Alcoholics Anonymous Videos | DonInLondon

Alcoholics Anonymous Blog & Video | Jan 6 2014 DonInLondon Step 1 "Powerless"

"We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable." Twelve steps all about emotional and spiritual growth, or decay depending on where we are headed. How do I feel about that? As soon as somebody says: how are you feeling? The most obvious thing is we start to think about it and look for the correct response. "I'm feeling fine thank you." And inside at the beginning I felt horrible even though I might have said that I was feeling fine and dandy.

January 6 Video

Step One Video 12 & 12

DonInLondon January 6, 2014: in the beginning of my recovery, my feelings were extreme and all the time I was struggling with my thinking. I should be okay when I stop and I think I should be able to crack this drinking problem on my own. So I was at war with myself, my feelings were all over the place and my thinking led me to believe I could get out of my dilemma on my own. But the evidence was that my feelings were beyond control and my thinking was trying to control everything, especially the way I looked to other people. I feared being found out as a hopeless case.

And although I didn't want to be a hopeless case, the evidence was piling up against me. No matter what I did on my own, I felt horrible and consequently turned back to drink, it was the only thing that blotted out the desolation and horror. Drink to stop me shaking, and drink in isolation so nobody knew just how churned up I was. Denying the evidence was easily done on my own, and whenever I went to get more drink, I constructed stories around my life and why I was always in familiar places drinking or buying it in large quantities. Fortunately in my case I could hide because there was a pub on every corner and a supermarket in every road. But even then it was difficult, people get to know and you can see it in their eyes, pity and shame and prejudice.

I quit drinking with the help of the Fellowship of AA. And back in the day when I used to drink, if I didn't have cash with me, signing a cheque, signing a credit card receipt was a nightmare. The shakes would be so bad, even I couldn't decipher anything I'd written especially my signature. So I tended to make sure that on a daily basis I would have some left every morning to consume before my daily trudge to a pub and a shop. It would have been easier with a pin number and the start-up of deliveries back then, and certainly it might have been easier to expire without anybody knowing. Those were bleak days, and even though its years ago, I recognise just how difficult those days are when trying something new to help like the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I am not a joiner of anything, and did not seek any sort of limelight which put the spotlight too closely on me. The idea of joining a Fellowship, especially one which was against all my principles of drinking, my freedom and my choice, it was horrible and all these happy people kept making me feel stupid and ignorant about my condition. I couldn't be like them, happy bastards most of them, and I was the poor bastard suffering because of them. Yes I found ways to blame them rather than me. I wanted AA to be the worst of all possible worlds in my own outlook, a religious cult, sucking out the identity of everyone and enslaving them in some set of rules which were against human dignity and taking away my human rights. It didn't take long to realise that the Fellowship of AA would give me back all my freedoms, freedom to choose the right path for myself one day at a time. All I needed was a way to stop drinking, and the happy bastards managed to show me how. I was a silly bastard back then. I use the word bastard to illustrate my personal venom back then for anything that might take away my freedom to drink. I was a bit silly, and most likely driven mad by a desire to keep drinking whatever happened.

And yes I did get a desire to stop drinking, but by night time my resolve could be very worn down without some help. After all, surely everybody has the right to choose to drink and enjoy it? The problem was as soon as I had one drink, it was never going to be enough until I passed out or found myself in a state of oblivion. And then I had no freedom at all, I was simply speeding up to an ending of my life. So how did they do it? How did they help me keep sober? Nobody was stopping me from drinking, but in unity service and recovery, one day at a time, hopefully my desire to get spangled would become less and less. The suggestion of ninety meetings in ninety days made me feel quite ill. In the end I did more than that, I lived in meetings as much as possible over those ninety days. And the desire to drink diminished, because I was able to feel better and think better with every passing day. By stopping my own personal denial, and accepting the truth of my situation, I'm happy to say that I preferred this weird sober day by day living without a drink inside me.

DonInLondon 2005-2013

January 6 2013 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 1 "Powerless" | Alcoholics Anonymous "Precarious sobriety…" January looking at step one, and reading the twelve and twelve, sobriety in early days is precarious. How on Earth to keep sober one day at a time? The answer is simple, and yet every moment is complicated. Getting to a point where I could admit that I was an alcoholic, and accept that I needed to change was obvious. And trying to do this on my own had proved impossible. I had become isolated from most human contact. And isolated, every moment was a fight with myself not to drink…

In some ways sobriety will always be precarious because we are very human, human beings. Once we are conditioned into drinking, taking substances or behaving in certain ways to feel right in the moment, it is very hard to break these patterns. I realised the more I isolated from the rest of humanity, the more difficult it was to keep stopped and stay stopped from drinking. And the notion that I needed help, having been brought up to stand on my own two feet, put a brave face on, or as they say today, "suck it up," and pretend that am okay whenever I was asked, meant it was very difficult to join in with anything remotely connected to sobriety. Joining a fellowship of fellow alcoholics brought up prejudice about alcoholics, and that I realised I was also prejudiced against myself. Self-prejudice was keeping me in ignorance and drinking, and all I had was contempt for myself and people like me…

At the beginning of recovery, I hardly had the gift of desperation, I was just tired out. And I needed a place of safety where I would not be got at by the rest of society, family and community, in particular, and working was very very difficult. Fellowship gave me a place of safety and the cloak of anonymity. Somebody said in a meeting yesterday that they knew almost everyone in the meeting by their first names, and had no clue what their last names might be. And yet over the years they got to know so many people by their first names, and just about everything about them, they were friends and it made sense that we could know people so well, and yet not know their last name, because it is irrelevant in recovery. A community or fellowship based on love, with unity, service and recovery at its heart needs no last names and anonymity provides sanctuary one day at a time…

From time to time, anonymity can be a difficult situation when some people are identified as being in recovery and they don't want anyone to know. And this is a sad reflection on those who gossip, makes people resentful and reticent about coming into fellowship. Although times have changed, anonymity remains a personal decision and need be respected. Because my family and community, and my obvious problem with alcohol, I had no anonymity to be broken with those who mattered in my life. It does not mean that is the right way for everyone, I can only work it out for myself, what is right for me, and be very respectful of the anonymity of other people. Last thing we want is somebody relapsing as a result of exposure outside fellowship. It remains a personal choice in regard to anonymity, at the same time, always respectful of those who wish it so...

Alone and left to my own devices, I would have remained ignorant about a way to live sober. And it took me a long time to accept that I needed help, not only to stop drinking, to keep stopped as well. And then life started to improve, learning about the twelve steps of AA, and the twelve traditions of AA and how they might work for me in my life and the lives of everyone around me. Being sober, I started to understand what it was like to learn again and ask for help. I had never learned how to stop drinking and find a way into a new life, an emotional and spiritual life without addictive behaviour. I was still having an emotional and spiritual experience when I was drinking, it was not really very honest, open, or with willingness to seek the truth of life. It was the opposite, in the old life, fear, the brave face and ego, kept me in ignorance. The new life? More open, more honest and more willing to learn what my feelings are in the moment of now and how to cope with them. And if I am not coping, learning to ask the help soonest rather than find myself in old feelings and old resentments one day at a time…

Today's daily reflection "the victory of surrender" taking the first steps towards living one day at a time. No longer at war with ourselves, no battles and no need to fight. Surrender is simply giving up on something we do not need any more, no more conflicts inside us when it comes to alcohol. The other victory is clarity and freedom to choose what we can do and what we cannot do just for today…

Finding recovery one day at a time, has truly opened the door to new freedoms. What was the daily grind, of work, career, drinking and any other elements of life still going, becomes simply daily life, where our needs are met and our wants diminish. Our needs are met and wants forgotten. Through hard work and living realistically, our natural instincts become more balanced. We treat ourselves and other people fairly in a very unfair world…

The saying "it is not whether you win or lose, it is how you play the game" and "it truly is the journey and not the destination." If we enjoy the journey, and make free choices based on reality, we stop looking at the destination as the reward. The real reward is how we live today, as an individual and part of family, community and society. Sometimes we have never learned these ways of living, distracted and misled by false aspirations and possibilities. After all why would we have taken to drink in the first place if life were that wonderful.

Step one, powerless over alcohol and life unmanageable when drinking. Step two restored to sanity contingent on asking daily. Step three, letting go and letting good things happen and asking for help. Surrendering and giving up and letting go, can only work for a day because tomorrow everything can change and what has worked today may not work tomorrow. Steps are timeless principles, life forever changing and we change as each day unfolds…

Pablo Picasso "Everything you can imagine is real" Including Rock Bottom!

12 steps: for emotional and spiritual connection to living in the day. Emotional: feeling my feelings as they happen rather than thinking about my feelings and if they are right feelings. Spiritual: living in the moment of now and coping with reality. If I feel my feelings in the moment then I am living right sized. When I feel happy I can be happy, when I feel sad I can be sad. When I feel fear, I need feel it and find out about it in the moment of now…

Open honest and willing, to love and be loved back and useful today. If I know my mood, I know how it influences my thinking. When I cherish people, I acknowledge they are equal and have a point of view. When I stop and ask myself "how does it feel to be in your shoes today?" Then I am likely to ask you, "how are you feeling today?" Likely it never crossed your mind to check what sort of mood you are in. If you're feeling okay and your thinking is okay all well and good. If you're feeling not okay, then your thinking may be undermined by your mood. We can be assertive and have empathy today…

AA Big Book Video | Chapter 1 | Bill's Story |