accept | Alcoholics Anonymous Today's AA daily reflection: "true tolerance… And a desire to stop drinking." A tradition five chair last night illuminated my experience that each group of the fellowship of AA may have its quirks and peculiarities, overall though they fulfil the obligation to carry the message to the alcoholic who still suffers… How well? Depends on who's there on the day and how well they are feeling…

Experiences of groups in the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous is as good as it gets on any day that we may be there too. And some groups do develop a "superior spiritual outlook," which requires compliance to a spiritual rulebook which does not exist, usually the fanciful notions of a firebrand or two who think they know better. I don't know better, I don't have a rulebook and my spiritual outlook is only what it can be today, how I am in the moment of now…

A new way of living comes into being for each sober person and with this new sobriety can come an enthusiasm which has no real emotional or spiritual foundation. Twelve steps for personal development to avoid suicidal tendencies, and twelve traditions to hold us together in fellowship in unity, service and recovery to avoid homicidal tendencies. Emotional and spiritual, utilising every emotion known to man in the moment of now… Tolerance is required when we get overheated by life today…

As quickly as somebody is stamping on my toes and my ideas about how to live a free existence, I can jump in the air and aim to stamp on their toes, just to remind them that I have a right to be here too. As Gandhi remarked, "if we are to use the old Testament where justice is an eye for an eye, we end up with the whole world being blind." Learning from experience, eyes wide open, and with humility we all stay alive today…

Everyone included and trying not exclude anyone! A desire to stop drinking and the AA pledge of responsibility. It is not the responsibility of anyone to indulge in the notion or fantasy that their way is the "AA way." There is a desire to stop drinking and then a personal journey of recovery based on love and tolerance, sharing experience, strength and hope and if we don't like what we hear, which is often, we keep on learning what we can and cannot do sober and the wisdom to know the difference…

DonInLondon 2005-2011

Spiritual Diversity Acceptance... Spiritual is experiencing reality now, good bad, hard easy. Diversity is being open honest and willing to live and let live. Acceptance is living in the world and knowing there are choices on our journey today as there are for everyone, sober, responsible, open to joy or sadness, it is what it is...

In Step five, expression and sharing our human condition, we understand how our lives were lost in addiction and we were capable of anything. The capacity for good or bad is in everyone. Tolerance, love, understanding, compassion and consequences, all part of acceptance today...

I am responsible when anyone anywhere offers me a job, to ask myself, what about the people, the job, the place and whether it "feels right" and is the best choice today, for that I am responsible.. Tomorrow, more wisdom, choices and always more courage to change, needs met wants forgotten...

AA Daily Reflections ~ "TRUE TOLERANCE... The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking. TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 139

I first heard the short form of the Third Tradition in the Preamble. When I came to A.A. I could not accept myself, my alcoholism, or a Higher Power. If there had been any physical, mental, moral, or religious requirements for membership, I would be dead today. Bill W. said in his tape on the Traditions that the Third Tradition is a charter for individual freedom. The most impressive thing to me was the feeling of acceptance from members who were practicing the Third Tradition by tolerating and accepting me. I feel acceptance is love and love is God’s will for us.

-/-

May 29 2007

Fellowship DonInLondon ‘Day In The Life’

Blimey I was just going to write a whole page about fellowship and then the phone rang! A fellow and we have just finished having a long conversation about the meeting tonight. Which was all about tradition eight, that AA is not an organisation and is nonprofessional and employs just enough people to keep the whole admin side and service offices open and manned.

So what does this mean? That we are all becoming gifted amateurs? Well yes indeed we are, getting more able to keep sober one day at a time. For someone who is not an alcoholic it’s almost impossible to understand what makes a person lose control and not be able to stop self harming. So many people see the results of alcoholism as so destructive they feel alcoholics are the lowest of the low. What many don’t understand is an alcoholic has an illness they have no power over and they are stuck in drinking to oblivion and early expiration, that is death.

So in our fellowship we see a lot of people making life work and a lot of people who try to get sober and don’t. Some people die, in truth a lot more people die of alcohol related incidents and ailments than many would wish. There is always a reluctance to admit the death of a person might have been due to drink. And even now people find it hard to admit and accept their drink problem.

So Fellowship?

After everything else failed me, and I failed to stop drinking, I went to AA. Not because I wanted, I was probably so depressed and ill I would have preferred to die. And that would have been it for me. When we don’t exist anymore we can hurt can we? Or can we?

I don’t know the answer to that question or can offer a suitable guide book to the afterlife. But this life is the only one I have. And having found I am still alive now is a surprise to me and actually the surprise is a few years from those suicidal times, I can get good days and be sober and be happy on a daily basis.

Happy Clappy?

Well we are certainly not that. Well not all the time. And we deal with every issue any human can imagine as we get sober and a way to live without filters and without that horrid compulsion to get out of reality and into oblivion.

So we rarely have total happy "clappiness," very often it’s more like unhappy "crappiness" . And what we do is talk it all out as we may.

Gifted Amateurs!

In our fellowship we have people from every walk of life, from every profession, from every hue and imagined difference. We have this one thing which keeps us solid and in fellowship, simply keeping sober by the day.

Around our one aim we have so much, experience of life, good and bad, awful and wonderful, we can relate and share our path to sobriety and what we learned along the way.

We are a University of Living

A strange way to describe it and not sure some may agree, yet the most important part of all this is we have fellowship, genuine concern to be helpful and we learn and share and support.

Why does it work?

As a fellowship we keep our choices, no one is above another. Unless of course you choose it so. And few want to be in charge of anything, as it spoils the process of self-awareness and making good choices to live sober.

If AA were an Organisation with all the paraphernalia of structure goals objective and all that organisations require, what would happen? No longer a fellowship, now a power in itself, AA would fold and pack up. Simply it cannot be made more than a fellowship, or it fails to support people getting their personal choices of living...

So as discussed tonight the truth is fellowship where people decide how to live as best they can in all their different communities, and to a good way of life comes from good choices made soberly and over time.

AA is not a fix

If anyone wants to be fixed from alcoholism, it’s never going to work? We can never say never. What we can say even to someone like me who has been to deaths door and found it open, there is hope and a chance. Hope is often our last refuge, and then lost. And as we may feel lost and that life can get no worse, then sometimes we can find a path back with fellowship. And then life can get even worse and we deal as we can with a sober head rather than us being lost then dead! We just learn to live as we can with every adversity any normal person deals with too.

My Story?

Is fellowship and every human endeavour we can find to help us into recovery. My story and sober living is now supported with the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. On the way and keeping me alive one way or another, a family who care, professionals and medical services who saved me in spite of me. I am no different to many who face this plight and the descent into living tortures we cannot get out of quickly or fix.

We cannot measure human endeavour in this dreadful conundrum of addiction. As we and AA matures and people learn more through life experience, the fellowship will seem different and will develop as society understands all that mankind can do. And we will still end up in addiction it’s part of us and we need recognise it. Long term recovery is simply done a day at a time and never done in one day. The truth will set us free, and truth is ephemeral never eternal as we are forever moving as life changes and the world turns…

-/-

AA Official Site Daily Reflections

AA Official Online Site: Big Book And Twelve And Twelve

-/-

"Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Chapter 6, Into Action, Big Book From: Page 72 Thru: Page 75, the bottom of the page. 12 And 12 Step 5."

May ~ All About Step Five:" Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs"

Step 5 "Admit And Accept" Reading Video Link:

Step Five 12 & 12

-/-

May ~ Video Reading Chapter Six Into Action Link:

Chapter Six Into Action

I do not speak for Alcoholics Anonymous I speak for myself. Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of unique and authentic people who speak for themselves where they will to share experience, strength and hope about recovery on a daily basis. Anonymity affords

sanctuary to find how to live sober and be open, honest and willing to learn life day by day. For me "truth," "love" and "wisdom" offer the best spiritual experience by living reality today. Into the fabric of recovery from alcoholism are woven the Twelve Steps and the

Twelve Traditions, steps to be open, honest and willing to learn, traditions to live unity, service and recovery.

-/-

Spiritual principles ~ Forgiveness Acceptance Surrender Faith Open-mindedness Honesty Willingness Moral-inventory Amends Humility Persistence Spiritual-growth Service

-/-