Alcoholics Anonymous Videos | DonInLondon

Alcoholics Anonymous Blog & Video | Feb 15 2004 - 2014 | DonInLondon | Step 2 "Sanity"

February 15 Video

DonInLondon February 15, 2014: step two month: "came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity." What is more powerful? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? Or having the courage to change, faith in the next right thing and developing confidence to live reality rather than hoping for a fantasy to happen today? Of course the answer is reality, because that is where we can start, my real situation today, and all the possibilities. I don't know about the possibilities just now, I just know I have more options when I start from scratch, or address the problems and look for solutions with the help of my friends, family, community, social networking, and the man on the Clapham omnibus!

In step one of the Fellowship programme, we do accept the unacceptable truth that we have become addicted to substance, and most likely behaviours which can bring us to our knees. What was once an unacceptable truth becomes liberation, and a way back to freedom of choice, given the current conditions today. A return to reality is far better every morning than trying to emulate or pretend to be okay when we are not okay. Out of isolation and into a new form of friendship with humans, rather than a bottle, a substance or fixing our feelings inappropriately as we find one day at a time. Freedom of choice to explore reality and understand what is possible under the current conditions today.

Sponsorship plays a big part in many peoples recovery. People are encouraged to find a sponsor to help them from the beginning of their contact with Fellowship. And this can be quite an arduous task, because some people like to sponsor, some people don't like to sponsor because they don't have enough experience. A bit like lies, damned lies and statistics, finding the right sponsor for oneself can be very difficult and very intimidating. You would think by now after many decades, the role of sponsor would be more understood and more consistent rather than in many cases a comedy of errors. But if we impose rules laws and regulations about the conduct of sponsors, we take away freedoms and start to produce solutions which cannot possibly be matched in reality. A sponsor may be good on one day and terrible for quite a few days. A sponsor may be available on the weekend, and missing throughout the week. Trying to make a rule book about sponsorship is a bit like a government trying to control bad weather and the consequences, it does not work ever.

This notion of sponsorship is always going to be a complicated issue and it does not have a simple answer, unlike Fellowship. Fellowship is: "WYSIWYG, what you see is what you get." And on any given day, the current conditions can work against sponsors and those trying to find them. Nobody is immune from reality and sponsors can find themselves in difficult situations and unable to cope with their own problems, let alone anybody else. But the truth remains that two people talking about their issues are likely to help one another, especially when times are difficult because we are relating to each other under the current conditions today.

A person trying to find a sponsor, is not looking for one person to fix them? I do believe they are a lot of the time, because it is quite easy to blame a sponsor for not fixing their lives, and alcoholics are impatient for a solution to their problems on any given day, just like normal people who believe they are in control of everything. And it comes as quite a surprise that a sponsor may not take your telephone call, might not call you back in good time, might not reply to your text messages, might not reply to your emails. Sponsors are human, not superhuman. Sponsors really are for learning the steps and how they work in reality, and sharing their experience strength and hope on a one-to-one basis when they can. Haphazard? Yes absolutely, and yet sponsorship can be hugely helpful and the backbone of anyone's recovery.

And a resounding part of sponsorship for sponsors ought to be that they make suggestions, rather than lay down rules, laws and regulations. If a sponsor makes rules laws and regulations to govern how they played their part as part of the Toolbox of recovery, highly likely that they will not provide the support required in this quest of emotional and spiritual living. Emotional and spiritual living starts with the first breath any human takes and ends with their last breath. And many people in Fellowship have their own understanding of what is emotional and spiritual. And as there are no really defined methods of learning and understanding emotional and spiritual living, we depend upon the experience, strength and hope of everybody and find our path in our own unique and authentic way.

The greatest freedom offered to an individual in recovery and being in the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, is to learn to be yourself. Whatever the current conditions of the day, good bad or ugly, learning how to be oneself and share experience strength and hope is not a novelty, it is the truth of who we can be today. And life is full of setbacks, success and whatever you want to call it, life is life on life's terms. And that first step of vulnerability and humility to surrender to the truth of our addiction to whatever it might be, is the first step in recovery and knowledge that life need not be governed by addictions to substances and behaviour, and people places and things of the past. That vulnerability and humility offers freedom to find out how emotional and spiritual living will work one day at a time.

DonInLondon 2004 - 2013

Alcoholics Anonymous | February 15 2013 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 2 "Sanity" | "promises, promises!" I kept on promising myself that I would stop drinking and life would start again afresh. This was a long time before I ever knew anything about AA. And then I kept on promising the world that I would stop drinking and show them I could be fit and healthy. After two years in an anxiety state with my first big nervous breakdown behind me, I had one drink, and it started a path to a new rock bottom…

It was always a case of, "if I can get a contract and work. I'll be okay, if I keep fit and work hard physically I'll be okay and if I can find myself a relationship I'll be okay, I just didn't realise I was a burnt out case…" And then I ran away from everything. A few years later, bankrupt in every endeavour, and absolutely nowhere left to go, I went to the fellowship. I heard these promises, the AA promises and thought of the time they were empty messages, and I could not understand what they were talking about. After that ninety days of incessant attendance at as many meetings as I could fit into each day, I still couldn't connect with these promises and the happy faces around me. I was looking for the fix, looking outwards and not realising that for ninety days, I had not had a drink. "Don't drink and go to meetings! I did exactly that and the first promise happened in spite of me, sober, the ninety days in fellowship…

It was a shock to my system to realise that the most effective way to treat my alcoholism was to be in the company of people who desired sobriety and then sort out everything else as time permits. I was too frightened to be happy about ninety days sober, and I was still looking over my shoulder for someone to trip me up or put me down. Nobody did in fellowship, as to the rest of the world, every obstacle seemed to slow me down, I needed to cooperate with people and realised I truly had no power over my situation at all, if I drank, I was doomed. And without the drink everyday felt like doomsday in those early days of recovery. The doom I faced was in me and not in the world, isolated at the start, then included in a harsh reality. I just didn't understand reality without a drink, and then it dawned on me that maybe I could relax just a little bit and try to listen more to how things worked for other people in sobriety… I did not know how lonely I was, until I started to believe that sober was possible. And people might care and love me…

When I read about the AA promises, I couldn't understand why people would write in a book that I would lose fear of economic insecurity and lose fear of uncertainty. The first ninety days had taught me that fellowship meetings were full of people who sometimes seem to be okay and they were, and a lot of people like me who just wanted something to block out the pain. What I didn't realise at the beginning was that I stopped obsessing about drink and having a drink. The amount of fear and anxiety had diminished and I had been helped with a roof over my head and just enough to live on provided I ate plenty of biscuits and tea and coffee free in fellowship...

Looking back now with hindsight, I still feel very uncertain about any promise to a newcomer. Now I know what happened to me: I had spent a lifetime in fear of not being good enough, spent a lifetime putting on a brave face and trying to be the person you wanted me to be, spent a lifetime, hiding behind a shell, my ego contriving to be a perfect man for the perfect girl, the best worker you could imagine, and accumulating things which had no value to me. And the revelation, which really came slowly for me, was simply learning to have enough courage to change, faith in doing the next right thing, and building up my confidence, so I could like myself enough to be sober one more day at a time…

Letting go the old life: letting go fear of being found out, letting go the need to put on a brave face and pretend to be okay, and letting go my ego which told me I was right, and had to have the answers to living. Letting in the new life: courage to change and face reality just for a day, developing faith in the words shared and the wisdom to be experienced, and then the confidence to simply be me, to be a learner always and to accept help and be included in something far bigger than me. The old life which I can see in the sixth step of fear and extremes. And then the seventh step, letting in the wisdom of the world through people, places and things and facing reality just for a day…

I had no clue until later that twelve steps to be learned could only happen with life experience. The twelve steps work in sorting out our history, and then help us to live an emotional and spiritual life. What!? Now this is interesting, because I really never understood my feelings and reality in the moment. I might be in a situation with people, and I hid how I felt. And it reads like I was a chameleon. And I was trying to be whatever I thought you wanted. I don't need to do that today, freedom of saying yes to the right things, and freedom of saying no to the wrong things is always in the moment of now. Well nearly in the moment of now, I can still be weighed down by feelings and thoughts of the old life and doing something similar, which is not good. If I trust my feelings in the moment, I keep my freedom to understand what I can do and what I cannot do today. And truly understand the wisdom being learned in the moment of now…

Could there have been a softer easier way? Not in my case, I had to go as low as one can, and be completely alone, in oblivion and desolate with drink. It was only then that I realised if life could get no worse, I might as well ask for help from anyone anywhere. And had it not been for AA, I doubt there would have been a story to tell about recovery today. Fellowship is my bedrock of sobriety, makes it possible to love people and be loved back. Connected in the moment of now, we never know what might happen next. And the gift of being open, honest and willing, keeps me on track, whatever the endeavours may be today. And I fight don't know what to do now I know that the answers come inside and outside fellowship. When I ask the right people in the right places and they have space to help me today…

During my drinking years, I really did succeed at work, and the success kept me going, when everything else seemed to be lost. The experiences from work, the experiences of relationships with women in my life had been beautiful and loving, and yet behind all of this, was always a feeling that something would go wrong, and I would always need to work harder and harder to be safe. There was no peace and serenity in work. There was peace and serenity in romantic relationships, and then self-doubt which I did not see at the time meant any girl would feel uncertainty with me. If I did not know myself too well, how on earth could anybody else, and nowadays I realise that every day, we simply learn a little bit more about who we are and who we are becoming and not knowing is absolutely the key… And the serenity prayer always the can do and cannot do and the wisdom to know the difference in the moment and hopefully all day…

Alcoholics Anonymous | February 15 2012 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 2 "Sanity" | Today's AA daily reflection: "the AA promises" in my early days make me feel very uneasy, because there had been so many promises by so many people and by me which were broken. And the notion that life would be beyond my wildest dreams made no sense at all. The best promise turned out to be if I listen and learn and can get to bed tonight without a drink, sober I can cope with reality just for a day…

I read out the promises from the big book at a newcomers meeting this week. And I try to read it slowly and clearly, emphasising the words to give them their full meaning. I do know that life today is certainly beyond my wildest dreams. After decades of burying my head in the sand when it came to emotions and anything to do with spiritual, I keep learning just one day at a time where life and freedom of choice can take me realistically day by day. And that is beyond my wildest dreams of back then in the day…

Step two all about being restored to sanity with the help of a higher power. And after a few years of recovery I have found that sanity can be restored on a daily basis, contingent on asking for help and checking out what is going on for me with other people. The greater wisdom of the many, asking myself in good conscience where are my freedoms and what are my choices today? Less fear and more faith, less isolation and more inclusion which helps me develop courage and confidence day by day for one day only, this one…

In the AA Fellowship big book, there is a sentence in chapter five, "rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path." And the sentence made me feel uneasy in my early days in recovery. First I had to find a path, and then overcome my own self prejudice and my attitudes towards other people and their wisdom in recovery. I was still judging the world and not judging me and my actions. Once on the path of recovery, with help and support within the Fellowship and outside the Fellowship, guidance comes and I am sober one day at a time. I've often seen people fail to thoroughly follow the path. Why? Because it is the opposite of the road most travelled by addicts and alcoholics, the road to hell and certain endings in this world…

With the death of Whitney Houston a few days ago being associated with excesses and addiction to drink and drugs, it does not surprise me that the impact is felt around the world. Our Prime Minister, David Cameron declares another initiative on drunkenness and violence caused by alcohol and drugs. As we learn in recovery, it is neither the amount of drugs and alcohol people take, it is the impact it has on them and their behaviour. If the reality of life today was all that it could be, and that people have realistic expectations in what Mr Cameron described as a fair society or as he put it, "the big society" then people would not resort to misbehaviour and excesses and addiction? My opinion, no one chooses addiction and nobody chooses exclusion from a good society…

DonInLondon 2005-2011

Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us-sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them...

I have found reality to be the greatest gift, the ability to cope with what is going on now in my life as it happens, with less denial and less grief. Clearing the wreckage of the past with forgiveness, with love and humility means I can see today with clarity. I feel right sized and equal right now...

"The Power Of Love"- Maxim Gorky "When one loves somebody, everything is clear - where to go, what to do - it all takes care of itself and one doesn't have to ask anybody about anything." When I am sober, more of life is clear, and in fellowship clarity comes with listening and sharing life on life’s terms...

Learning to learn again in every moment without fear, shame or guilt opens up the doors to a new way of living ~ Robert Frost "Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence." some say "beyond our wildest dreams," for me "now" is no longer my worst fears of being found out..

AA Daily Reflection: TAKING ACTION ~ FEBRUARY 15, Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us-sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 84

One of the most important things A.A. has given me, in addition to freedom from booze, is the ability to take “right action.” It says the promises will ALWAYS materialize if I WORK for them. Fantasizing about them, debating them, preaching about them and faking them just won’t work. I’ll remain a miserable, rationalizing dry drunk. By taking action and working the Twelve Steps in all my affairs, I’ll have a life beyond my wildest dreams.

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

Step Two Video 12 And 12