Alcoholics Anonymous Videos | DonInLondon

Alcoholics Anonymous Blog & Video | March 6 2004 - 2014 | DonInLondon | Step 3 "Your Higher Power"

March 6 Video

DonInLondon March 6, 2014: step three month: "made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him." The more I live in the moment of now, the more my emotions are likely to fit with what is going on, unless something has disrupted my life in a way in which I cannot cope. When news of a friend dying last week was shared with me on Monday, I'm still processing what happened and the impact it has day-to-day.

Human beings! I am a human being today, and when big disruptions happen, and we are unable to process our feelings which are overwhelmed, we do not cope and we need to ask for help. Letting go the brave face, having courage to change and accept the truth is not something we can easily do if we are not used to these big events and big disruptions which happen from time to time. Over the last few weeks and months quite a few people have perished, some close to me, and some a little bit distant from me. When we feel loss and grief, we do need some denial to deal with a nasty shock, and then we feel the anger and frustration of what has happened and then depression is natural as we start to understand acceptance of the truth and what it means day by day.

I was angry when I heard the news about a friend dying, it hurt inside, and I wasn't aware just how much the impact of this news had on me. And when I was explaining in the meeting today about my anger spilling over into another event, where I got angry with somebody who was being obstructive, I got angry with them and shouted at them. And that was wrong, and surely I would like to make amends for my behaviour. I very rarely raise my voice, and afterwards I realised that the anger in me about the loss of a friend, had really spilled over into the moment when I got cross and shouted at somebody. I'm grateful I understand what happened and I'm sorry for my behaviour, and I can make amends. Two wrongs do not make a right.

And oddly enough, one of my friends had had a similar incident, where they got cross when they were driving and another driver was driving badly. Fortunately they were not alone when the incident happened and were able to calm down and see the impact of their anger at the loss of a friend having an impact in another event where they would normally cope, not get cross and not feel those horrible thoughts which are caused by righteous and what we sometimes call justifiable anger. We cannot get rid of justifiable anger through thinking about it, we have to express ourselves and our feelings in a safe place, usually best of the meeting, where we don't need to bottle up our feelings.

It was a very big meeting this morning, and only when I looked around behind me, did I realise the room was full of people. When I sat down at the front which is the best place to be in a meeting in my opinion, I thought there were just a few people, no more than eight or nine. But there must have been about fifty people and because the discussion centred on step six: our defects of character which are usually the extremes of pride, fear and ego, which then kick off the anger and resentments which are not good for any human being. Long-term, pride fear and ego simply isolates us as people and we don't do very well on our own. Progress comes with step seven, courage to change, faith in doing the next right thing, and building our self-esteem.

Going to a regular morning meeting over the last few weeks and months, it has made a huge difference to me and my understanding of how I live in the moment of now. I'm reminded just how human we all are, and just how fragile anyone anywhere is to feeling isolated and alone and the burden carried in addiction. There is no real life in addiction, the reality is awful, driven into the darkness and no way out on our own. These regular meetings remind me just how close every human being is to extreme behaviour when conflict occurs, where there might be expectations which are misunderstood, where anger and resentment lurk, ready to bring anybody down into extremes and conflict within the person and anyone they encounter is made toxic and that horrible place of dread.

Having said all that, just how bad it can be in active addiction, seeing new people come, seeing new people see some hope, and what makes me enlightened is the way that new people and younger people seem to understand addiction far more easily than I did. I don't know how many people are out there in that living hell, that seeing how people can change themselves with the help of other people, it is a wonderful experience to be involved, and see how people help each other, just for one day.

Full Daily Blog Link:

DonInLondon 2004 - 2013

Alcoholics Anonymous | March 6 2013 | Steps In Action | Step 3 "Your Higher Power" "emotional and spiritual: feelings, experienced and right sized in the moment of now… Spiritual is reality, not imagined and not a fantasy…" Of course I have imagination and I have fantasies, or tall stories I tell, and my imagination can soar in any direction. I feel fortunate I am not a boy panda, with only two days a year to romance a girl panda, no pressure either way? Just millions of humans watching to see what happens in those two days… In recovery we have one day, today…

"Try not to let concepts about spiritual block you from exploring what spiritual may be to you today." There are so many ways to look at the world, the reality of it is experienced every day by seven billion people. People with faith in God, people with faith that human endeavour produces an ever-growing understanding of the world, people with faith in doing the next right thing based on what they know, and people with faith in doing the next right thing based on? So many ways to believe in something, I tend to go with an understanding of the higher power being universal truth, love and wisdom, developing all around us every day... Without news about two pandas, without news about Syria, without news about the New York Stock Exchange at its highest point ever, without news about sobriety and experience, strength and hope in recovery, I would not be here to know or understand the news around me today…

Nature works, not in mysterious ways, science and biology, seems to determine that nature works pretty much perfectly most of the time. Creation is a progression and nature and adapts everything including us humans every single day, humans have been changing their physiology and psychology for thousands of years and adapting and changing generation to generation. For many generations in my family it seems alcohol was a key component in survival and being fit for purpose, after all, alcohol often was less harmful than the water being drunk back then so avoiding major diseases in the olden times. A fondness to blur reality became a common trait learned through time. Naturally? Some changes lead to destruction, rather than creation one day at a time... Actually I have no argument with my ancestors, they were doing the best they could with what they had just like today… Changing those traits can happen with help from powers greater than me, all around me in reality today…

Spiritual nurturing in my family? A healthy regard for all types of philosophies on my mother’s side, and a healthy cynicism for all types of philosophies on my father's side. For decades on my mother’s side, much wisdom passed on generation to generation, and my father's side, he was an orphan with a horrible upbringing and battered by life, he was cynical of religion and God, and especially those who beat him at God's command, and a war fought with God on his side, he saw horror and destruction in God's name. And in recovery, this is me and my outlook, I truly believe that there is more power and a greater power than me, all around us in the moment of now. It is the real power of truth, not a mythology, the power of love and the power of wisdom and learning in the ever present moment of now, imperfectly perfect, we make progress one day at a time…

In my childhood. The long summer holidays, and I can look back with nostalgia, driven to make camps, driven to make tree houses, driven to make caves, driven to make fire, driven to catch food and cook it on an iron skillet or failing that some sausage and bacon. Usually burned black and tasting as good as it gets. Driven to make dams on streams accidentally flooded housing developments over the other side of the railway tracks. Driven to jump off barn roofs, driven to make go carts out of old bits of wood and pram wheels, driven to shoot guns, play with real metal swords and hack away at each other with plastic armour, driven to like girls and not sure why, until later of course, with a beard growing on my chin. Driven to explore chemistry, especially chemicals that blew up, making gunpowder quietly and without supervision. Collecting stamps from faraway places and watching films about everything in the world, including ghosts, fairies and elves and goblins of course. And then, driven to read books as quickly as I could, more about science fiction and fantasy, than the reality of growing up. And learning about drinking and driven to make it from an early age… Driven, driven and driven more as life went on. And never knowing me, or what I was for…

Turning to adulthood, exams were tough, and my education was sporadic and hard to keep going with so many distractions, especially girls of course… And yet not realising the power and direction, and the influences around me, which made me the person I am today. An average kid in school, average and some marks and certificates but dogged and plagued by an agitated mind and a real experience of dyslexia and word blindness which I couldn't understand back then. Passing my driving test first time, the next day, driving Lorries was a nightmare for some and a wild adventure for me. I wrote a book before going to university, and could not go to university as the old man went bankrupt and we all had to go out and work, and then years later, back to do a degree and then becoming a BA with honours, I scraped it with glee. Always, always rebellious and contentious just like my dad… When he broke down, any feeling of a power greater than me, vanished for decades, and I was on my own and alone…

And so with the fellowship of AA, some 30 to 40 years later, out of the wilderness and into a world of inclusion was a shock I found hard to adapt to one day at a time. When I say out of the wilderness, a surrender and acceptance that there were things I just did not know the answers to, and how to live and find truth, unconditional love and wisdom growing in harmony, just for today. That was fellowship. And when I started to get sober, with others, just new too, to the idea of being included in something bigger than us. Common purpose, common ground, common understanding and a place of sanctuary to start making sense of the world, when the world probably had made no sense at all to this troubled soul. So although my concepts of spiritual are straightforward and simple, "the ability to cope in the moment of now and see the truth, love and wisdom as it is today," what else could it be for a man like me? And the answer is for me to keep on learning one day at a time, and hopefully everyone spends enough time to reflect for themselves and their understanding of emotional and spiritual today…

How am I feeling this morning? Not so bad! The good news, I can look out and see the world, I can comment on what I see and I can be included in the day to day reality of now. Like everyone, I can be allied with a sect if I could find a sect which would have me, I am self-supporting through my own efforts over the decades, I don't know if I will ever be part of a denomination, or find people with the same politics as me, I have belonged to organisations and institutions but not currently as there is no need right now, I can be controversial because I don't believe as you believe, and I am not currently endorsing or opposing anything particularly, but it's early in the day. And I can only do these things, speak out and share and maybe make sense in some ways of the world as it is because I am sober today… And I am in a fellowship where we share experience, strength and hope and have no rules, laws or regulations to shackle anyone of us in any way. And we keep on learning emotional and spiritual and the language of the heart… Freedom rocks in the imperfectly perfect moment of now…

Alcoholics Anonymous | March 6 2012 | Steps In Action | Step 3 "Your Higher Power" Today's AA daily reflection: "the idea of faith." I do have faith today, in not knowing the questions and therefore not knowing the answers. If I knew the questions, life would be predictable and the answers would flow… I have faith in letting go and asking for help at any time in any place from any source…

Video For Today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-hSC3b1ML8

This does not mean I always know the questions or find out what the questions are. It simply means I am open, honest and willing to change my views and beliefs, and my outlook as life is changing and I am changing. Herbert Spencer is often quoted that we live in ignorance if we have contempt prior to investigation…

In early days, learning what it meant to be in recovery one day at a time, I was very confused. My thinking made me very suspicious of everything and anyone who suggested there was just one way to keep in recovery. What worked for me was letting go and not looking for an answer from one person. Sticking to the winner's, it was a gut reaction that most people were sharing the truth of their recovery, and some people were clinging on for dear life and they were very stuck trying to look right rather than being right with themselves…

The whole philosophy of the program for me is about being open, honest and willing to change. Letting go the old notions of what life is and looks like when we are successful. I cherish learning the truth of life in the moment of now, how to love people and be loved back without conditions and that wisdom is happening as life is happening…

And last night, a chair which was full of truth, sharing the horror and messiness and wonder of life driven by addiction and then a recovery driven by their "truth." Truth is what it is, beautiful and tragic in the moment. When a person shares their truth in their sharing that is the most appropriate way that person can share. There is no generic appropriate way to share in fellowship, or we shut down and hinder recovery and exclude individual realities…

I do not believe our fellowship requires rules, laws and regulations and there is one ultimate authority. We are but trusted servants, equal in our rights and need have freedom of expression. Each individual makes up their own mind about what is appropriate for them and it is not for me to judge or suggest appropriateness in sharing experience, strength and hope… Progress not perfection…

-/-

DonInLondon 2005-2011

Letting go fear, wanting to put on a brave face, hiding behind a mask of ego [defects Step 6]. Open, honest and willing to develop our courage, faith and confidence [shortcomings. Step 7] ~ Wentworth Miller "Confidence is at the root of so many attractive qualities, a sense of humour, a sense of style, a willingness to be who you are no matter what anyone else might think or say.." -/-

Change is part of nature when we are young... and remains so if we stay young at heart ~ Jack Welch "Willingness to change is a strength, even if it means plunging into total confusion for a while." -/- We need work at change because... simply we are all worth it!

We help another, we feel happier? Provided we do some good, and not be a do gooder ~ Gerald Jampolsky "Through our willingness to help others we can learn to be happy rather than depressed." Better to help someone asking than seek out a target? We cannot fix anyone, we may help someone...

Sanity restored, just for today, sober life is a choice ~ Leo Buscaglia "What we call the secret of happiness is no more a secret than our willingness to choose life." -/- Relapse and slips bring back the insanity where there are no choices in living but to see it through the bottom of a glass... and at rock bottom. We can come back from the brink in fellowship...

AA Daily Reflection: THE IDEA OF FAITH ~ MARCH 6, Do not let any prejudice you might have against spiritual terms deter you from honestly asking yourself what they mean to you. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 47

The idea of faith is a very large chunk to swallow when fear, doubt and anger abound in and around me. Sometimes just the idea of doing something different, something I am not accustomed to doing, can eventually become an act of faith if I do it regularly, and do it without debating whether it’s the right thing to do. When a bad day comes along and everything is going wrong, a meeting or a talk with another drunk often distracts me just enough to persuade me that everything is not quite as impossible, as overwhelming as I had thought. In the same way, going to a meeting or talking to a fellow alcoholic are acts of faith; I believe I’m arresting my disease. These are ways I slowly move toward faith in a Higher Power.

-/-

Step Three Video 12 And 12