Alcoholics Anonymous Videos | DonInLondon

Alcoholics Anonymous Blog & Video | Feb 25 2004 - 2014 | DonInLondon | Step 2 "Sanity"

February 25 Video

DonInLondon February 25, 2014: step two month: "came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity." As time goes by in recovery, we do have the opportunity to gain more perspective and discover the truth of now more easily. Getting to the truth of now can make us feel happy or sad, loving or hateful, however we feel, we have greater freedom of choice because we know the truth in the current conditions today. And then we live more peacefully and with serenity, if that is possible, or the opposite when life feels impossible.

Meditation practised in two ways, the inner voice we have. That inner voice is driven by our emotions and our thinking. Whether we like it or not, we have an internal dialogue going on all the time with ourselves. We have basic needs and fantastic wants driven by emotions and thinking. If we are in freefall, not really taking account of the inner voice of judgement about needs and wants, we are in a labyrinth or a maze, which is hard to navigate without applying ourselves to what is going on inside our heads, and how it impacts on what we do in the outside world of now. Imagination, fantasy and reality spinning around inside us all the time before we open our mouths to talk, and share what's going on with another human being.

Just back from the meeting, and I feel energised happy, sad, uplifted, disoriented, and angry about something which has nothing to do with the meeting, to do with me and my medical people. This morning’s meeting all about truth, and actually living to the reality of now. I did want to share in the meeting, I wasn't picked and it did not matter. Although I was able to share with the principal speaker this morning after the meeting in if it was only for a few short moments, I was able to emphasise and meet them on equal terms. And with equal friendship.

Even now, trying to write a few words, my mind races back to wanting to deal with the medical issues I raised, and the written communication received by me is very bothering. On one hand I would be reasonable, on the other hand, I want to impart truth and put things straight. The problem is the truth being offered by the medical people is far outside any truth I have shared with them. Which means there are conflicting statements about the truth of what happened and the reasons behind the conflict. Truth will out in the end, I just need to adjust my approach and am not sure how I will do that just now.

Happily in all conflicts I may encounter today, if I can be true to myself, share my truth objectively, and still understand my emotions which are impacting on my thinking, I can keep perspective. No matter what the outcome may be, if truth is found or truth is lacking. It will inform me about next steps. Sometimes next steps may feel uncomfortable, at the same time the next steps may be necessary to resolve misunderstandings and misstatements by people and I might be one of the people! Medical issues! Local government issues! Tread careful and beware the potholes of life.

Great conversations with people in the right place, concentrating on the right things, makes for a good start to the day. And fortunately for me, I need to take a spoonful of humility before I start anything, open to learning, open to both support and challenge and be mindful of the feelings of other people.

DonInLondon 2004 - 2013

Alcoholics Anonymous | February 25 2013 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 2 "Sanity" "just for today… I will live today…" Stripping emotional and spiritual to the bare bones, emotional: experiencing feelings which are right for the experience of now, feelings fitting spiritual: spiritual being in the moment of now and coping, and if we are not coping, having the humility to ask for help.

What is a good day for you? When you know everything, cope with everything, and everything works just as you would like it? A Groundhog Day maybe, or a bit like the Stepford wives? A good day for me: a gentle meditation for a few seconds, accepting there will be many parts of today, and many constituents today which will be good, or bad or ugly. And it will always be mixed up, part of the day will give me freedom to choose, part of the day I will feel constrained and powerless and part of the day I may not understand much, but I can ask… Humility means I know that I don't know things. And when things are beyond my experience, I can ask for help. If there is no help available, that is okay. If people assume I ought to know by now, or look at me in my ignorance and wonder why I don't know, they can still help me. If people don't want to help me because they cannot be bothered, that is their problem and I do not need the problem to be mine alone...

Bullying! The territory of the bleeding Deacon! Bleeding deacons is a term used in fellowship to depict the worst of sobriety, where everything still needs to be the way a Deacon wants it. And the bleeding Deacon can bleat and bleat, and take the initiative away and require everything just so, just so they like it that way. It is a form of bullying to abuse and dictate and undermine others. In life, the experts can undermine the novice by their egocentric behaviour. Experts are for wisdom learned over the decades and not from some book they have read or an exam they have passed. Governments and the media are forever employing consultants, and the consultants are the ones who cause most breakdowns, abuse and psychosis, because they think they know better. And they have disdain for those who do not follow their path!

Within the fellowship, we have elder statesman, and the elder statesman is full of it, wisdom that is… And the elder statesman knows that wisdom is useless unless it is shared in an open, honest and willing way. The elder statesman also knows that wisdom over the years, keeps on changing and "new blood" will be learning not only from the elder statesman, they will be learning from life as it is in the moment of now. In fellowship terms, the elder statesman sees everyone is equal, everyone is on a learning path, some know more about this and some know more about that. Elder statesman have no power and need no power, and have no desire, particularly to influence people one way or another, they simply weigh up the pros and cons and leave it to individuals to work out what they can and cannot do and the wisdom to know the difference one day at a time…

Fellowship is just like ordinary life, there will be gossiping bullies and bleeding deacons littered around the environment and there will also be elder statesman not so littering and probably not that obvious to those attracted to bright shiny individuals pontificating and suggesting they know best and have a way for you to live like them. In fellowship we will be attracted to good sobriety? Not necessarily one day at a time! Fellowship is full of romance and financial opportunities to the good, the bad and the ugly! And when we are new in fellowship we can be attracted to all the old qualities we might find valuable, when the real value of fellowship is about sobriety and not about your libido or your bank balance… Bleeding deacons will tell you to put on your chastity belt, get your finances sorted out and wear dark cloths and find a puritanical hat! Elder statesman on the other hand, will advise or suggest that fellowship is for sober, and once you are comfortable in your sobriety, then you have the freedom of choice all over again, and the good news and the bad news and the ugly news, in sobriety with all those choices we can still end up doing the same again… The absolute good news is we find out sooner rather than later. The can do and cannot do and the wisdom to know the difference is more likely to happen just for today...

Just watching a celebrity chef on TV, going into a hospital canteen facility to help the staff and manager… A fresh pair of eyes looking for economy as well as quality. And the celebrity chef within moments is able to identify a massive waste of money on ingredients which are not good and not necessary. The celebrity chef looks on with disdain and disbelief at the manager, walks away, and says to the camera something like, "I just saved them 10,000 pounds and have only been here for five minutes…" Putting down and abusing others is no way to train or develop new ways and new attitudes of working. The same is true within fellowship, a fellowship that is based on love: emotional and spiritual development is painful enough, and the same applies when we put these principles of living into our lives outside the fellowship. Abusing people and belittling people will get those people nowhere, principles of equality, openness, honest and willing will evoke the same in others. Wisdom Sharers encourage the sharing of wisdom, bullies encourage bullying and abuse in this life. I know it, it happened to me. And it broke me, and I am grateful I was broken enough and now repaired with wisdom. One day at a time…

How am I feeling today? I feel tired and stretched out. So I need time to rest. The beginning of a new week, more importantly living in the day I can utilise my senses and check what is going on, emotionally and spiritually, and also physically one day at a time. Becoming overtired will undermine my serenity, and I've just discovered that because of the way Facebook works, there is a huge amount of email, I have not been able to access or be updated in recent months. I feel like I have let people down by not understanding the changing nature of Facebook, and how it works. And I'm not sure what to do about it. Just for a day… Easy does it, and see what I can do and cannot do today…

Alcoholics Anonymous | February 25 2012 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 2 "Sanity” Today’s AA's daily reflection: "failure and success depends on our outlook." We seem to live in a world where pass and fail are with us from early childhood. Upgrading and downgrading, and most often as we measure we are degrading rather than building. When it comes to human development, nothing is wasted if we have the right outlook…

A recent British Prime Minister before taking office used to say "education, education and education" as his slogan before being elected. Learning is life long and if we take each situation where ever we are as an opportunity to keep on learning about life, what we can do and what we cannot do as we go along, we keep on building and learning every single day. Best of all we keep learning how to love, be loved back and useful today…

Truth love and wisdom! The more we can see the truth of our situation, what seems unacceptable becomes very acceptable. Truth is the building block of life and it is better to find truth rather than live to falsehoods. Love certainly does make the world go round and very worthwhile, so learning love, how to love without conditions and be loved back especially without conditions makes life worthwhile. And the wisdom? Is always growing day by day…

Humility is a keyword and a key action in recovery. For me, I just keep learning and understanding life daily. One of the most useful experiences in recovery has been learning how to say no to what is redundant or simply not what I want to do. At the same time we all have "need to do actions" and often obligations to those around us. Learning the difference, the needs of others and my own needs versus wants, "I want" is often wanting too much from people, places and things which serves no purpose ultimately in my life or theirs, whoever they may be…

DonInLondon 2005-2011

Through experience and learning with humility, growth started, followed by gratitude. Yes, then came peace of mind - living in and sharing sobriety

"After Eights" a great meeting, new secretary, brilliant chair. Our emotional and spiritual fellowship. Emotional is feeling our feelings, spiritual is living and coping with reality. When our feelings match reality and we are sober, happy or sad we experience serenity in the moment of now! Wonderful

Start and Restart our days... New actions, new attitudes, new behaviour... ~ Andre Gide "Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again." -/- Practice makes for progress as sober-sanity develops, what we do differently, not others!

Sanity returns as we put our action into new life experiences, slow, slow, quick, quick, slow ~ Benjamin Franklin "Experience keeps a dear school, but we fools will learn in no other way." -/- Look back at the madness, don't stare, today is where we are… action to the good of living is key...

Sober, we develop a deeper understanding of ourselves and others and it takes time... ~ Randolph Bourne "Few people even scratch the surface, much less exhaust the contemplation of their own experience." -/- New ways of living take on meaning and substance, we feel different and behave differently…

We might have wished it different, now we understand from torments to acceptance and changing, always putting in action ~ Auguste Rodin "Nothing is a waste of time if we use the experience wisely." -/- Consider our behaviour not that of others, change ourselves is key... always in our action!

AA Daily Reflection: THE CHALLENGE OF FAILURE ~ FEBRUARY 25, In God’s economy, nothing is wasted. Through failure, we learn a lesson in humility which is probably needed, painful though it is. AS BILL SEES IT, p. 31

How thankful I am today, to know that all my past failures were necessary for me to be where I am now. Through much pain came experience and, in suffering, I became obedient. When I sought God, as I understand Him, He shared His treasured gifts. Through experience and obedience, growth started, followed by gratitude. Yes, then came peace of mind - living in and sharing sobriety.

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

Step Two Video 12 And 12