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Alcoholics Anonymous | February 7 2013 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 2 "Sanity" | "my emotional and spiritual path included: lost weekends turning into days, weeks, months and years..." I have cherished memories of my dad. When I was about fifteen years old, he really lost the plot when it came to living. At best, a lovable rogue, at worst he was conning himself and he was a conman. Drink was his best friend in the end, and he was lonely. I learned how to drink like him. At first, drink helped me feel life, and then over the years I felt nothing but oblivion with the last drink in hand…

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Alcoholics Anonymous DonInLondon Common Ground Many Beliefs

My last drink, in a hostel in King's Cross “The Cartwright Hotel”: After walking the streets, I don't know how long for now, I went to a hospital emergency department and asked for help. Good fortune on that day to get a psychiatric assessment, some advice to go to a homeless unit and then King's Cross. The hostel for degraded people just like me: drugged and drugging, addled by drink and drinking. The room: stained by life and me with a bottle of vodka in hand. Cracking the bottle open, a gulp and swallow… I said to myself, "if I drink this bottle, it's the end of me." I don't know why, I just felt this was my last chance. No matter how horrible the room and everything, I poured the vodka down the sink and sat until dawn shivering. A warm June morning, and I was frozen stiff…

Alcoholism and addiction, the madness of doing the same thing over and over again, trying to get respite from reality or simply not wake up. Isolated by my own failure and self-will broken, that first admission of needing help, professional or otherwise helped me accept the next few months was going to be painful. I knew the answer lay in fellowship for me, the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, where it was okay to have failed miserably, to give up an old life which was killing me and start a new life sober just for a day. And I needed to comply with doing things which are good for me, rather than doing things which were killing me and living in a nightmare. It may seem obvious to any curious observer without the malady, the insanity of drinking ourselves to death.

That last night of emptiness and complete desolation where one gulp was enough to know, if I kept drinking that life was over for me. And I remembered my dad years earlier, on his death bed, when I asked him about why he had stopped drinking once he knew he was going to die, he said he hadn't got anything to fear any more and he was sorry for everything. I don't know that I feared dying, at the same time I felt life could get no worse and maybe if I changed and went through all the pain, I could have a chance at something or anything. One day at a time…

Sharing experience, strength and hope, of how it used to be, the good, bad and ugly days of drinking is important. And sharing experience, strength and hope of how it is today is equally important and it is good, bad and ugly. The difference between drinking days, which went on for decades, and sober days which are lived just one day at a time, is what changes. In the old days I was supporting my best friend, drink. In the sober days, I learned all about support and fellowship, making the best choices possible, making mistakes and learning from them, and growing, with freedom to have choice based on reality, rather than a fantasy today. Could I have done it differently? Doesn't matter to me, now firmly in fellowship and living life, free to make the best choices I can today.

My daily reminder: As I wake up, either I say it out loud, or simply in my head: I am powerless over alcohol, and if I take a drink life becomes unmanageable, I have been restored to sanity by a power greater than me just for a day, and I need keep letting go the notion that my way is best, and ask for help if help is needed just for a day. And then I recite the serenity prayer to myself, either out loud, or in my head, "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference." My higher power, the truth of now, how to love and how to be loved back unconditionally and wisdom learned all day long. From the world and the universe as it is today, higher powers all around and willing to help in fellowship and in my community, truth, love and wisdom is everywhere in the moment of now and with my senses alert and open, I can be myself and be a human being, just for today...

Common ground in fellowship: learning how to be sober and live sober. Common ground with many faiths and beliefs: some believe in God, some believe in their own higher power being good, and we have agnostics and atheists and crackpots! Crackpots in this case: people who would impose their ideas and notions about higher powers, and getting down on your knees to pray. How you practice your beliefs is what you do and you don't impose your opinions and instructions on others. I was listening to somebody recently sharing about God, and their role as a sponsor, and as a sponsor sharing about their sponsee in a wheelchair trying to get down on their knees to pray. Nowhere in fellowship, is there a suggestion that a person need prostate themselves in order to communicate with a power greater than them. If it is your practice to kneel down to pray, all well and good. Fellowship is not about mysticism, it is about helping each other in practical ways to find an emotional and spiritual outlook in the moment. Knowing what we are feeling and experiencing is the truth, love and wisdom of now. There are many with control issues in fellowship, and feel like they are in alliance with God. As far as I can make out God has not aligned himself or herself or in itself with anything since the dawn of time and the universe. So I don't expect that alignment with a sponsor in a fellowship is any better than with anyone else on the planet who tells you what to do today. A suggested program with common ground, simply to live sober with freedom of choice with your own beliefs and opinions one day at a time…

Alcoholics Anonymous | February 7 2013 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 2 "Sanity" | Today's AA daily reflection: "humility can lead us to faith." All my life I was a learner, not necessarily learning life too well, more survival skills than anything else. Humility is being able to keep on learning how to live well for me these days. Humility offers release from having to know the answers and having to know the questions. And the question of faith? Faith in whatever you choose to be a higher power will work. The essence of faith today for me does reside in humility and being open, honest and willing to change…

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2009 - 2012

It may seem so simple to many, "a higher power moment," and to me it was a revelation. When it came to addiction and what to do, my higher power moment was simply "I cannot do this on my own." I picked up the phone, made a call and asked for help. It was a bittersweet moment, realising I needed help and at the same time still feeling resistance inside me to needing help. After the call, still churning about what to do I'm grateful the decision made, I was able to reach out, listen and make a choice towards freedom and not back into the malady…

Restored to sanity is really difficult, I was looking for "the fix" because the fix would fix me and I would never have to think about it again. I would be cured and with the sure knowledge of knowing the answer, I would overcome my battle and my fight with addiction. Another bittersweet moment, being restored to sanity is a daily ask, simply because there is no fix beyond the moment of now. I cannot predict my circumstances or the challenges I may face and so there is no fix and I'm very pleased there isn't… It’s all about learning life in the moment and asking for help daily from anyone, anywhere and anything is key to a life with serenity as part of the equation…

I start my day asking myself the questions, "how am I feeling, why and what can I do?" If I know what my feelings are, I know where my thinking may go and likely actions which follow. And as a meditation, remind myself of steps one, two and three, powerless and unmanageable, restored to sanity contingent on the day I ask and let go knowing, and let in the world to help me life can be bittersweet. Whether it is bitter or sweet, the serenity prayer will help me understand what I can and cannot do today…

"Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity"

DonInLondon 2005-2011

True humility, the ability to learn with an open mind can lead us to our personal faith, and every A.A. meeting is about sharing experience, strength and hope with an assurance that the wisdom paves the way to restore us to sanity if we rightly relate ourselves to the world as it is today

William Faulkner "All of us failed to match our dreams of perfection. So I rate us on the basis of our splendid failure to do the impossible." -/- Progress is delicious...

Fellowship restores our faith in our courage to change ~ Mohandas Gandhi "A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history." -/- Every human being is a miracle... And fellowship helps restore us to sanity daily!

Step 2 "Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity"

We find it amazing that the newcomer can start the A.A. program without any specific beliefs or, for that matter, without any beliefs whatsoever. All a person needs is the open-mindedness and the willingness to believe that WE BELIEVE this program works...

William Faulkner "All of us failed to match our dreams of perfection. So I rate us on the basis of our splendid failure to do the impossible." -/- Progress is delicious...

AA Daily: AA Daily: A PATH TO FAITH ~ FEBRUARY 7, true humility and an open mind can lead us to faith, and every A.A. meeting is an assurance that God will restore us to sanity if we rightly relate ourselves to Him. TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 33

My last drunk had landed me in the hospital, totally broken. It was then that I was able to see my past float in front of me. I realized that, through drinking, I had lived every nightmare I had ever had. My own self-will and obsession to drink had driven me into a dark pit of hallucinations, blackouts and despair. Finally beaten, I asked for God’s help. His presence told me to believe. My obsession for alcohol was taken away and my paranoia has since been lifted. I am no longer afraid. I know my life is healthy and sane.

-/-

Just For Today, and every day cherish always...

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AA Official Online Site: Daily Reflections

http://www.aa.org/lang/en/aareflections.cfm

AA Official Online Site: Big Book And Twelve And Twelve

http://www.aa.org/lang/en/subpage.cfm?page=359

January 2013 | Step One Reading Video Link: