May 12 2012 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 5 Admit And Accept | Alcoholics Anonymous Today's AA daily reflection: "the past is over…" Yes the past is done and not forgotten as revealed in step four. The feelings which led to tormented thinking and exaggerated actions. Understanding how the past impacts today and the actions we put in to improve our emotional and spiritual outlook, the twelve steps working each and every day…
Writing our step four and then sharing with another human being, letting out all that we have done, the good and the bad and the ugliness caused by addiction. Expression of how it was to another human being and done in a way to understand why life turned out the way it did is so revealing and so useful if we have time to learn and time to change. We need compassion and forgiveness and at the same time be accepting of the consequences today…
In step five, sharing the extremes of where life took us is just part of the healing process and finding acceptance. Acceptance of the past does not mean we will forget, quite the opposite. As we progress through the steps, we realise that acceptance is a daily activity if we are to maintain a new way of life. Step ten and spotcheck inventory highlight daily where changes need be made in thinking and action. Step ten and gratitude help keep me in balance moment by moment…
Actions speak louder than words and change the way we feel about ourselves and the world. Through action as our feelings change, then our thinking process changes and so do the actions which follow. Emotional and spiritual: knowing my mood on a daily basis or simply from moment to moment as life impacts on me is key. If I am angry, I think angry and may react angrily. If I'm happy, I think happy and react happily. If I cherish and love you, with courage and action, you may cherish and love me today…
DonInLondon 2005-2011
Let go old, the past attitudes and behaviour, then there is room to develop new attitudes and new behaviour. The emptiness of letting go often feels like being alert with nothing to do. And yet there is everything to do! Taking time to explore is difficult as often old ideas and actions are played out without realising. Progress not perfect today...
Easier softer ways..? Recovery is a day to day lifetime process. We change every day, keeping the good and making room for new experiences. Step 5 sharing our history, letting go and making room. Our gap inside is there for a reason, serenity in change and growth!
Being able to appreciate today, I was sorely pressed for decades living in shadows from the past and seeking oblivion in work, people places and things. Lost for a long time, now living in today, present, learning, wondering.. Aware of now, less fear, more faith, balance in instincts
AA Daily Reflection: "THE PAST IS OVER... A.A. experience has taught us we cannot live alone with our pressing problems and the character defects which cause or aggravate them. If. . . Step Four... has revealed in stark relief those experiences we’d rather not remember... then the need to quit living by ourselves with those tormenting ghosts of yesterday gets more urgent than ever. We have to talk to somebody about them. TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 55
Whatever is done is over. It cannot be changed. But my attitude about it can be changed through talking with those who have gone before and with sponsors. I can wish the past never was, but if I change my actions in regard to what I have done, my attitude will change. I won’t have to wish the past away. I can change my feelings and attitudes, but only through my actions and the help of my fellow alcoholics."
May 12 2007
Endgames DonInLondon ‘Day In The Life’
Odd days and endgames: the endgame for many of us is a reluctant admission most often that something has to end or change and it’s a matter of survival. Survival for us and others and the end of a game can be? Freedom to change of course...
Freedom to change as bonds and duties and habits are given up. The end game for many in my fellowship is to end our alcoholic drinking one day at a time. No matter how long we are clear of the end of that game of drink, the end of that game makes a pretty large gap in our living. No escape to oblivion, no escape from our living and the end of horrors only imagined made so real in the grip of despair: that desolate and unruly place where we admit without doubt that we are truly and irrevocably addicted to drink. That is the gift we need most if we are to make any attempt to behave differently, the gift of admission and then leading to acceptance of our insanity and complete understanding of what it is to be an alcoholic.
Endgame and the game is up?
How many times, how many rock bottoms, how many attempts to put down what made us heal and then made us insane? How many times is always what we forget as we grow well and sober again? And a perfect reason to keep going to meetings and keep with a fellowship which promises more each day if we keep coming back.
Keep coming back. Find open and honest ways; be willing to change anything and everything to get our lives back. We do as we follow a path so easily trod; we look for the catch and no catch to be found. Or is there?
Not for me so far…
Yesterday
It had been a full day: connections made over the phone, in person and in fellowship and in meetings too.
Some calls and questions and some people asking for help. I am at full stretch I realize as another call comes.
How much can one person do?
Well we never know till we try. And the truth is for me and my stuff, that I utilize my fellowship and whole lot more learned over the years besides. And I share as much as one can. Yet I see a growing number of connections I cannot possibly support and support myself as well. No matter how often it seems I can find substitutes, and better ways for others, sometimes I get too much involved and know I must stop, or my world will collapse as quickly as it may.
Knowledge Skills and Attributes (Personal Qualities)
Now in my 51st year, I have been active all my life. Most often people helping in one way or another: in personal development and living, and business development and living. And much of the learning holds well for current times too. I guess the gifts given me from my Father and Mother, and then working from a young age in many commercial and business enterprises, then a lot of learning in business schools and from the private sector, has enabled me to make sense of me and my world as much as anyone’s too.
Limits
I have limits these days and do not have the backing or support mechanisms in place for some personal issues people relate to me. And I know sometimes a little knowledge is far less useful and can be very dangerous when we are helping others. Assumptions prevail in the helping professions around being qualified, experience and supervision; all the networks I used to utilize are less available to me these days. And yet I still can help to a certain degree. And sometimes knowing my limits is absolutely essential when people ask my help.
Burn Out
I have mentioned burn out before. And in my experience of burn out first hand, the truth is it takes years and years to overcome the exhaustion of helping others professionally when we have burned out.
Knowing and Developing Helping Processes
Knowing the answers is quite different to the application and delivery of support and counsel.
I am realizing some of the support and help being asked of me these days, I make it look easy because of my experience, the problem is delivery takes time and there are no easy fixes in the people development business.
Knowing the process is pretty easy to learn, and yet the delivery and application of people helping process requires experience and skill. Skills take years to develop, knowledge relatively little in comparison.
How much time I can devote to others, well it’s at the limit right now. And it seems I will have to take advice and not take on more, or burn out again...
Life and Experience, not easy for anyone, and when often asked these days how I might help, I can outline what to do, and in the process of opening the door to what is possible, so the expectations and understanding often make it harder to not to be overly involved as the opportunity discovered means much work for all concerned. There is no quick fix to living.
End Game - the game may be up
I wonder if the truth is that although I might help, there is a real limit on numbers and involvement at any one time I can cope with and still make the difference and help people on their travels.
Recent Weeks and Me
With less time devoted to others and their problems my life has been easier and my own personal issues more manageable. What do people forget about me?
“Don’t you forget about me”
Hey, hey, hey ,hey
Ohhh...
Won't you come see about me?
I'll be alone, dancing you know it baby
Tell me your troubles and doubts
Giving me everything inside and out and
Love's strange so real in the dark
Think of the tender things that we were working on
Slow change may pull us apart
When the light gets into your heart, baby
Don't You Forget About Me
Don't Don't Don't Don't
Don't You Forget About Me
Will you stand above me?
Look my way, never love me
Rain keeps falling, rain keeps falling
Down, down, down
Will you recognize me?
Call my name or walk on by
Rain keeps falling, rain keeps falling
Down, down, down, down
Hey, hey, hey, hey
Ohhhh.....
What you see is not what you might get from me these days. I look ok, I sound ok and that belies much of what goes on, I am as complicated and human as the next person.
What you don’t see and hear about much? My maladies: Type 1 diabetes, clinical depression and recovering alcoholic; three fairly chunky and daily maintained conditions. I work very hard at recovery so I may deal with diabetes and what that entails daily, clinical depression and how this can stop all activities in quick time for me. Those two together keep most people who have similar conditions pretty busy on a daily basis. I do know how others cope with these incapacities, and I do utilize daily therapeutic processes to keep my head straight, and that is from the fellowship of AA. I work hard at recovery because that is where the payoff is on a daily basis. And simply to keep myself going and alive… Depression is there waiting every day and I stick as I may with routine maintenance, a full time job in itself.
So while I do often come across as ok, the amount of time required to maintain a balance in outlook is significant. There are no days off, and no days when I can say “bugger that stuff” and just get on. I have routines and these keep me healthier than otherwise.
So when asked to help?
I do as much as I may, and it may seem awkward sometimes to say no and please utilize others who might help as well as me? And actually the truth is there are plenty out there who can, highly qualified and experienced in life and development matters. I am just one of many.
And when people say no I want you to help me, I do as much as I can, and still have to say no sometimes.
Fellowship
Is something so special, and keeps me on track. I realize also that it can appear ok to ask for more and beyond where fellowship lays down boundaries. And people may need to reflect sometimes what they ask is so far outside the fellowship boundaries I will say no and for good reason. That what is asked is available elsewhere... free and available as it can be in our modern world. And less free and available unless willing to pay its not available. And certainly not from me… as my time in those professions is done for now. I do not have the wherewithal to take up a position or career in those professional circles as they are, and it would be very ill advised to go that route for a living ever again.
Making Life Work
Some of us have developed extraordinary levels of perception and this is simply wisdom learned and time served. No amount of intellect will ever imbue what we develop through the years as expert skills and abilities. No amount of emotional stability will ever enable application of process based on learning theory. We need live life to make life work.
Short cuts to make life worth living..?
There are none…
Spiritual
Much talk of the spiritual these days, and in my recent meetings the truth of living spiritually is of course as simple and profound and annoying as any truth of life.
Spiritual life is simply seeing the world as it is, our reality without filters and without denial. That we see our part in this world, and how we make our connection to each day. The gift of nature and Providence, so often appears a mystery until we live the experience. Is it a gift from God? Well one day we shall know, or never know as we take our last breath. Best keep living a day at a time and find out.
-/- -/-
AA Official Site Reflections ~ AA Official Big Book And Twelve And Twelve Online ~
-/-
"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:
-/-
May ~ Video Reading Chapter Six Into Action Link:
-/-
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
-/-
Writing our step four and then sharing with another human being, letting out all that we have done, the good and the bad and the ugliness caused by addiction. Expression of how it was to another human being and done in a way to understand why life turned out the way it did is so revealing and so useful if we have time to learn and time to change. We need compassion and forgiveness and at the same time be accepting of the consequences today…
In step five, sharing the extremes of where life took us is just part of the healing process and finding acceptance. Acceptance of the past does not mean we will forget, quite the opposite. As we progress through the steps, we realise that acceptance is a daily activity if we are to maintain a new way of life. Step ten and spotcheck inventory highlight daily where changes need be made in thinking and action. Step ten and gratitude help keep me in balance moment by moment…
Actions speak louder than words and change the way we feel about ourselves and the world. Through action as our feelings change, then our thinking process changes and so do the actions which follow. Emotional and spiritual: knowing my mood on a daily basis or simply from moment to moment as life impacts on me is key. If I am angry, I think angry and may react angrily. If I'm happy, I think happy and react happily. If I cherish and love you, with courage and action, you may cherish and love me today…
DonInLondon 2005-2011
Let go old, the past attitudes and behaviour, then there is room to develop new attitudes and new behaviour. The emptiness of letting go often feels like being alert with nothing to do. And yet there is everything to do! Taking time to explore is difficult as often old ideas and actions are played out without realising. Progress not perfect today...
Easier softer ways..? Recovery is a day to day lifetime process. We change every day, keeping the good and making room for new experiences. Step 5 sharing our history, letting go and making room. Our gap inside is there for a reason, serenity in change and growth!
Being able to appreciate today, I was sorely pressed for decades living in shadows from the past and seeking oblivion in work, people places and things. Lost for a long time, now living in today, present, learning, wondering.. Aware of now, less fear, more faith, balance in instincts
AA Daily Reflection: "THE PAST IS OVER... A.A. experience has taught us we cannot live alone with our pressing problems and the character defects which cause or aggravate them. If. . . Step Four... has revealed in stark relief those experiences we’d rather not remember... then the need to quit living by ourselves with those tormenting ghosts of yesterday gets more urgent than ever. We have to talk to somebody about them. TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 55
Whatever is done is over. It cannot be changed. But my attitude about it can be changed through talking with those who have gone before and with sponsors. I can wish the past never was, but if I change my actions in regard to what I have done, my attitude will change. I won’t have to wish the past away. I can change my feelings and attitudes, but only through my actions and the help of my fellow alcoholics."
May 12 2007
Endgames DonInLondon ‘Day In The Life’
Odd days and endgames: the endgame for many of us is a reluctant admission most often that something has to end or change and it’s a matter of survival. Survival for us and others and the end of a game can be? Freedom to change of course...
Freedom to change as bonds and duties and habits are given up. The end game for many in my fellowship is to end our alcoholic drinking one day at a time. No matter how long we are clear of the end of that game of drink, the end of that game makes a pretty large gap in our living. No escape to oblivion, no escape from our living and the end of horrors only imagined made so real in the grip of despair: that desolate and unruly place where we admit without doubt that we are truly and irrevocably addicted to drink. That is the gift we need most if we are to make any attempt to behave differently, the gift of admission and then leading to acceptance of our insanity and complete understanding of what it is to be an alcoholic.
Endgame and the game is up?
How many times, how many rock bottoms, how many attempts to put down what made us heal and then made us insane? How many times is always what we forget as we grow well and sober again? And a perfect reason to keep going to meetings and keep with a fellowship which promises more each day if we keep coming back.
Keep coming back. Find open and honest ways; be willing to change anything and everything to get our lives back. We do as we follow a path so easily trod; we look for the catch and no catch to be found. Or is there?
Not for me so far…
Yesterday
It had been a full day: connections made over the phone, in person and in fellowship and in meetings too.
Some calls and questions and some people asking for help. I am at full stretch I realize as another call comes.
How much can one person do?
Well we never know till we try. And the truth is for me and my stuff, that I utilize my fellowship and whole lot more learned over the years besides. And I share as much as one can. Yet I see a growing number of connections I cannot possibly support and support myself as well. No matter how often it seems I can find substitutes, and better ways for others, sometimes I get too much involved and know I must stop, or my world will collapse as quickly as it may.
Knowledge Skills and Attributes (Personal Qualities)
Now in my 51st year, I have been active all my life. Most often people helping in one way or another: in personal development and living, and business development and living. And much of the learning holds well for current times too. I guess the gifts given me from my Father and Mother, and then working from a young age in many commercial and business enterprises, then a lot of learning in business schools and from the private sector, has enabled me to make sense of me and my world as much as anyone’s too.
Limits
I have limits these days and do not have the backing or support mechanisms in place for some personal issues people relate to me. And I know sometimes a little knowledge is far less useful and can be very dangerous when we are helping others. Assumptions prevail in the helping professions around being qualified, experience and supervision; all the networks I used to utilize are less available to me these days. And yet I still can help to a certain degree. And sometimes knowing my limits is absolutely essential when people ask my help.
Burn Out
I have mentioned burn out before. And in my experience of burn out first hand, the truth is it takes years and years to overcome the exhaustion of helping others professionally when we have burned out.
Knowing and Developing Helping Processes
Knowing the answers is quite different to the application and delivery of support and counsel.
I am realizing some of the support and help being asked of me these days, I make it look easy because of my experience, the problem is delivery takes time and there are no easy fixes in the people development business.
Knowing the process is pretty easy to learn, and yet the delivery and application of people helping process requires experience and skill. Skills take years to develop, knowledge relatively little in comparison.
How much time I can devote to others, well it’s at the limit right now. And it seems I will have to take advice and not take on more, or burn out again...
Life and Experience, not easy for anyone, and when often asked these days how I might help, I can outline what to do, and in the process of opening the door to what is possible, so the expectations and understanding often make it harder to not to be overly involved as the opportunity discovered means much work for all concerned. There is no quick fix to living.
End Game - the game may be up
I wonder if the truth is that although I might help, there is a real limit on numbers and involvement at any one time I can cope with and still make the difference and help people on their travels.
Recent Weeks and Me
With less time devoted to others and their problems my life has been easier and my own personal issues more manageable. What do people forget about me?
“Don’t you forget about me”
Hey, hey, hey ,hey
Ohhh...
Won't you come see about me?
I'll be alone, dancing you know it baby
Tell me your troubles and doubts
Giving me everything inside and out and
Love's strange so real in the dark
Think of the tender things that we were working on
Slow change may pull us apart
When the light gets into your heart, baby
Don't You Forget About Me
Don't Don't Don't Don't
Don't You Forget About Me
Will you stand above me?
Look my way, never love me
Rain keeps falling, rain keeps falling
Down, down, down
Will you recognize me?
Call my name or walk on by
Rain keeps falling, rain keeps falling
Down, down, down, down
Hey, hey, hey, hey
Ohhhh.....
What you see is not what you might get from me these days. I look ok, I sound ok and that belies much of what goes on, I am as complicated and human as the next person.
What you don’t see and hear about much? My maladies: Type 1 diabetes, clinical depression and recovering alcoholic; three fairly chunky and daily maintained conditions. I work very hard at recovery so I may deal with diabetes and what that entails daily, clinical depression and how this can stop all activities in quick time for me. Those two together keep most people who have similar conditions pretty busy on a daily basis. I do know how others cope with these incapacities, and I do utilize daily therapeutic processes to keep my head straight, and that is from the fellowship of AA. I work hard at recovery because that is where the payoff is on a daily basis. And simply to keep myself going and alive… Depression is there waiting every day and I stick as I may with routine maintenance, a full time job in itself.
So while I do often come across as ok, the amount of time required to maintain a balance in outlook is significant. There are no days off, and no days when I can say “bugger that stuff” and just get on. I have routines and these keep me healthier than otherwise.
So when asked to help?
I do as much as I may, and it may seem awkward sometimes to say no and please utilize others who might help as well as me? And actually the truth is there are plenty out there who can, highly qualified and experienced in life and development matters. I am just one of many.
And when people say no I want you to help me, I do as much as I can, and still have to say no sometimes.
Fellowship
Is something so special, and keeps me on track. I realize also that it can appear ok to ask for more and beyond where fellowship lays down boundaries. And people may need to reflect sometimes what they ask is so far outside the fellowship boundaries I will say no and for good reason. That what is asked is available elsewhere... free and available as it can be in our modern world. And less free and available unless willing to pay its not available. And certainly not from me… as my time in those professions is done for now. I do not have the wherewithal to take up a position or career in those professional circles as they are, and it would be very ill advised to go that route for a living ever again.
Making Life Work
Some of us have developed extraordinary levels of perception and this is simply wisdom learned and time served. No amount of intellect will ever imbue what we develop through the years as expert skills and abilities. No amount of emotional stability will ever enable application of process based on learning theory. We need live life to make life work.
Short cuts to make life worth living..?
There are none…
Spiritual
Much talk of the spiritual these days, and in my recent meetings the truth of living spiritually is of course as simple and profound and annoying as any truth of life.
Spiritual life is simply seeing the world as it is, our reality without filters and without denial. That we see our part in this world, and how we make our connection to each day. The gift of nature and Providence, so often appears a mystery until we live the experience. Is it a gift from God? Well one day we shall know, or never know as we take our last breath. Best keep living a day at a time and find out.
-/- -/-
AA Official Site Reflections ~ AA Official Big Book And Twelve And Twelve Online ~
-/-
"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:
-/-
May ~ Video Reading Chapter Six Into Action Link:
-/-
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
-/-
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