Alcoholics Anonymous Videos | DonInLondon

Alcoholics Anonymous Blog & Video | Feb 20 2004 - 2014 | DonInLondon | Step 2 "Sanity"

February 20 Video

DonInLondon February 20, 2014: step two month: "came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity." Emotional and spiritual starts with the first breath of life. Nature provides the basics, natural and evolving. Nurture provides enriching experiences developing in the moment of now. On my own, nature and nurture work to enrich my experiences one day at a time. On my own, one perspective. When I share and listen, equally important, my perspective gets bigger, the truth gets bigger, providing I am able to hear the truth, which is bigger than me. If it ain't broke don't fix it is an old saying. In my case I was completely broken by my own perspective, and needed desperately to listen to the experience, strength and hope of others better equipped, and dealing with life in the moment.

My early morning meeting, actually it is not my meeting, I don't own it. And this is a principle I need to respect and acknowledge, I don't own or control anything emotionally and spiritually today. And when I say I don't own anything, in this emotional and spiritual world, where feelings and coping with reality in the moment of now, everything keeps changing moment to moment because it can and does. The devil in the detail is when I think I'm in control and have ownership of anything. So, the early-morning meeting yesterday was about step four. Step four is the fearless moral inventory, about clearing the wreckage of the past so we understand how we got to where we are and how we got to recovery and what we need to do next.

Going to different types of Fellowship meetings gives me a better perspective and understanding. And hearing the reading of step four read out, helped me see with more clarity, even after all these years, how valuable and essential the steps are to my recovery. I realise the first three steps opened me up as a person to the possibilities of recovery being possible. With step one, trying not to have power over anything in particular, and make decisions in the moment to the good of recovery and not trying to control drinking. Step two, accepting every single day that the truth of life is evolving, emotionally and spiritually. And evolution does not mean a progression forwards always, sometimes we go backwards while we start to learn this whole process over and over again. And then step three, being able to surrender to the truth of now, meant it was possible to deal with the emotional and spiritual blockages I had put in place to protect me from the truth about myself over the years.

And I remember trying to do step four every way I could possibly muster without the help of other people. And what I realised in my first couple of years, the only way I could write out the step four was to have another person involved as a sounding board, a listening post, and someone with some experience of living life, free from drink or whatever addiction it might be. Step four is a liberating exercise in understanding history, the emotions and feelings we suppress, the situations we don't like to talk about, and the drastic consequences of not facing up to the truth of now, or then, or in the future. That film title: "despicable me," that is where I started, and then I found all the other facets of me, not so horrible and not so despicable. After all in the eyes of everybody else, for decades I was a success.

Overall, quite an emotional meeting, and I felt I wanted to speak to quite a few people at the end. I wanted to thank them for their sharing. And sometimes you just can't get to share to everyone and say how grateful we are. When people share about step four, it is often about experiencing our history all over again, this time without our feelings being suppressed and those feelings erupt in a way which is completely beyond our control. The way we controlled those unacceptable feelings in the past, whatever substances or behaviour we used are not available. And so the feelings are raw and we feel everything at extremes, often followed by numbness and shock. When everything is happening in the moment of now, and feelings erupt, step four is a release. If we are able to cope and ask for support, we are likely on our path, our particular path unique to us as individuals just one day at a time. It may be unique, to each individual, at the same time every individual can follow this path with the help of fellows and anyone else, we feel is right to involve.

DonInLondon 2004 - 2013

Alcoholics Anonymous | February 20 2013 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 2 "Sanity" | "common ground, common sense and gumption!" Step two, "came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity." At the beginning of each meeting, especially newcomers meetings, we are encouraged to listen to the similarities and not the differences when people share their experience, strength and hope…" In early days, sometimes all we can hear are the differences being shared, so we can find our get out, a way out of fellowship, so we can return to the insanity…

From the first meeting to the second meeting of fellowship, when I really did not understand what was going on, there was a five-year gap. In my first meeting of AA, I had been pushed through the doors by an anxious family member who told me to go in and sort myself out. The irony? Being pushed through the doors into a meeting of AA, and all these smiling people, some I knew as neighbours, health club friends and arts club members. And of course, a scattering of famous individuals living in my area. All I could see on my first visit were the differences, and the one similarity eluded me completely. That I was in a meeting of alcoholics, and strange as it may seem, I too was an alcoholic, the difference for me was simple. Looking back I was in denial and even though I was an alcoholic, and I admitted and accepted I was an alcoholic when I was there, as soon as I left the meeting, I rejected the notion of being an alcoholic and proceeded to the pub at the end of the road. Another five years of agony to follow…

This is the insanity, we know we have a problem and yet the problem is so big we cannot see a way out. And so we keep on drinking, the insanity of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. It never occurred to me that the sanity of going to meetings over and over again, would lead to a different result every day, that every day in recovery is different, and I keep on learning how to deal with them, experience them, enjoy them and hate them. Depending on what is going on, life is good, bad and ugly, all rolled up together some days, and then we find manageability starts to happen as we live in the moment and just for a day. As if by magic? It is a miracle? Depending on your definition of magic and miracles, the actuality is sober days just keep on happening if we are doing good things to keep our sanity and gain strength in being part of a great number of people with one aim, and one primary purpose: be sober and life will keep on happening and we don't need to drink one day at a time…

It took me a long time to come out of isolation, the place where I could judge the world as the world was judging me. And it took a long time to recognise just how low my self-esteem and capacity to live had got, rock bottom had not been a concept within me, or in my vocabulary. And when we are in a state of depression and desolation, we still don't know what rock bottom is, other than we are living it, most likely and there is no way out of the insanity we are experiencing, except one, oblivion and trauma by continuing to drink. When we are at rock bottom, we have gone far beyond simple self-harm with any conscious understanding, it is the acceptance of life being too hard to live and likely we have given up and have no gift of desperation, we may desire the gift of expiration...

Fellowship did provide me with a safe place to sit, eventually to be able to listen, and start to hear other people share similar stories to my own horrible descent into alcoholism. And then they started sharing about how their journey had improved very, very slowly and they started to feel the cold light of day. And then the cold light of day started to have a warmth about it, as people stayed together and shared their experience, strength and hope in meetings. I started to hear the common ground we all share, a desire to be sober and share about it. And that life is going to improve with positive routines and I could help others understand how to do things, how to adopt a new way of living and to live a real life. One of the things which really hit home, emotional and spiritual living. And although many people have a more profound and wider understanding of emotional and spiritual than me, which includes their religion beliefs and opinions, I truly understood emotional and spiritual to mean: experiencing my feelings which fitted the reality of my situation. And if they didn't, feelings fitting with what is going on, I was probably better off asking for help to understand why I was out of tune with the reality of now… Usually a head full of old notions, expectations and entitlements I had no right to expect under any circumstances living in the moment of now…

I needed to let go of the old entitlements and expectations and old notions of what the world should be delivering to me. Indeed, it turned out that nothing was being delivered to anyone unless they truly worked hard and learned how to get whatever it was they thought they ought to have. And the same is true today, I am not entitled, the old notions of life and how life used to be do not exist. Most things we take for granted, a roof over our head and enough food are not available all the time, and even in the United Kingdom, there are areas today which could be classified as Third World rather than one of the richest economies on the planet. Distribution of wealth? Very unequal and especially for those who have seen better days as part of the economic success story, it can be very difficult to accept the raw truth of poverty in recovery one day at a time. I suppose it depends on what criteria we use for poverty, I would say true in the material world, at the same time, in the emotional and spiritual world of now, I feel a real connection and richness I never experienced in the old life of standing on my own two feet, working myself to death, and drinking myself into a stupor one day at a time…

How do I feel today? I do have deep gratitude to be part of something bigger than me, fellowship with common ground on common understanding. I enjoy what I understand of the emotional and spiritual life, living in the moment where I experience feelings as they can be in relation to reality. My emotional range is far greater than it ever was, what I thought were negative feelings turned out to be simply feelings which I have, because I am human and I'm having a human experience. My experience is no better or worse than anybody else. Today, emotional and spiritual means much more than material wealth on any calculation I might discover to show how well life works in the moment of now…

Common ground, common sense and gumption are on offer to anyone anywhere within fellowship and outside the fellowship. And as we can be restored to sanity on a daily basis, we can see the common ground and the common sense and the gumption being applied by humans who are sober today. At the same time we will see many contradictions in people and their behaviour as they keep on learning the truth, love and wisdom of living today. Emotional and spiritual learning is the most difficult element of human endeavour, if we feel vulnerable, fear can snap and cut off and suppress our development. On the other hand if we truly understand that is okay to be vulnerable, and to learn new life experiences and adapt ourselves each day, with humility, most of the time nothing can undo the learning, which can be good, bad and ugly, depending on circumstances and the people we encounter one day at a time. And most importantly, we get our freedom to choose the path which works today…

Alcoholics Anonymous | February 20 2012 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 2 "Sanity" | Today's AA daily reflection: "feeling the highs and lows of life." By the end of my drinking days, I could hardly feel a thing beyond a dark and desolate pain which ached in my gut and all I wanted was oblivion. As a newcomer in Alcoholics Anonymous, the laughter of other people disturbed me immensely. I kept on going, 90 meetings in 90 days, they were not laughing at me, they were laughing at the absurdity of life and I joined in and began to laugh again...

A wonderful meeting yesterday, a newcomers meeting and our principal sharer began by saying stop thinking! I must say I loved what was shared, I promised myself I would go to this meeting a few hours earlier and in between I am sure I came up with 1000 reasons not to go. Even today some years in recovery I can still think my way out what is good for me rather than go with the feeling of what is good me…

I know if I really do ask myself every day, when I wake up, "how am I feeling?" "Why?" "And what can I do next?" Often I have no clue why I feel good, bad or simply indifferent… At the same time it's good to ask why and usually if I don't feel good, it's because I am hungry, angry, lonely or tired, or any combination or just one of those things. If I feel good, why not go to a meeting or make contact with another human being? If I feel hungry angry lonely or tired, I better make conscious contact with another human being and have a reality check…

A reality check for me is about my emotional and spiritual condition. Knowing what my feelings are and how able am I to cope with the reality of my situation right now. Feelings always influence my thinking and feelings are happening all the time whether I like them or not. So if I know what my feelings are doing, I have a chance to think about what next and aim toward a solution rather than a problem or making a problem worse. Actions can change my feelings and often the thinking part about what to do next is heavily influenced by the twelve steps and experience strength and hope shared in meetings of the fellowship…

Yesterday afternoon after the meeting I met with friends and friends relatives for what I thought was going to be tea and cakes, fun and laughter. It was more than that, I was fed dinner and coffee and numerous sorts of cakes! And the delight of good company, old friends, new friends all of us laughing together, telling true stories and me sharing "tall stories" and sometimes so gleeful I cannot tell the difference from where truth ends and fictions exaggerate the humour I share… To love and be loved back just as we may be with all our human idiosyncrasies is the best it can be…

DonInLondon 2005-2011

Came to believe that a power greater than us... ~ Mark Twain "The more we explain it, the more we don't understand it." Truth, love and wisdom of others a good start, sometimes in defining we return to denial, there is purpose in everything...

I do need to lean on the many in fellowship, and get help outside the fellowship when I am out of my depth. Experience has taught me the limits of what I can and cannot do. In fellowship as a nonprofessional and as a citizen in daily life, when there is an emergency, we call emergency services and apply first aid as we may be trained...

Ralph Waldo Emerson "Play out the game, act well your part, and if the gods have blundered, we will not."

The more we know the less we know ~ Mark Twain "The most interesting information comes from children, for they tell all they know and then stop." In the ever present moment we know what we know, then we learn more with an open mind...

Laughter and not taking ourselves too seriously, all the time! ~Joan Lunden "Holding on to anger, resentment and hurt only gives you tense muscles, a headache and a sore jaw from clenching your teeth. Forgiveness gives you back the laughter and the lightness in your life." -/- Forgive, forgive forgive...

In our fellowship we see the walking dead restored to sanity [some of the time...] Linda Ellerbee "I have always felt that laughter in the face of reality is probably the finest sound there is and will last until the day when the game is called on account of darkness. In this world, a good time to laugh is any time you can." Our gallows humour may seem insane to some, back from the brink we are lucky and laughter comes in time...

AA Daily Reflection: THE GIFT OF LAUGHTER ~ FEBRUARY 20, At this juncture, his A.A. sponsor usually laughs. TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 26

Before my recovery from alcoholism began, laughter was one of the most painful sounds I knew. I never laughed and I felt that anyone else’s laughter was directed at me! My self-pity and anger denied me the simplest of pleasures or lightness of heart. By the end of my drinking not even alcohol could provoke a drunken giggle in me. When my A.A. sponsor began to laugh and point out my self-pity and ego-feeding deceptions, I was annoyed and hurt, but it taught me to lighten up and focus on my recovery. I soon learned to laugh at myself and eventually I taught those I sponsor to laugh also. Every day I ask God to help me stop taking myself too seriously.

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

Step Two Video 12 And 12