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Alcoholics Anonymous Blog & Video | Jan 9 2004 - 2014 | DonInLondon | Step 1 "Powerless" |

January Step One Month: "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable." Somebody suggested I would enjoy doing ninety meetings in ninety days: one Fellowship meeting a day to get a simple understanding about Fellowship, about people living in recovery, and by hearing their experience, strength and hope, simply find out from many people how they stay sober one day at a time. A tall order to do ninety meetings? It wasn't an order it was just a suggestion.

January 9 Video

Step One Video 12 & 12

I've been going to meetings every day this week, and each one teaches me something new which works in that day. I was reminded by someone else how useful it was to understand that there were twelve steps or twelve principles which work in recovery. I wanted to know all there was about this twelve step recovery. And somebody said recently that they suggested to those they were helping that practising the last three steps of the twelve steps was a good way to get to grips with what life can be all about. This can rankle with some who are stringent in their views about the order of the steps. In my experience, listening to a great many people every day I was learning and understanding how to practice all twelve steps in my daily life. Holding people back is an intellectual and thinking strategy, which may not be so good in the emotional and spiritual principles to learn life one day at a time. Understanding the steps, all of them always helps, even when practice will never make a person perfect. Progress not perfection, emotional and spiritual is happening all the time, feelings fitting reality. I still don't know what is good for you, I'm still learning what is good for me today. Humility always.

DonInLondon January 9, 2014: I am reminded every day just how difficult it is to have a lot of knowledge about recovery and nothing in the bank when it comes to practising recovery one day at a time. In my own opinion and not that of anybody else in particular, there is only one way to approach recovery: open, honest and willing to change. And every day our openness, our honesty and willingness will be challenged by real-life and living real-life. There is no formula which fits all people. Every person learns how to be themselves, and you cannot manufacture a particular doctrine which suits everyone. No rules, no laws, no regulations and no imposition on any person to follow others because they say, "my way or the highway." Everyone has their own road in recovery, and we learn all about the potholes we all face one day at a time.

In my first ninety days of recovery, first ninety days was sustained by being in a rehabilitation centre. It was not typical of most rehabs, it was more like being in, "the Big Brother house," where people are set up to fail, rather than build people to understand the simple mechanics of the serenity prayer. And don't forget my understanding of God is probably different to yours: "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." This prayer is said at the end of each meeting in Fellowship, it is a practical reminder about acceptance of reality and life as it is, understanding and accepting what we can do and what we cannot do. When we can't do something, we probably need some help and assistance because the problem is bigger than us as individuals.

During my rehabilitation centre days, and I need add that my rehab closed, which in my opinion was the best thing, I was taunted, manipulated and undermined by the professionals in charge. I became very aware that people were being put down, dismantled and undone, with no time to rebuild them over a three-month period. Some people ended up being in rehabilitation centres which were far better than the one I attended. I don't believe in tough love to get somewhere, I believe in truth and love to get anywhere and keep sober one day at a time. Rehab ought not be a punishment, it ought to be about enlightenment. Rehab taught me that there was no enlightenment to be had in the rehab which I went to, it was all about endarkenment and fear. It taught me a great deal about the perverse nature of some people called professionals. It also taught me that true enlightenment comes through truth and love, and this resides in just about every Fellowship meeting I attend on a daily basis all these years later. There is a constant challenge to those who run rehabilitation centres to find the best method to help individuals, not to punish them, to help them be enlightened to a new way of life. Many rehabs seem to offer enlightenment, simply not so in my experience back in the day.

During my second ninety days stint, after having left rehab under my own volition having served the time I was given, I refused a six-month extension simply because the rehab was being run very badly by the so-called professionals and all I saw was hurt. When people are hurt, they hurt other people in order to preserve their status or simply shine the spotlight on weaker more fearful individuals who they could pick on. That is not therapeutic, that is sadistic and encouraging sadistic behaviour will send anybody out for a drink. I did. And then with the help of truly helpful people, qualified and expert in their field, they found me somewhere to live and got me off the streets so I could then get back to Fellowship. Traumatic events etched deep into me and a vow to myself to never hurt people ever again intentionally. And if I did hurt someone unintentionally I would try make amends immediately.

So, after psychiatric assessment, sent to the social services, I was then sent to the Cartwright hotel in King's Cross. Death and decay, I could smell it, people using, people drinking. I was put in a room, red curtains, scraps of curtains actually, a hole in the window, red walls, red threadbare and tar sodden carpet. A red sink, a red sheet on the bed, and I had a bottle of Smirnoff red to see me through the night before I would walk back to the social services in the morning. I cracked open the bottle of vodka and took a swig, and looking at my surroundings it felt like hell. After that swig of vodka, I poured the rest of the bottle into the sink and sat there in a complete state of despair. For the first time, I really said to myself, I cannot do this anymore. Had I drank the vodka, it would be the end. I stayed awake all night, shivering and accepting the next ninety days of going to meetings would be by choice one day at a time. It was a free choice based on desolation so bleak, it could not get any worse than it was in those dark hours before dawn. It was May 31 2004 I think, the last day of drinking to date.

DonInLondon 2013 - 2005

January 9 2013 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 1 "Powerless" | Alcoholics Anonymous Looking back at the history of my drinking, and listening in a meeting to another share about all the different ways they tried to stop, I realise just how comprehensive my denial of my problem was back in the day. If I had thought logically about my drinking habits over the years, would I have been able to stop? I can only go by the truth: denial of my emotional and spiritual state, and reliant on my thinking, kept me drinking way past my sell by date…

I am truly in awe when I hear people share about their self-awareness about their drinking. Or am I a bit deluded and selective with my own truth? I don't think so and I don't feel so, in my generation of drinkers, and the generation before me, alcohol was always part of the scene. And it seems these days, it is more so? Not really, what I do see on TV, are reality documentaries showing the harm done over and over. In my day there were no such documentaries, all the TV journalists were probably out on the lash, just like me. And being aware of Alcoholics Anonymous? I had no clue about AA at all, or through those decades of drink. And I still wonder how aware people are of the fellowship of AA, until they need it…

In a meeting last night, I listened intently and enjoyed all the words spoken by the principal sharer, the person who kicks off sharing. And I really felt like sharing back, it was a hand raised sharing meeting with the principal sharer getting to choose. Early on in the meeting, I realised quite rightly, that I was not going to get picked or chosen to share anything. The least I could do, was thank the person for their service and the secretary for their service. I had a good chat before the meeting with one or two people, and quite a good chat after the meeting with someone I've known for quite a few years, but do not know too well. Other issues came to the forefront about sharing experience strength and hope. And the maliciousness that can happen if we are sharing online, in another context, the other person had been suffering from libellous and slanderous comments on the Internet... And they wondered what to do about it, my suggestion was simply to hand it over to those with power in these situations and let it go…

And another question asked of me, "What do you mean by this emotional and spiritual stuff?" Or rather it was a question of how do you get to your feelings and knowing what they are, and why do you have to bother? In my case, the only way I used to have any sort of real feeling seemed to be after I had taken the edge off with a drink, where feelings could come out, whatever they were, and they were usually at extremes and never that moderate. Drink made my feelings powerful in my own head, sadly they were really never expressed that well on a face-to-face basis. That is why I do ask myself three simple questions to kick off my emotional and spiritual day: "how am I feeling? Why? And what can I do?" This is me learning to be assertive, just for today…

Those three basic questions to be assertive about one's own situation: "how am I feeling? Why? And what can I do about it?" Is about me before I start to interact with anybody. Asserting how I am feeling is then part of learning to relate to other people and have empathy. If I can ask myself these three basic questions, it stops me making assumptions about how you are feeling, why you feel the way you do and what to do about it. If I expect you to fall into a pattern with me and agree with my desired outcomes, I am likely to upset you greatly. If I am interacting with anyone, feelings or emotions is the starting point, finding out why and then what can we do together is a negotiation and an understanding. Sometimes it works, and it's all very agreeable, and sometimes it becomes what is known as a buggers muddle, or a catastrophe in the making…

One of the most important things in fellowship is to have regard for the people around us, and recognise vulnerability, fear and a lot of anguish going on. Sometimes the newcomer is more of a terrorist, undermining the serenity and sanity of those around them. And indeed, newcomers can be very frightening if we try to help them on our own. It takes the many to help the newcomer, and to cope with their extreme situation. If it was easy to stop drinking, there would be no need for a fellowship like ours, there would be no need for any sort of suggestions and individuals would just give up drink automatically because it is the right thing to do. Of course we know, humans are illogical, they don't come from Vulcan, they usually come to AA in a state of insanity, and then need time to undergo some restoration, stripped down to basics, and then retuned one day at a time…

It is always progress and not perfect, just like life! Life is full of situations which are good, bad, and ugly or a combination of all at the same time about different things. The human condition is to face difficult situations all day long, but if we accept they are difficult situations all day long, they cease to be a problem as difficult, it just becomes life as it is, and nobody in particular is singling us out for any particular treatment. And we are of course part of the difficulty, our approach to life, our approach to other people. And sometimes expecting too much, feeling entitled to something we are not entitled to and generally falling back and into the traps of ego and looking for powerful solutions which are ours will usually make life, not only difficult, it will make any sort of progress impossible…

January 9 2012 | Daily Reflection|

Today's AA daily reflection, all about "an act of providence" and it can be quite easy to see why any intervention which changes our lives to the good and sticks tight is surely providence. My sister threw me into a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and this did change my life completely. I didn't like it, but it did the trick in the end…

Developing courage faith and fortitude is an act of providence. The nature of the act of providence, was acceptance that I could not beat alcoholism and that I needed help to develop an outlook of sober one day at a time. And providence was learning it's not a fight, it is a completely new way of living keeping the good and learning the new…

And as a friend of mine said last night "everything we need really is in the serenity prayer, God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference" that simple and yet so complicated when we start to think about it…

A meeting last night, in the bowels of Flood Street! Crowded, hot and sweaty. A wonderful chair which reminded me I had to change my life completely and give up any idea of the old career. My new career may not be mapped into the far distant future, it's just a simple guide one day at a time, to love, be loved back and useful…

DonInLondon 2005-2011

Freedom ~ Thomas Jefferson "Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits."

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Providence ~ “often capitalized: divine guidance or care”

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

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