Alcoholics Anonymous Videos | DonInLondon

Alcoholics Anonymous Blog & Video | Feb 16 2004 - 2014 | DonInLondon | Step 2 "Sanity"

February 16 Video

DonInLondon February 16, 2014: step two month: "came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity." This morning feels really good, the weather is sunny and the winds have died down after weeks of rain and storms. I feel uplifted and quite happy this morning, because there is peace and quiet and I have been to meetings all week, which have sustained me and helped to keep me on an even keel every single day. Meetings give me perspective on my life, helped me understand how I am feeling in the moment of now.

Listening to a programme on the TV, all about God's will, and the interpretations made by different religious faiths is profoundly helpful. For every religious faith there seems to be some basic principles of how to live as best we can in the moment of now. And most importantly, people talk about living the truth of now, rather than trying to live to a set of traditions and beliefs which were drawn up centuries ago. The most progressives of the faiths do not distinguish between men and women, between their sexuality and they don't try impose rules laid down by mankind on people made by nature. Progress not perfect? Living in the moment of now, emotional and spiritual is quite simple and yet we make it so complicated. Emotional: understanding of feelings in this moment, and spiritual: surrendering to the truth of what is happening in this moment. So emotional and spiritual living: experiencing true feelings. And the truth in the moment of now. As to an understanding of God, this remains a personal perspective, and actually there are seven billion perspectives developing in the moment of now.

When I came to the Fellowship of AA, the word God did not make me feel like I needed to believe in God, or to reject God as a belief in a higher power. I was caught on this first part: emotional and spiritual. If I could really feel, and my feelings reflected the current conditions of today, be they good bad or ugly, if I could feel and live and surrender to the truth of now, that I was an alcoholic and needed help, I learned it was perfectly okay to ask for help. And no matter what another person's belief in God might be, they didn't ask me to believe as they believe, most simply try to help as best they could with what they knew and what they know today. The Fellowship of AA is a broad church of believers, agnostics and atheists and always remain so as long as mankind exists. Your path with the help of friends and the freedom to choose your beliefs one day at a time. Being restored to sanity: able to experience your feelings, able to experience life in the moment of now and cope with it, and then consider the possibilities of what lies beyond reality today. And, notwithstanding that God is a reality for many in the moment of now. So, try not to tread too harshly with opinions and beliefs which undermine other people's opinions and beliefs, one day at a time.

A really good meeting yesterday with quite a few newcomers. What amazes me is how quickly other people found recovery. And I found that recovery was quite difficult. Simply, I wanted to be able to recover on my own. And with my own self-will still intact, and righteous. Unfortunately, it took me quite a time to understand that recovery is all about everyone, sharing their experience strength and hope. And it took me a while to patch together all the different experiences shared by others, to hear my own story of decline into addiction. The more I listened to the experience, strength and hope of other people, the more I realised Fellowship was right for me. On many occasions, I listened to absolute nonsense from people struggling with their own recovery. And then I realised that most of what I said in my early days about my own recovery was full of tall stories about the past, and quite a few misleading statements about how well I felt only a few days into the Fellowship of AA. I wanted to fit in and took on the idea of a God of my understanding, which meant happily, that it was about the big picture and not my own picture, like the book about the portrait of Dorian Gray, on the surface and to the outside world, I was fine, but the picture of me, hidden away in an attic was very ugly indeed.

And not quite so long ago, somebody was talking about themselves as Jekyll and Hyde. Doctor Jekyll was the goodie, Mr Hyde was the baddie. But they got them mixed up and the wrong way round in their sharing. And it made me think about me, I was always getting the metaphor mixed up, the Jekyll & Hyde in me, could flip-flop in my own imagination. At least the metaphor was good enough, whether or not we have a portrait like that of Dorian Gray, hidden away, or something of the Jekyll & Hyde about us, the truth of these extremes and how we were are very appropriate. And often, the way our personalities and our personality traits could be impacted by addiction to alcohol or substances or behaviour, made us quite mad and far from sanity on a daily basis. Who cares to admit complete defeat? I do. And I surrender to the truth today. And given the current conditions today: can I surrender to the truth of now? Yes, because I need to know and truly experience the good, the bad and the ugly, today.

So how am I feeling today? In the moment of now really good, a few things to do, one part of my ongoing conflict with local government has been resolved. Other conflicts still remain, at the same time I have perspective. I am not trying to crush people and force people to my will and my way of doing things, I am just asking them to do things their way and hopefully get them done a bit quicker and acknowledge that they do have a responsibility for their actions. And even in that last part of the sentence trying to get them to acknowledge their responsibilities, it might be a step too far and quite unnecessary to get things done. And I was able to thank the individual concerned who put things right, properly and immediately and totally within their power.

DonInLondon 2004 - 2013

Alcoholics Anonymous | February 16 2013 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 2 "Sanity" | "emotional and spiritual: experiencing feelings as they are in the moment of now, whether they are good, bad or ugly or all of them at once!" Restored to sanity in this good, bad and ugly world where we can experience our feelings in the moment of now, no bigger or smaller than they are, based on what is happening right now. If we understand our feelings, how they impact on our thinking on the way we behave and act, then we know the how and why, and maybe the what to do next. Good feeling, good thinking and good actions. Bad feeling, bad thinking and bad actions. Ugly feeling, ugly thinking and ugly actions. My feelings impact on my thinking in the moment of now...

Being restored to sanity is part of the journey one day at a time. In an instant, because I have a brain full of experiences, I can be drawn to olden times and reactions that used to fit with my old outlook and attitudes. And sometimes, in the days of insanity, those old actions and attitudes and outlooks were not wrong for those times. Today I can see the difference in my mood, my thinking and the actions which follow. Just because somebody else behaves badly, I don't have to join in. Just because somebody else needs to take the edge off, I don't have to join in. And just because I feel like the world is doing me down and is against me or is against me? Actually I don't believe the world is against me, the world is not prejudiced, people, places and things maybe depending on who I am and how I behave today…

Cover-up and spin doctors. Covering up the truth, not taking responsibility when in charge, not being accountable when accountable. Unfair distribution of money, the rich eat beef, the poor, unwittingly eating horse and donkey. I don't even know if the prime corned beef I had a Christmas from Harrods was really corned beef at all. And now it seems the whole world fashions itself on deceit and governments and commercial industries valiantly avoid the truth at all costs, usually the cost is always to those they serve in one form or another. The industry of lying, avoidance and evasion and hiding behind legal edicts, to never tell the truth seems more transparent these days than ever was. Even though it may seem contrary to what we see, the truth is coming out more often than the old way of covering up just another crisis which never got reported... How we choose to live today, as individuals and as world citizens is becoming even more important for those who wish to be sane, even though we can see the insanity about and around us day-to-day…

I quite like learning every day to be as truthful and loving as I can, making progress and knowing the world has gone to hell in a hand basket. Large organisations and governments work with self-interest at their heart, rather than the interests of the majority. Truth and love do lead to more wisdom, more progress and not perfection. How we find the balance each day is a matter of personal conscience for the individual. I have learned that truth, love and wisdom work for me on a daily basis, and being open, honest and willing to change is always helping me develop a better outlook on life. At the same time I am an emotional person and can be very angry at the way other people are manipulated into lying on behalf of something they feel they need to defend. Lies, damned lies and statistics! An ideology or doctrine will kill people on the other side of it. That is why there is no ideology in fellowship, the fellowship of AA that is. At the same time people in AA do have their own affiliations beliefs and opinions, their own ideologies and their own outlooks, all you need to know is that you don't have to adopt other people's notions or beliefs or opinions, fellowship is super for sobriety, and really crap for ideology today…

And then this notion of being restored to sanity by a higher power. The higher power resides in the many, and never in one single individual, especially me! Restoration to sanity contingent on being aware of what's going on, can actually drive us insane again in the sense that we can be mad as hell at life. With all the injustice in the world, especially when we are new to sobriety can be the very devil in trying to keep sober. Our first encounters with reality after fixing our feelings for so many years, it can be a truly brutal eye-opener to realise that we are full of expectations and entitlements we simply do not have. And the harsh reality and cold light of day, can seem very unfair when we feel we have fallen into addiction even though we had no intention and just simply wanted to fix our feelings when they were raw or when they were joyful and we wanted more joy instantly and continuously. I suppose I wanted happiness and a way to get there as quickly as possible? I would work hard and party hard, I just wasn't built for it? Actually, nobody is…

Apparently in the UK and in Europe, we have been feeding horse and donkey to children in schools. I don't know which schools have been buying horse and donkey to feed to children, I do know it is more likely to have been on the menu in schools with little money and a poor menu of processed food. After years of campaigning by celebrity chefs to improve the diet of youngsters to no good effect, schools have "doggedly" kept to budgeting and driving down costs, has led to criminality and the insanity which now prevails. No accountability and no responsibility is taken by those in any part of the supply chain for their part in it, including the horses and the donkeys who were powerless over the people, the places and the things that went on… And when will we be restored to sanity? Progress not perfect today… I was going to ask for horse and donkey stock cubes in my local supermarket yesterday, it was based on the notion of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the same flavour in my lasagne today…

Alcoholics Anonymous | February 16 2012 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 2 "Sanity" | Today's AA daily reflection: "from tourist and watcher to citizen and worker." With TV reality and talent shows, we watch and judge and similarly we can be observers, rather than doers in our own lives. Addicted to success, judging it in others and not looking at what we do day by day, we can be passive awaiting answers and not knowing the questions. Sober, I am more engaged in "doing" through service and commitment. The quality of life I have today is contingent on me working life and reality and coping with it…Back in the day I became a very good judge of the world around me and could find the good, and equally find fault and for a long time I was a problem solver and decision-maker. And then I lost the plot. In recovery, the gift of engaging and being part of life, being part of the solution and not the problem keeps me on my toes and aware of what I do and not what others do today…

What are the right principles and attitudes? We can only find this out for ourselves and at the same time the principles of unity service and recovery keep me involved and engaged in Fellowship day-to-day. The three attitudes which are espoused in our programme are about being open, honest and willing to change. Open, honest and willing to change is a daily occurrence. The saying "if it ain't broke don't fix it" is not the answer for me, nothing is broken in recovery and nothing needs fixing, we simply keep on changing one day at a time as life changes one day at a time…

And from today's AA a daily reflection, "the wisdom to know the difference" just highlights what we can do and cannot do as the ingredients of life are an ever-changing recipe. What I could do yesterday may not be appropriate today. The solution today can be a problem tomorrow if I'm stuck and unyielding to changing circumstances. As M Scott Peck said, "life is difficult," and if we accept that life is difficult day by day, "difficult" is not the issue, it is how we change and adapt and find the solution in our actions and living today…

DonInLondon 2005-2011

To love, be loved and useful...~ Erich Fromm "Immature love says "I love you because I need you." Mature love says "I need you because I love you." -/- What is love? Beyond definition always. Love is a feeling...

Love... either we are all in or all out... ~ Rollo May "Hate is not the opposite of love; apathy is." My Father, on his death bed said to me, "three words to consider how we treat ourselves and others" We "Cherish" or are "Superficial" and "Indifferent"

Embrace all our feelings and we learn to know them ~ Rollo May "Courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair." -/- Back in the Day too much: Fear, Brave Facing, Ego, more in this day: courage, faith and confidence...

Let go, let in the good of now, from conscience, wisdom of others and the truth of now ~ Rollo May "Human freedom involves our capacity to pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight." We do not deserve a particular life, we work at living and choices come...

Panic and Anxiety can make us frantic ~ Rollo May "It is an ironic habit of human beings to run faster when we have lost our way." A steady path and course allow us to increase our pace as we respond from wisdom and not react in blind fear...

AA Daily Reflection: COMMITMENT ~ FEBRUARY 16, Understanding is the key to right principles and attitudes, and right action is the key to good living. TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 125

There came a time in my program of recovery when the third stanza of the Serenity Prayer - “The wisdom to know the difference” -became indelibly imprinted in my mind. From that time on, I had to face the ever-present knowledge that my every action, word and thought was within, or outside, the principles of the program. I could no longer hide behind self-rationalization, nor behind the insanity of my disease. The only course open to me, if I was to attain a joyous life for myself (and subsequently for those I love), was one in which I imposed on myself an effort of commitment, discipline, and responsibility.

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