Alcoholics Anonymous Videos DonInLondon

Friday, 30 May 2014

Alcoholics Anonymous Blog & Video | May 30 2014

May 30 Video

May is the fifth month, and my concentration on the fifth step: surrendering to the truth, by sharing everything from my step four with my higher power, and mentor started a process of daily reflection. Reflecting on how the day has gone, sometimes when we are H.A.L.T.: hungry, angry, lonely and tired can drive out any feelings of gratitude. And until I remember of course, that I can have gratitude that I'm still breathing and able to have all my emotions working daily.

Life is full of these moments of: "I can't believe that just happened!" And of course the I don't believe it moments, is part of the process of denial and acceptance. Unbelievable things happen, and then it takes time to see the truth and accept the truth. We see injustice day in and day out, which might impact directly upon us, or it may be something we see that we cannot do anything about. Learning through the serenity prayer, the can do and the cannot do is always a daily experience. And without any gratitude, we can get very angry and very resentful if we do not seek support when life is difficult. Meetings, meetings and more meetings always help to recalibrate ourselves in this very difficult world.

Emotional life is the absolute key to everything, it is the foundation which drives our thinking in the moment of now. So often we keep on doing the same old same old, and the emotions underneath can be very difficult when they emerge in a great big eruption when they are suppressed. Living in our thinking, and being very driven individuals, we often override our emotions and push them away. Better not save up our feelings until they cannot be suppressed any more, better to have a mini break down of the nervous variety on a daily basis through step 10 and gratitude before bedtime?

The ineptitude caused in local government and the National Health Service still rumble along. Actually it is not the fault of individuals on the front line, it is the faceless bureaucracy and mismanagement which gets under my skin. In the end, if I were to apply myself to the task of sorting out the ineptitude and incompetence, I would waste my valuable time. Instead, in letting go matters which I cannot influence directly, I don't hand them over to God, I hand over to the ombudsman, the legal driven people, and those who can influence the existence of those who ignore me. I don't have to do anything more than report the ignorance and complacency to the "Compliance Brigade." Gratitude for those tasked with compliance. Letting go takes time!

All in all, if I keep gratitude, very close and realise that my needs are met, and I do my part in matters, my personal outcomes keep me in a place of happiness and serenity. Surrendering to the truth that we can influence with a gentle heart, rather than a battering ram, keeps me in a place of sanity. Other people, places and things have battering rams, I don't need one of my own to ensure that the possibility of a good outcome might happen in the future. I am very happy with needs met, and wants forgotten today.

Step Five Video 12 And 12

Alcoholics Anonymous Videos, AA is for Alcoholics, AA 12 Steps, Addiction And Recovery, DonInLondon, Don Oddy,

Wednesday, 28 May 2014

Alcoholics Anonymous Blog & Video | May 28 2014

May 28 Video

A history of entitlement! Feels like the whole of the European nations have made some decisions about their entitlements, and have told their governments through the ballot box what they think. Politicians feel entitled to who govern without reference to their electorate. And in recovery, if we hold onto certain entitlements, we have expectations which will become resentments under construction.

Expectations are resentments under construction. The main political parties in the UK were challenged by a party called UKIP. The main political parties have taken no notice of the electorate, they made a lot of assumptions that the UK citizens were not going to vote against them at local or European level and they will vote properly next year? I hope the UK electorate give the main political parties a real kicking up the bottom because they expect people to settle for incompetent Posh twits to govern them. I won't be voting for any of the above, unless there is a "step change" in their activities to the good. Truth hurts, especially if you are a career politician, milking the system and doing bugger all.

Anyway, coming to the end of May and my feelings about step five: surrendering to the truth. I need to find the truth on a daily basis, and it's very difficult to find the truth on my own. I'm full of my own BS and opinions. If I'm not careful, I forget that truth comes from sharing and being part of Fellowship and society. I could not get sober on my own, and if I were to revert back to my own opinions all the time, I would be ignorant and uninformed. I need people and their truth always.

I do accept that life is difficult, and having accepted it is difficult, living in a can do and cannot do frame of mind helps me keep my serenity, and even when things are not right, I do have the right to share my point of view. It does not mean I am going to get my own way ever, it means I have acceptance around the possible, what is possible, and what is not possible and over which I am powerless. I am powerless over people places and things, at the same time I can share my outlook. And it does not mean I am right either, well not more than 90% of the time, just like you!

Step Five Video 12 And 12

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Friday, 23 May 2014

Alcoholics Anonymous Blog & Video | May 23 2014

May 23 Video

Step five: learning to tell the truth, see the truth and hear the truth. There are no days off in recovery, we can't go backwards, and looking forwards, can create expectations which are resentments under construction. Open honest and willing, unity service and recovery are really good in Fellowship, and even better: living life one day at a time.

The saying about three wise monkeys, "see no evil, speak no evil and hear no evil," believed to have been incorporated Confucius’s Code of Conduct. And yet we can see, speak and hear all around us, the disagreeable distortion of reality by other people. And yet we can still hold onto our own beliefs and opinions which have no real truth in them. Sharing truth about ourselves, starts a process of unlocking the truth, not only for ourselves, it helps us in getting to the truth on a daily basis. Culture, society and history cause prejudice and stigma every single day.

Embracing the truth is very difficult when dealing with people who will hold different opinions and beliefs, and very often are paid to put forward points of view, which have no real foundation, and no facts to back up what they say. Very important not to shoot the messenger, better to embrace the messenger, and then to confront the foundations upon which others base their truth. Especially those in local government who don't readily accept reality on a daily basis.

There is always some truth in what people say. Unfortunately, when only part of the truth is available, and there is a culture of being right, and ignoring those who might protest, we get to a place where nothing changes and those who might have valiantly tried to do something are frustrated by bureaucracy, and constant failure to deliver causing apathy long-term. We do forget that public servants have a duty of service, and not a self-serving duty of incompetence, expense, and preservation of the bureaucracy itself to the detriment of the public. And the answer is? Tolerance and love, and sack them if required, and still forgive, forgive and forgive.

When we tell the truth with tolerance and love, it does not mean we put up with incompetence. When we get to the truth, together, we get a better answer. Speak the truth, see the truth and hear the truth, in order to do this we need to listen to everything and make sure whatever we do is based on the truth rather than gossip and opinion. Now how hard is that?

Step Five Video 12 And 12

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Saturday, 17 May 2014

Alcoholics Anonymous Blog & Video | May 17 2014 | DonInLondon

May 17 Video

There is a big difference between feeling and thinking. Feelings are natural instincts about what is happening now, what has happened in the past, and the consequences of our feelings about situations impact on the future and our direction. Feelings are the start. In the process of actions we take, feelings are in the moment, and then we think about what we do, the consequences of our thinking which might seem instantaneous lead to actions. Feeling, then thinking and then action. If we don't feel any hunger, any anger, or lonely or tired, feelings are likely to lead to happy thinking and then happy actions. If we are hungry, angry, lonely and tired, our feelings are unhappy and this leads to unhappy actions, and in the moment, anger and rage will turn a good situation bad.

The longer families live in a situation of hunger, anger, isolation and exhaustion, the more likely it is that everyone is impacted in a negative way. Where is tolerance and love when the chips are down? As individuals, families, communities and the bigger society find themselves in depression, the more likely humanity blots out the truth on a daily basis, and the daily grind, the consequences can take generations to heal.

I can remember a particularly bad year in my upbringing and a change of government in 1979, I had been brought up to believe that socialist and Labour Party people were right for government. And when in 1979, Margaret Thatcher came to power, I was at university, or what we used to call polytechnics, and it was a good reason to get drunk, and stay drunk for the duration of my time pursuing a degree. I did get an honours degree, had an uproarious three years of self-indulgence and studied enough to come through. If ever higher education could awarded a degree for licentious behaviour, I'm sure I would have been awarded a first, rather than an honours degree without much distinction.

Would it have been better if the Labour government had stayed in power during those years? Maybe I would have felt more secure in my licentious three years, but I felt it was a good risk to enjoy the full and natural obligation to be rebellious, out of order, and always the last man standing at the profligate and debauched goings-on in student life. Tolerance and love for all mankind, my generation, just behind flower power, most of us missed the pot, and all the drugs, which then became natural in generations to come. Thatcher took the lid off family, community and a sense of duty, even though she herself was bound by such values except one, that capitalism was best. I saw it create the worst in even the best people, and even me as we worked hard and played harder.

Anywhere I going with this? Simply, this notion that tolerance and love is far better than anger and resentment. Those who make it into recovery, usually angry and resentful at the world, stuck with a disease which we can deny until the game is up. And then, finding the truth of now, and living in the truth of now, and speaking our truth in the now becomes more agreeable. In accepting the truth of now, there is acceptance of true feelings in the moment. We don't deny anger and resentment, and most often we don't get to anger and resentment, unless somebody pokes us with a stick. And even then, we can turn the other cheek, and realise just how easy we could become the owner of the stick poking others with our rhetoric and damning words. Not easy to live in recovery? Yes it is, because the more we tell the truth, the less we suffer in the long-run.

Step Five Video 12 And 12

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Friday, 16 May 2014

Alcoholics Anonymous Blog & Video | May 16 2014 | DonInLondon

May 16 Video

May and step five, all about the truth, admitting and accepting it. Where I came from has a lot to do with the outlook I developed in my teenage years, and even before that, the rot had set in. When it came to alcoholism, I can't say my father was an alcoholic, only he would be able to say that, at the same time I drank like he did. And then even worse, I suspect I drank more than he did, simply because I could afford to, having worked very hard to be able to buy the best of booze back in the day. And my father had a rotten childhood, illegitimate, his adoptive parents did their best, but they too had been wounded by life and world events. How many generations back do we go to find the answers? No need to go back at all, it only confirms we are what we are.

Truth is the best kindness, sometimes we look to create little white lies, which become great big whoppers and we are last to see how badly we have bent the truth. And we are what we are, lucky to be sober one day at a time. And even then, the battle in sobriety is always around the truth and how to deal with it. I'm immensely grateful for every single human being in recovery, helping me to determine what the truth is one day at a time.

I know that my father was often hungry, angry, lonely and tired. Because I had been hungry, angry, lonely and tired all the way to recovery. And even in the first days, weeks and months, the mystery of recovery, kept me in a place of hunger, rage, isolation and insomnia. There is no blame for our emotional upset, we could blame the world to the end of time, but it would not make a difference. What made the difference was understanding my feelings and then being able to do something about it. Telling the truth to other human beings and surrendering to truth on a daily basis. There is nothing wrong with the truth, it is what we do with it, and most often can be to hide the truth, just in case it might hurt us.

We can all see hungry, angry, lonely and tired people around us. Not only in recovery, by simply walking down the road, in the family, community, work and all the media. Whether a person is in recovery or not, often a kindly word, without intrusion, we might just strike a conversation which helps ever so slightly. Ego, pride and fear will close anyone down on any given day. Courage, faith and confidence, and building these feelings in others feels like the right path today.

Step Five Video 12 And 12

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Thursday, 15 May 2014

Alcoholics Anonymous Blog & Video | May 15 2014 | DonInLondon |

Alcoholics Anonymous Blog & Video | May 15 2014 | DonInLondon

May 15 Video

Helping another person get perspective is really difficult, if I don't know what's right for me, I don't know what is right for you either. But we can take a good guess that some decisions are better made in a more even frame of mind when we are not hungry, angry, lonely or tired. And especially if we are grieving something we have lost, be it people, places or things.

Over 10 years ago, I liberated myself from a rehab, which caused me great pain. I was already in pain, the rehab was unflinching in making it worse. I don't hear these horror stories now, and I realise the immense pain I felt was always going to trip me up. But it is no good making a person's life more painful when they are at rock bottom. Truth is, if I had been so angry and stubborn, I would not have headed out to the nearest source for a drink. And the rehab did not have time to actually get to the process of rehabilitation. The good news is, during my stay, I got to AA meetings every day, and since then, no drinking for nearly 10 years.

It was a good day yesterday, my sister came to London to see a potential place to live, not all the time just part of the time. And we both saw a very nice tiny, very tiny place to rest one's head. My sister left London because of grief and loss of both people, career, places and things. Maybe this tiny flat is not that suitable for my sister, but still we had an agreeable day, and we had lunch close by in a place frequented by many an AA person. I had not been there for quite a number of years, and had forgotten how good beef burgers and fries were! My sister was more sensible, having a chicken salad which was enormous and too big. We only see how much we miss people, when we see them again, and some people we can never see again.

Life is never easy, we all have grief of one type or another, around people, places and things. The more grief we encounter, because we will if we keep on living, the more understandable, it can become if we understand what is going on. And the process of grief, if we loved dearly, is there for a lifetime. And eventually we cherish everything, no matter what. There is always good in everything providing we learn how to survive it.

Step Five Video 12 And 12

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Sunday, 11 May 2014

Alcoholics Anonymous Blog & Video | May 11 2014 | DonInLondon

May 11 Video

Truth is my spiritual touchstone. And when I veer away from the truth, life is difficult. I ran out of steam about a month ago, full of cold, extreme back pain and the usual stuff dealing with type I diabetes. And even though life was very painful, I did have a lot of gratitude to be sober one day at a time. And then the washing machine packed in as well.

Life is funny, you never know where the next laugh is going to come from. And although I might have lost my muse for writing, it did not stop me having a zest for living. After all, I have been writing for a long time, and if you did not need a break from it, I certainly did. And May is step five month in my refresher of the steps. On a personal level, I concentrate on one step a month, and try live the principles of all the steps every day. Again I have to say, life is difficult, even when it's funny. When I was trying to get my old washing machine which was broken out of my apartment, at one in the morning, in nearly toppled down the stairs. And loud clatters probably unnerved my neighbours. And the next day my new washing machine arrived at 8 AM and the old one was taken away.

The new washing machine is wonderful. Once I had taken the door off the kitchen, I thought it would go through nicely. I had thought, having checked the dimensions before buying, that the washing machine would glide through into the kitchen without having to remove the door. But having unpacked the washing machine, the old dimensions had been amended to new dimensions, which meant the washing machine ought not go through at all, even with the door off. Undeterred, I gave it a lot of thought and then got the fucking thing through the gap and then left it to the next day to set it up. It works perfectly, although there are a few scratches on the back. Don't tell anyone!

So my cold is better, and even though I got the new washing machine into the kitchen and it works perfectly, I cannot say it was an easy insertion into its place amongst the hotch potch of appliances in a very small space. And my back is okay as well, having used a bit of science, leverage and cuss words to get things straight. Clean bedding, clean shirts, and a bit more clarity about physics, leverage and vocabulary not fit for the BBC. How washing machine's work has improved over the last 15 years is another revelation.

Practising all the principles of the 12 step program has helped to keep me sober over the last few weeks. A cold, a cough, agitated slipped discs, unpredictable blood sugar levels and the use of many rude words is all part of life. Step one has remained constant and 100%. There have been many moments of being restored to sanity. Letting go and asking for help is very helpful. A reminder to myself of how it used to be, and a self-appraisal is a reminder to self about how easy it would be to slip backwards. Sharing my situation on a daily basis has kept me honest. I have enjoyed my defects of foul language and modest amounts of indulgence in sinful thoughts. And then clarity through courage, faith and confidence in doing the next right thing. I'm reminded of the amends I still need to make, and hopefully I will win the lottery one of these days. No harm to be done with other possible amends. I have forgiven myself for my lack of foresight, and I have forgiven the washing machine for being too big to get into the kitchen. A lot of meditation has been going on I can assure you. And I hope to be carrying the message with better clarity, one day at a time.

Step Five Video 12 And 12

Alcoholics Anonymous Videos, AA is for Alcoholics, AA 12 Steps, Addiction And Recovery, DonInLondon, Don Oddy,