Alcoholics Anonymous Videos | DonInLondon

Alcoholics Anonymous Blog & Video | March 15 2004 - 2014 | DonInLondon | Step 3 "Your Higher Power"

March 15 Video

DonInLondon March 15, 2014: step three month: "made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him." A really good day! I keep silly hours, I wake up very early and sleep when others are probably awake in my time zone. I enjoy my solitude, and I enjoy fellowship. Two meetings in one morning and in between, coffee and a chat with my partner in crime! Mind you, we don't do anything criminal.

Chatting with a friend in one of the meetings, we were talking about alcoholism. And the fact that alcoholism is a disease can still be very difficult to appreciate as a newcomer, and anyone who isn't afflicted. Will power will fail if we are an addict of some kind or another, and if we accept that powerlessness over people places and things, the addictive substance, if we truly accept powerlessness, what follows is freedom.

And sitting in the first meeting of the day, somebody said that they were able to make friends with themselves once they realised it was okay to be in recovery and acknowledge chronic nature of addiction. And they were pleased to make friends with themselves, because it meant they could make friends with everybody else, and they got a deeper understanding of the human condition. Our human condition. When we are young we are able to learn, and as we get older, we can become reluctant to learn anything. Reloading life from scratch can be the greatest freedom of all, some call this, letting go and surrendering to the truth of now.

And later on, in another meeting, it was all about identification. Being able to identify oneself as being an alcoholic or an addict, this identification process, where we listen to the experience, strength and hope of others, and learn what it is to be in recovery. Again, the freedom to let go and learn again. Mention of the AA big book as a means of identifying with others through their experience strength and hope is all part of learning and overcoming denial and a reluctance to let go self will. When people say that self-will, will run riot, of course it will, if that is what we think, and we are driven by pride, ego and fear.

Talking to people during and after the meetings is all part of the identification process, within the fellowship we are a band of brothers and sisters who can talk freely, share our fears, share our successes and share all sorts of ideas about how to improve matters. Within groups, all sorts of ideas come up, and somebody suggested a VIP section within a particular meeting, where the VIP could be guaranteed a seat, and refreshments of a superior kind, and a guaranteed share, at a premium price to the pot. A good way to try and improve finances, until they realise that we just don't run groups that way in fellowship. I cannot imagine the uproar if such a suggestion were ever put to a group conscience. And the sun was shining.

DonInLondon 2004 - 2013

Alcoholics Anonymous | March 15 2013 | Steps In Action | Step 3 "Your Higher Power" "if I don't know what's right for me, how on earth would I judge what is right for you?" How often do we put ourselves in the shoes of other people and see what they see? And do we give them respect for who they are, what is happening to them and their emotional and spiritual living? Do I really respect you? Or do I pay lip service to equality?

Understanding other people and their needs and wants is a good way to start to level our conversation with the world. If we are all equal, I need to remind myself that you have a right to your way of life, and I have no right to interfere or instruct you in anyway. True humility is about respecting the outlook of other people and how they want to live their lives. And we can be respectful and still continue to live our life the way we feel is right for ourselves. It is very easy to write people off and forget about them, and then we lose their truth, love and wisdom which was available if only… If only we had given them a chance and listened to what they have to say…

We can go blundering into other people's lives, as if we had a right to be there. In fellowship, I don't know what happens to our common manners. In a meeting, we can be chatting with people we know, hear somebody else speak, and suddenly we are on their case and trying to talk to them. We will walk over and find them in conversation with another person, and interrupt to make a point we feel is relevant. Without any hint of, "excuse me, could I just say…" Most often a person with something on their mind will push in and start talking as fast as they can about what they heard or what they want to tell without thought for the conversation that might have been happening between two other people…

Often after a "chair" which has been particularly inspiring, a group of people will descend upon the speaker and the speaker will be drowned in many conversations happening over and over, and all jumbled up. As the recipient of all these thankful words and gestures of support, it can be overwhelming to the point of being senseless and unusable information. And the newcomer, can often suffer from too much information about what they should do, and never hear the simple suggestions which help a person into sobriety. If you see a newcomer with a wise person that you know, why not leave them to it? The higher power does not necessarily have to work through you today…

"I don't know what I don't know until I get there…" Sometimes the best way for the higher power to work, is through other people and not through me! I sometimes wonder if some of our fellows would be better off in "Stalkers Anonymous" because they are so anxious to share the message of experience strength and hope in their own way, rather than let another person start the conversation. Indeed there are such people in our fellowship, Stalkers! Letting go and letting other people who have more in common, have more similarities with the newcomer are the higher power today. The wisdom to know the difference about when and how to help new people in sobriety and new people in the area is best left to the choices of the individual most of the time, rather than impose ourselves and our outlook on the unsuspecting and very suspicious recipient of our attention today…

I was just chatting to my best friend about someone being a very friendly and sometimes overfamiliar old dog, meaning a silver haired devil with an eye for the ladies. She knows how to handle herself with old dogs and silver haired old Devils. And yet just because she can handle herself, it does not mean other women can too. Any amount of warnings about old Devils and cougars on the rampage may get the attention of their prey, what they don't realise these days is that the object of their desire is often more savvy, and then the tables are turned much faster than in the olden times when I could be found in the cougars lair. Was I harmed? Absolutely not. I wanted to be there and was very happy to be so. At the time… Coming back to the point, if I don't know what is right for me, how on earth could I make a judgement about what is right for you? In fellowship, the journey in recovery is what it can be with what we know, just for today…

How am I feeling today? Having shared some laughter with my best friend on the phone, accepted that I am powerless over alcohol, what people do, the places they go and the things they get up to, I'm very happy. And life is manageable around personal choices and personal freedoms I have today. If I start to interfere in the lives of other people, I will feel their anger. If anyone asks me for help and I make suggestions, they may be happy to hear them, and the suggestions might be useful. Often the suggestions I make may lead to further debate and better outcomes than my initial starting point. Then I have more information and more of an informed outlook from where I started in the moment of now. That is progress, I was asked for help and ended up having more information and a better informed outlook and so did the other person I'm thinking about just now. Practising all twelve steps, and contingent on my awareness of progress and not perfection means anything is possible based on the reality of now…

Life can be full of laughter, even when we feel like we can be in the ugliest of times, a sense of humour or a sense of hysteria and not sure which applies to me, will cheer me up no end. Humour and feeling that sense of warmth, even in the most difficult of times can help us through difficult days in recovery. I know when I need the company of other people, it is when I feel raw emotion watching news programmes which just leave me, powerless and sorrowful. When the tears flow, and when I cannot shut them off, it means that I have lost perspective or does it? Raw emotion is what it is and I'm glad I feel it. When I try to rationalise horror, that is when I am losing my humanity. And a meeting or ten will put me back in a place of understanding and acceptance. Powerlessness to change the world. And yet freedom to feel the truth of now is liberating and truly human. When I feel the truth of now, I am absolutely in the right place, good bad or ugly, the emotional and spiritual journey is worth it today…

Alcoholics Anonymous | March 15 2013 | Steps In Action | Step 3 "Your Higher Power" Today's AA daily reflection: "spirit of the universe…" I can relate to the spirit of the universe, nature is what we are given from birth and evolution, nurture the ever changing reality shaping our world and everything around us… I can always ask the help which comes from nature and nurture in its most profound and understandable manifestation; the wisdom which comes from others around me…

We are surrounded by wisdom and what works in recovery on a daily basis. Sometimes we cannot see it because we have become closed down for whatever reason and we cannot cope with reality. Self-indulgence leading to self-harm and a disease for which there is no cure impacts on countless millions and often remains a hidden killer. And yet we can live more secure lives as we recover and remain in recovery. Wisdom from those who know, replacing the old ideas, attitudes and behaviour which stole away the good and being restored simply one day at a time…

Alcohol was my way of coping with life and its difficulties for many years. I know now how dependent I was on covering up horrible times and not just trudging the road of life, running roughshod over many of my own preferred ways of living. Empty of alcohol and letting go old ideas, attitudes and behaviour has made room for me to become the real person I can be today. Open, honest and willing to learn what I can do, and know I need support and advice and help which is available at any time and it works just for a day…

Fixing myself taking the edge off my feelings and reality is what I did. A way to compromise and try let go the darker side of life. Taking the edge of me meant I did not have to deal with problems of my own making and other people's making. It did not stop me from being an excellent problem solver and decision maker on behalf of other people, I could always help others. I just could not help myself and letting go these days offers and opens the door to being ready and willing to receive help and ask for it…

DonInLondon 2005-2011

Spiritual is outward reality, truth, love, cherished and included in an infinite universe, timeless and now… Driven to extremes of any attitude or behaviour, EGO [EGO Edging God or & Good Out] ~ Don Dokken [Poison] "Drugs, alcohol and ego. They are a bad mix"

When we are fixing, tripping, skimming the surface, superficial and indifferent, consumed in an inner world rich in nothing but ourselves...

In my Ivory Tower, drink served its purpose to protect me from reality, not knowing truth, isolated and entrapped in my own deep chaos ~ Sammy Davis Jr "Alcohol gives you infinite patience for stupidity"

Each day sober more is revealed, about living, inclusion, choices and love...

Who am I, where was I? Who are you, where are we? ~ Marguerite Duras "Alcohol is barren. The words a man speaks in the night of drunkenness fade like the darkness itself at the coming of day"

Lost and forgotten...

We do not know until it is too late, ignorance, then denial and hooked ~ Finley Peter Dunne "Alcohol is necessary for a man so that he can have a good opinion of himself, undisturbed be the facts" -/- Once we know the facts, we make choices, find help, let go self-obsession, live free to good choices..

For those of us who are alcoholics, we are the problem and the solution, knowing is the key which opens the door to sobriety ~ Matt Groening ~ "Here's to alcohol: the cause of, and answer to, all of life's problems" Knowing what we can do and cannot do safely offers opportunity to find wisdom and live life on life's terms

AA Daily Reflection: THE GOD IDEA MARCH 15 When we saw others solve their problems by a simple reliance upon the Spirit of the Universe, we had to stop doubting the power of God. Our ideas did not work. But the God idea did. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 52

Like a blind man gradually being restored to sight, I slowly groped my way to the Third Step. Having realized that only a Power greater than myself could rescue me from the hopeless abyss I was in, I knew that this was a Power that I had to grasp, and that it would be my anchor in the midst of a sea of woes. Even though my faith at that time was minuscule, it was big enough to make me see that it was time for me to discard my reliance on my prideful ego and replace it with the steadying strength that could only come from a Power far greater than myself.

Step Three Video 12 And 12