Alcoholics Anonymous Jan 18 2014 DonInLondon Step 1 &quot;Powerless&quot; |

Alcoholics Anonymous Blog & Video | Jan 18 2004 - 2014 | DonInLondon | Step 1 "Powerless" |

January 18 Video

January Step One Month: "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable." Unity, service and recovery – the common good within Fellowship expressed through the group conscience. The common good: to help anyone anywhere who asks for help with a desire to stop drinking. And to help others find their way into recovery. Fellowship with no outside interests or affiliations as a society. At the same time every individual with their own personal code of conduct, their own affiliations and their own personal path of living.

DonInLondon January 18, 2014: I had great scepticism that nobody in AA can tell anybody else in AA what to do. How can a group of people come together and agree to disagree? And yet we do every day from very fundamental beliefs, to incidental preferences in living one day at a time. Trust in a higher power, no single human with the answers to everybody's dilemma of how to be sober today. In this one discipline of sobriety, there appears to be a great deal of wisdom available and on offer. The art of living, the emotional and spiritual experience of life is not a science, the art of life is based on living in the truth, love and wisdom of now. The truth love and wisdom of now for an individual can be very narrow and not very artful, the common truth, universal love and developing this wisdom is interdependent on sharing experience, strength and hope and the opposite of course, ignorance, weakness and despair.

A narrow view of reality is easy to develop if we are full of fear, pride and ego. Fear pride and ego tend to make an individual more isolated, more upset with the world, angry and resentful. The experience of addiction to alcohol, substances and behaviour is likely to make a person feel like they are in control at the beginning, and able to fix the good bad and ugly of life through chemistry and science. An intellectual challenge, to blot out the bad feelings and find the good feelings and perpetuate joy and happiness. The law of diminishing returns: the more we take, the less profound effect, until we are hooked just trying to find a balance which might be normal. Why would we do this if we felt normal, happy joyous and free? Indeed, why? And the answer is simple – in ignorance we say why not? When we don't like something which is true, denial of the truth can be very preferable.

I know I was completely ignorant of how to get sober on my own and isolation, pride and ego and fear of prejudice kept me in the dark. And then the surprise of meeting happy, joyous and free people who were sober and seemed perfectly happy to have given up on mind altering substances. And then on closer inspection, there were many people sceptical like me, suspicious and just wondering what on Earth a Fellowship could do. Even though people seemed to be happy to help, express the view that we all live and let live, and that nobody was trying to hijack my life to be like theirs, I was very very suspicious of some characters. As a whole, unity service and recovery opens the door to hear the experience, strength and hope of everybody we choose to listen to on any given day. Sometimes when people share their experience strength and hope, it is almost like they are speaking directly to us and we understand. And other days, no matter what experience strength and hope we are listening to, the message just feels like salt in a wound and completely unacceptable. And that is the truth, some experience strength and hope provides wisdom, some experience strength and hope can lead into ignorance, and each individual needs to determine which is true. We still have to work at finding out the answers which are applicable in our own recovery.

I prefer not to affiliate with the teachings of any particular religion as they are shared by the heads or leaders of their faith. In some way or other there always seems prejudice against those who are not in their faith communities. And many a war has happened as a consequence. I would prefer we could all affiliate with the fundamental principles espoused by human rights organisations, supporting and encouraging the individual’s freedom of choice. At the same time some people choose their faith community and this I need to respect. And as I respect the faith and belief systems other people have, I would hope for the same respect in return. One day maybe this will come to pass, not any day soon, because a challenge to a person's faith and belief often leads to conflict because we will not join in. On the whole though, the freedom to choose and the liberty to choose our own path is not questioned on a day-to-day basis within Fellowship. There is a but: we are all full of prejudice of one sort or another, which is why we stick to primary purpose and the common good.

Through time and in Fellowship, by sharing experience strength and hope, over and over, the principles of tolerance and love lead the way in recovery so people can then determine what is right for them. And each individual has the right to develop their own set of living principles, beliefs and opinions which make life a rich and deep emotional and spiritual experience. Every single day, in some way or another we look to the common good, we determine and find our path in living. Our moral code needs to be learned, our capacity to love one another develops and we keep on learning the wisdom of life, the art of living. Hopefully we do surrender to the truth of now, how to love and how to be loved back in the here and now, and this wisdom is developing all day long. Even when it comes to the fundamentals of living, very often we need agree to disagree for the common good. Disagreement is not silence by one or another, it is acknowledging that there is a difference in philosophy and belief. And both points of view, or many points of view need always be heard in experience, strength and hope and the opposite of course, ignorance, weakness and despair.

DonInLondon 2013 - 2005

January 18 2013 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 1 "Powerless" | Alcoholics Anonymous | "rigorous honesty…" Now that is a tall order, from the little white lie. Apparently we all tell them from time to time, from Father Christmas to complimenting people on their appearance. When they appear to be dressed like a dog's dinner, would we say, "you look like you're dressed up like a dog’s dinner?" Or saying to a person on their deathbed, "how well you're looking today…" Life is full of difficult moments about telling the truth as you understand it on any given day… I am hoping I go out with a smile on my face, today and on the last day…

Being rigorous and trying to be honest, will always be an activity which we strive at. We hear people lie all day long, and yet the only way to find our way out of the conundrum of addiction, is to overcome the denial about our malady being a fatal progression and try and get honest about the dangerous situation we face one day at a time. And in fellowship, the underlying principles of the twelve step program are about developing an approach of openness, honesty and willingness to change on a daily basis. I was laughing the other day when somebody said, "every time I open my mouth and speak a lie seems to come out," because I can be that person on any given day, because I want to be humorous and I want to be liked and I can tell you now, the whole trough of lies, or a whole slew of lies may pop out inadvertently in my conversations today. I am a human being and I don't like upsetting people. And sometimes I do because I do try tell the truth, be open, honest and willing to change me, and not you today…

In fellowship we have some good literature which explains how to become a recovering human being. And the literature is not wrong when it says, "rarely have we seen a person fail, who has thoroughly followed our path." And that is absolutely true, because if you do follow the path, and learn about the twelve steps, and the twelve traditions, and then put them into practice, you are unlikely to fail. That is the good news, and if we can get to step seven, we develop the courage to change, faith in doing the next right thing, and confidence following this path. As you may have noticed, step seven is some way along in the process of putting the steps into practice. And step six, is the biggest problem, always returning to old attitudes and behaviour when life gets difficult. So in my experience in recovery, the path is quite narrow and people fall off it down into rock bottom again with alarming frequency. Not because they are bad people, it is because addiction is a place of insanity, and sanity is very difficult to achieve. The insanity in oblivion take most back into the dark days, and it is something of a miracle if anyone survives into recovery just for a day. The good news is one day at a time is the total achievement we need to make progress, and progress can keep on happening one day at a time for years and years and years…

Very often after people share the serenity prayer at the end of the meeting, "to the God of your understanding, or the good of your understanding: 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." And then add, and extra few words, about work it you're worth it. Which is about knowing that we are all redeemable, and that if we can forgive ourselves and forgive everyone everything every day, we have a chance to keep on this narrow path of recovery just for a day. The bug bear is always in our attitude and behaviour, if we keep on fearing life and feeling that we are less than, and not worthy of recovery, the dark days can return in the madness of addiction starts all over again. And the problem we all face in recovery, is that we feel we have our own problems in forgiveness of ourselves, and an even bigger problem of forgiveness of everyone else involved along the way. Especially those who followed our old ways and are always available if they are still alive and in active addiction, to pull us back down into the hell, and the oblivion and a sleep from which we will not wake up. I remember the days of not wanting to wake up, and drinking more and more hoping that tomorrow would never come…

Rigorous honesty, I need to be rigorously honest with myself. If I cannot do something, maybe I can learn and ask for help. If I feel fear in the moment of now, it is okay to share that I'm fearful and I don't know the answers. If I pretend to say that am okay, and I do know the answers, I will get no help, and people will see I am pretending and let me stew, or they will just simply take no notice, and I will be left stuck in my own dishonesty. And I know yesterday that I said I find it disagreeable when people say, "fake it to make it as a coping mechanism," and this might have been upsetting, I do not say it to upset you, I share my feelings that truth is better and asking for help, which may or may not come, it is far better telling the truth, to oneself is good. Telling the truth to other people under circumstances of danger is another matter and I cannot resolve that for you or me, until it happens… And I know there are circumstances where we work with dishonest people in dishonest situations which need be left as soon as possible, or we wither and die one way or another. In fellowship though, I do maintain, that truth, open, honest and willing to change, will get better results and by asking for help when you don't know what to do. And in the big world where life happens, the same principles apply, and so does common sense and gumption. There is no point in making a bad situation worse, where we have no power, the only sane thing to do is get out of Dodge quickly and move on… As soon as possible, when it is practical to do so… No point in living a lie…

I would rather tell people I don't know how to do something, and ask for help. If I am ridiculed for not knowing, I'm in the wrong place. And if I am put down because I don't know something, which is beyond my life experience, and people are bullying insensitive cuntibollockbastards, I would rather move along and leave them to their own shit spiritual experience. I don't have to join in their shit spiritual experience, and I don't have to join in. Faking anything, well it takes the sparkle out of people, makes them look over their shoulders, always on edge and never quite sure who may find us out. I get found out every day as being in need of help and assistance. And if I don't know what is right for me, I will have problems working out what is right for you and absolutely what you do is none of my business, unless we are engaged in an enterprise, together. Fellowship is a joint enterprise, everyone has equal opportunity to speak the truth, be open, honest and willing to change as they can. And I can. At the same time, a recommendation to be dishonest, closed down and unwilling to change, because it's frightening, is not going to help keep a person sober today. And if we do not get sober, and put sober first, we don't have the opportunity to grow into a new way of life, and a new freedom, where fear diminishes, and faith grows just for what? Just for today is my experience, because I too can step backwards into fear when faced with powerful and controlling people, I often feel that rage growing and the desire to chop them to pieces with words which will always remain deep inside them, some things which I have wished I had never learned back in the day…

As M Scott Peck said, "life is difficult," in his book the road less travelled. At the same time, and in the first paragraph of the book, he went on to suggest that if we accept life is difficult, rather than saying it is difficult, it ceases to be a problem. Simply we know life is difficult. And that's good enough. And the same is true of recovery for me, every day, life is difficult. And life is: good sometimes, bad sometimes, and ugly sometimes, and sometimes it's all rolled up together. And I can't work out why some feels good, and in the next breath I feel bad about something and then I can't sort out the whole ugly mess in my head. And that's the time to pause and ask myself, "Why am I feeling this way?" The order or the process, try work out what I'm feeling, simply what mood I'm in. And then work out why my thinking is all messed up. Feeling or mood, impacting on my thinking and the actions I am about to take. Feel good, think good, and act good. Feel bad, think bad and action, bad. Ugly feelings, ugly, thinking and very likely ugly actions… And that makes life difficult one day at a time… Welcome to reality! If you are not beating yourself mentally, you are less likely to be beating anyone else physically, and that's just for one day…

January 18 | AA 12 Steps In Action | 2012 | Today's AA daily reflection, "would a drink help?" Back in the day, I did not have that level of awareness about my drinking habits. I simply drank pretty much most evenings and weekends because it was part of my daily routine…

Back in my drinking days, most of the people I knew and my family simply drank alcohol as and when we felt like it. When we felt like it, is the key. Feeling happy, drink, feeling sad, drink and feeling like a drink, drink. A drinking habit, just like everybody we knew. The difference for me, it was not only habit, it became addiction and I didn't know I was there in the addiction until I was…

Before I became an addict, there was ignorance of my situation and condition. Then as the truth unfolds, we find ourselves in denial because it simply won't do for us to be alcoholic. A natural and normal reaction to a problem with our best friend, "alcohol"…

I know today I am powerless over alcohol and if I take a drink life will become unmanageable and horrible. Today I don't need to drink, because I have learned to cope with reality, with the help and support of people around me. Taking a drink or even thinking a drink might help is not really an option anymore.

Letting go my best friend, a substance rather than a human being is the best outcome I could ever imagine. How on earth could it ever have come to pass that a substance would replace human contact? It did, is what I know today…

DonInLondon 2005-2011

The AA tool kit ~ so many components and always utilised in our own unique way for a day. Bed rock skills for life, I was reminded in the meeting that three utilities fit all situations: 1. Truth, learning the truth as it happens 2. Love, learning how to love and be loved 3. Wisdom, from experience and most often wisdom shared. Three of many tools today…

Newcomers meeting tonight: 90 minutes, all the trimmings. All the newcomers left at 60 minutes. I wondered why, then reminded myself how I was at newcomer meetings as a newcomer, listening to the answer to all my problems today, I listened to the differences, I was not an alcoholic, "they were" I was just taking a break from drink in a difficult life...

Step One "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol-that our lives had become unmanageable"

AA Daily ~ WOULD A DRINK HELP? 18 Jan 2012 By going back in our drinking histories, we could show that years before we realized it we were out of control, that our drinking even then was no mere habit, that was indeed the beginning of a fatal progression. TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 23

When I was still drinking, I couldn’t respond to any of life’s situations the way other, more healthy, people could. The smallest incident triggered a state of mind that believed I had to have a drink to numb my feelings. But the numbing did not improve the situation, so I sought further escape in the bottle. Today I must be aware of my alcoholism. I cannot afford to believe that I have gained control of my drinking - or again I will think I have gained control of my life. Such a feeling of control is fatal to my recovery.

Step One Video 12 & 12