Something Happens

We know that while the alcoholic keeps away from drink, as he may do for months or years, he reacts much like other men.  We are equally positive that once he takes any alcohol whatever into his system, something happens, both in the bodily and mental sense, which makes it virtually impossible for him to stop.  The experience of any alcoholic will abundantly confirm this.  Big Book, p22-23

I am a periodic drinker.  I can go without a drink for some time, but the moment I take a drink, the reaction is immediate and the same.  All of the insecurities inside of me are unleashed and I become obnoxious.  I seek attention.  I start hurting people.  I feel all-powerful.  I make poor choices for my well-being and the well-being of those that I love.  I endanger myself and others.  And, I can't stop drinking until a force that is not my decides it is time to stop.  I either get to spend the night laying curled up next to the toilet, or I black out and wake up the next morning in a placeI don't remember being, or I would drink myself 'straight' where the alcohol stopped having the effect I was looking for.  That sad part is that when the alcohol stopped having the effect I was looking for, I somehow thought that meant I was sober and could drive.  I can only describe the process as insanity and the morning after as "pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization". 

Thank You Higher Power for relieving my obsession to drink.  Thank You for my abstinence today.  Thank You for my sobriety.  Thank You.

Sweeping Off Our Side Of The Street

Under no condition do we criticize such a person or argue. Simply tell him that we will never get over drinking until we have done our utmost to straighten out the past. We are there to sweep off our side of the street, realizing that nothing worth while can be accomplished until we do so, never trying to tell him what he should do. His faults are not discussed. We stick to our own. If our manner is calm, frank, and open, we will be gratified with the result. Big Book, p77-78

This is difficult to do without saying the word "but".  Whenever I would try to do this on my own, without my Higher Power, I found that I would start cleaning up my side of the street only to say after, "but, you did such and such".  I found myself still trying to justify my actions.  How cunning, baffling and powerful is this disease!!   Often I found that cleaning up my side of the street was born out of guilt and not out of love.  When I turn to my Higher Power first I pray something like, "God, please don't let me hurt anyone and please give me the words of your choosing.  Let me be an instrument for healing and not self-centered scheming".  There have been times when I was waiting on someone I was supposed to meet and the moment I said the prayer, they called or texted me and canceled our meeting.  I can only assume that God didn't want that person subjected to more of my garbage.  And sometimes, the time felt right to me and I didn't say but.  I am grateful that many relationships have been repaired and that my Higher Power gives me exactly what I need for today.

Thank you Higher Power.  Thank you for aligning my will more and more with the principles of AA.  Thank you for all you have shown me through experiences and through my fellows.  Thank you.

Bodily and Mentally Different

MOST OF US have been unwilling to admit we were real alcoholics. No person likes to think he is bodily and mentally different from his fellows. Therefore, it is not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could drink like other people. The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.  Big Book, p30

I finally admitted this.   For a long time, I thought I still had some element of control.  I am a periodic drinker, so it took me a long time to get that nagging thought of, "I'm different because I don't drink every day".  Still, I listened to other members until one day it finally clicked.  "This thought could kill me or another person one day" and I had to face up to this fact.  My experience has shown me that although I did not drink daily, I did not stop drinking once I took the first drink, unless I threw up or blacked out.  Moderation is not a word that I understand.  And when I did drink, I was irresponsible.  There is all the stuff on page 69 that I could write pages and pages about, but my most irresponsible behavior was always getting behind the wheel even on nights where I surely qualified for 'alcohol poisoning' in my blood.  I was certainly insane!

Thank you Higher Power.  Thank you for your grace in sending AA to me.  Thank you.

Wholesale Condemnation

Instead, we looked at the human defects of these people, and sometimes used their shortcomings as a basis of wholesale condemnation.  We talked of intolerance, while we were intolerant ourselves.  We missed the reality and the beauty of the forest because we were diverted by the ugliness of some of its trees.  We never gave the spiritual side of life a fair hearing.  Big Book, p50

Someone once asked me how I felt when someone shut the door in my face when I was trying to walk into a store.  I told them that it made me angry.  Then I was told, why don't you think about the 1000's of times someone held the door open for you when on occasion a person (tree) isn't considerate.  They were right!  I always focused on the one bad thing and not on the 1000 good ones.  I had a love affair with negative emotions!

This is taking me a long, long time to learn.  And I suspect it is the same way with others.  I have to practice seeing the essence of God within another person.  It is so hard for me, especially if someone is yelling at me, doesn't like me or flips me off as I drive down the road.  To dig a little deeper and see underneath all of that takes a lot of practice.  It seems easier to condemn than it is too seek, but that was just the programming of the patterns of my life talking.  It is actually easier on my health, my serenity and mine and other's well-being for me to actually take a little more time and look for the good.  In the flesh, we are all very sick people and that's just a fact.  Spiritually, however, there is a Power within each of us that is incredible and for me it is the Power of Love (God).  When I focus on that, I can see the beautiful forest.

Thank you Higher Power.  Thank you for the love, the mercy and the caring you show me, in spite of my rebellious nature.  Thank you for helping me to see the Truth in my own thinking and for lifting the veil of denial and revealing more to me each day.  Thank you for the gift of desperation and receptivity.  Thank you.

The Program of Action

Outline the program of action, explaining how you made a self-appraisal, how you straightened out your past and why you are now endeavoring to be helpful to him.  It is important for him ti realize that your attempt to pass this on to him plays a vital part in your own recovery.  Actually, he may be helping you more than you are helping him.  Big Book, p94

I love working with others in this program. I have noticed how my Higher Power works through others to help me when I reach out to help them.  I find intuitive answers to situations that used to baffle me when I hear others share their stories with me. I also notice that when I hurt others, I hurt myself.  Alternatively, when I help others, I help myself.  More and more, my Higher Power reveals things to me that I didn't see before.  And, when I am going through some 'great event', I notice that my Higher Power sends me a new sponsee right on time to take me out of 'self' and into others and into action!  What an awesome program! 

Thank you Higher Power.  Thank you for a new way of thinking and living.  Thank for sober choices that I wasn't able to make when I was still active in all of my ISMs.  Thank you.  

How Cruel

Sometimes there were other women.  How heart-breaking was this discovery; how cruel to be told they understood our men as we did not!  Big Book, p106

This passage is from the chapter, "To Wives".  I can see where my behavior caused anger and pain for another being.  I also like to hear Al-Anon people share because it helps me to 'get real' with the damage I caused others.  When I was a practicing alcoholic and my partner would hurt me, I would always run to the next person in line. I can picture what this behavior would do to another person as I have been on both sides of this. What an incredibly powerless feeling it is to love someone who has found "supposed" solace, understanding and care from another person. I would really call this sick dependency today.  When my ego is damaged, my heart just shuts down and I run away. If you didn't do things the way I thought it should be, then I would find someone who could.  I still have stinking thinking thoughts on this subject periodically, but I can't afford the price anymore.  I can't afford to hurt another person again. 

I ran to look for someone to understand me, to fix me and to take care of me.  I really wanted someone to participate in a decade's long pity party and cater to my every selfish self-centered agenda.  Now, at least the occasional pity party is much shorter. Thank you Higher Power!

The Big Book talks about my actions. "If I am not sorry and my actions continue to harm others  then I will drink again."  When I came to the program, what I found out was that the only thing that could help me with this was a God of my understanding.  Without a God I can trust, I can't seem to keep my heart open.   And when my heart is shut, I feel incredible pain.

Thank you Higher Power.  Thank you for opening my heart a little at a time.  Thank you for showing me that a closed heart doesn't allow me to experience life nor does it allow me to experience You or Your Power.  Thank you.

We are going to talk about God

Well, that's exactly what this book is about.  Its main object is to enable you to find a Power greater than yourself which will solve your problem.  That means we have written a book which we believe to be spiritual as well as moral.  And it means, of course, that we are going to talk about God.  Big Book, p45

I didn't like talking about God at first because I never understood God or what God wanted from me.  I kind of had a very faint idea of some old man with white hair and a long beard, up in the sky, keeping an Excel spreadsheet of what I did good and what I did bad.  Similar to Santa Claus, I suppose.  What really helped me in the Big Book was the same statement that Bill W. found exciting and that was, "my own concept of God".  I also love that it is about having a personal relationship with this God of my understanding.  I wrote a want ad for a Higher Power when I was working Step 2 and the Higher Power that has been revealed is similar, if not even more loving and merciful, than the want ad I placed some years ago.  What a beautiful program this is!

Thank you Higher Power.  Thank you for leading me to the rooms, that lead me back to You.  Thank you.