Anonymity and shame

Maggie Lamond Simone recently published a column on the Huffington Post suggesting that AA drop the 12th Tradition, anonymity, and rename ourselves something like Alcoholics In Recovery.

Contingent Promises, Learning to Play and Love

We are all familiar with 'the Promises' of AA from pages 83 - 84 of the Big Book:

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us—sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.

Dave, the other principal author of this blog, absolutely hates it when this is read at the beginning of meetings. He points out that it is always taken out of context.

Not a bad idea

At the beginning of meetings we always ask "is there anyone here new or coming back?"

I've heard it suggested that we add "Is there anyone here old and going out?"

Heard at meetings and random thoughts

Don’t assume evil motives for what stupidity can explain.

The greatest mistake you can make is to be continually fearing you will make one.

When making amends, a subtle shift occurs in our thinking. We go from thinking we were a mistake to acknowledging we made a mistake.

Surrender and the Glad Gesthemane

We all know that the first three Steps are about surrender, culminating in our decisions to turn our wills and our lives over to our Higher Powers.  I, for one, frequently forget the progression in surrender represented by those first three Steps.  Initially we let go of our faith in alcohol.  For a long time we've known that our dear friend alcohol was turning our lives into pain filled shells but we saw no other way of living so we stuck by the booze.  In the First Step we jump off into the unknown.  In a terrifying leap we abandon alcohol and see what else, if anything, there is out there.  In the Second Step we go further.  We acknowledge that there is something greater than ourselves that can save us.  We give up our self reliance and in our culture that is one huge surrender.  Then, in the Third Step we go beyond just asking for help in restoring us to sanity; we actually resolve to surrender our wills and our lives to a Higher Power (in other words, acknowledge that we aren't in control of our entire lives, not just alcohol).  Now we are the ones helping in the effort.  The heavy lifting is being done by the Higher Power we are surrendering to.

Stop runnin', varmint!

For years I have said that as active alcoholics we anesthetized ourselves, cutting ourselves off from the joy and pain of life.  I'm beginning to think that it might be better to say that as active alcoholics we were running and hiding from ourselves, and that the deep meaning of surrender is a willingness to stop, turn around, and face ourselves.  I say "a willingness to..." because we don't surrender once and have done with it; surrender is an attitude that has to be acted upon every day, all day.

What we get to do

A friend of mine likes to remind people who complain about all the things they have to do that those are, in fact, the things they get to do.  That is a wonderful reminder that our sober lives are gifts.  We are lucky to be alive, sober and recovering and we should be grateful for all the things we get to do as a result.

Connected

Recently I've been going through one of my bouts of feeling pretty ineffective - basically useless.  Unemployment can do that to you, especially when you don't have your spiritual ducks in row.
Now, I know the standard response to such a feeling is "get off the pity pot" or "get your ass to a meeting" or something like that.  That advice can be useful, but it also helps (me, at least) to try to look objectively at the situation and see just how much of the problem is purely in my head.  (I almost wrote "is real as opposed to in my head" but, as any alkie knows, a problem in your head can be a very, very real problem.)  After looking over the situation I may come up with a way to work on it or I may decide it isn't that much of a problem after all.

Thought for the New Year

If you're not enjoying life

you're not recovering.