Growing Along Spiritual Lines

Faith

2012-01-18T01:02:00.002+08:00

My understanding of God has not improved since I joined the fellowship and took the steps. In fact, I probably understand God less today than I did when I was sitting in front of the TV day after day with my bottle of wine and bag of pot. Back then I believed that God created the universe and everything in it, but the rest was up to me. It was "dog eat dog" world where only the successful, the strongest, survive. I didn't need God while I was achieving worldly success. I was the center of my universe.

Then alcoholism began to have its way with me. Slowly it robbed me of interest in my career and enthusiasm for life. It took away my relationships, my health and my self respect. My days became predictable, mechanical and routine. I had absolutely nothing to look forward to except the next drink. Denial kept me from seeing this truth. I was pretty close to hopeless, but didn't know it.

My best thinking was that a new high paying job that would solve all my problems. When I couldn't find the motivation to even write a new resume I went to a therapist to find out why. Thank God she told me the truth -- in her words I didn't have an ounce of humility in my whole body, I had the emotional maturity of a 13 year old, and my mind was so cloudy from my drinking that I could not hope to get any clarity on my life. Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! She said she couldn't help me but she knew a treatment center that could.

A few days later I walked into my first AA meeting. Almost immediately the obsession to drink was removed. This fact continues to be the cornerstone of my faith because I could not explain how, after 30 years of relying on alcohol as the solution to my life, I could wake up one day and not think about drinking at all. I didn't know what it was called at the time, but today I know I had received Grace. My higher power did for me what I could not do for myself.

Grace comes to me in exact proportion to my desire for it and my reliance upon it. I demonstrate my desire for grace by trying to the best of my ability to practice the 12 steps in all areas of my life. When I remember to do this my day turns out pretty damn good. This is not blind faith, but a faith born of my experience.

Invisible Lines

2012-01-18T01:01:00.000+08:00

I learned early in sobriety that I had crossed a couple of invisible lines as the disease of alcoholism progressed in me. I crossed the first line a few months after my 18th birthday when I went from "liking to drink" to "wanting to drink" I paid wine-os to buy booze for me and I wouldn't go out with a girl unless she liked to drink. A few years later, once I became established in my career, I drank almost every night -- after work cocktails, wines with dinner and at all social events. I rarely drank during business hours, but drinks before and with lunch on weekends, holidays. vacations were part of the "good life" to me.

This stage lasted about 15 years. Although I picked up a couple of drunk driving arrests (out of 100s of times driving drunk), not too many "bad" things happened. My career was successful, so I almost totally ignored these "minor" hiccups. Little did I know that alcoholism had me in it's grip and was subtly taking me down, separating me from everything of real value in life.

In the mid 80's I crossed the next invisible line. I went from "liking to drink" to "needing to drink." Outwardly I still looked good. My job and bank account continued to grow, but somehow it wasn't enough. I felt increasingly frustrated, empty and stressed-out. My drinking ratcheted up.

I wasn't happy but I didn't know what to do except find the next "thing" to fill the hole: new cars, fancy vacations, investments helped for a while but not for long. One of those "things" turned out to be a woman who like to drink too. We married three months after we met. Once the honeymoon ended six months later, all the old feelings returned. Only now they were made worse by the fact that my "solution" didn't work. I blamed her and we split up.

It would be five mostly painful years that I am just now beginning to remember before I walked into my first meeting in 1994 at the age of 47. I didn't know it at the time, but I crossed another invisible line when I walked into that first meeting -- the line that separates "wanting to die" with "wanting to live."

Remembering what it was like and what happened helps to keep it green for me.

The Comfort Zone

2012-01-18T00:58:00.002+08:00

Before AA my number one goal in life was getting comfortable and staying comfortable. I sought to create a warm cocoon of a life wherein I was protected from all fear and hardship. A life where I could do what I wanted. I decorated my cocoon with as much stuff as I could afford. As my drinking progressed. I found there wasn't room for other people in my cocoon, so I chased them all away. At the end there was only me, my bottle of wine and my remote control. Had I had enough money, I might have stayed in that dirty easy chair, in that dirty apartment surrounded by half-eaten fast food bags until the end.

Today the comfort zone continues to beckon loudly. It is still the biggest threat to my sobriety. Going to the same meetings every week, talking to the same people, saying the same prayers, and sponsoring every newcomer the same way can be indications that I've lapsed into another comfort zone where I 'm living my life largely from habit.

The book tells me that I must continue to "perfect and enlarge" my spiritual condition through work and self-sacrifice or I will drink again. This means to me that I cannot allow myself get into comfortable habits with my sobriety and think that I am living the AA way of life.

Instead I must be willing to reach out to new people, walk through the discomfort of continuous inventory and introspection, volunteer for a new service commitment, seek to be of service outside of AA in my community and the world at large and constantly work at better balance between body, mind and spirit. This to me is the AA way of life.

Tolerance to Pain

2012-01-18T00:56:00.000+08:00

I'm coming to believe that everything that happens to me is intended for my spiritual growth. Inside every problem there is a message just for me. Usually the message is "let go." Without the associated pain that problems bring I would not be motivated to let go, change course, develop faith, and grow as a consequence.

For most of my life I drank through everything uncomfortable so I never heard or understood the messages. I became hardened and insensitive and developed a great tolerance for pain. Things had to get down right awful before I would try to change anything. I'm grateful this tolerance for pain didn't kill me before I was given the grace to see I had reached my bottom. Many of us aren't so lucky.

Since I began trying to live life on life's terms I have become increasingly more sensitive to internal turmoil. Now I try to pay attention to what's going on with me. I ask myself: Where is that fear coming from? Why did I lose my temper? What is this worry about? I use 10 to find my part, 11 to reconnect, and 12 to get out of myself. Taken together, these spiritual actions have helped me overcome many problems large and small.

Reliance not Defiance

2012-01-18T00:50:00.000+08:00

My defiance is very subtle. It sometimes starts out first thing in the morning. The small voice reminds me that I should get quiet and connect with my Higher Power. I ignore the voice, decide to check my email and read the news instead and my day starts off on exactly the wrong footing. The voice says pick up the phone and call another alcoholic. My ego tells me to wait until one of them calls me. The voice reminds me about the AA meeting, but I got more important things to do. Besides I'm feeling "fine." Someone says or does something I don't like. I defy the voice that says "let it go, Jeff." I end up making a mountain out of a molehill and saying things I don't really mean. One more time I have given away my serenity. I have "squander(ed) the hours that might have been worth while."

What is it but plain insanity to choose "being right" over "being happy"?

The small voice usually comes to me as a thought, but sometimes, if the world is not drowning it out, I actually hear a voice whisper inside my head. I am coming to believe that this voice is my guidance system leading me to wholeness. I need only get quiet and listen and then follow directions. Of course I don't hear the voice if I already have my mind made up or if I'm fearful, angry or resentful. Then it's like I'm saying to the universe "thanks but won't be needing any guidance or help today. I can handle this myself." Immediately the voices stop.

Left to my own devices, without Good Orderly Direction, I'm guiding myself right back to that dirty, darkened apartment, where I sat day after day on that dirty easy chair with the bottle of wine, bag of pot, overflowing ashtray, fast food bags and pizza boxes scattered at my feet watching reruns of Gilligan's Island and other lame daytime TV all the while thinking this was a great way to live.

Paying Attention

2012-01-18T00:47:00.000+08:00

I wonder why it is called "free" will? When I use my free will to make wrong choices it can get very expensive!

I'm coming to believe that whatever I give my attention to will eventually govern my life. If I don't give my attention to anything in particular then nothing in particular will come into my life. I will live in uncertainty.

The Steps help me focus my attention on becoming the kind of person I was meant to be. As I continue to apply the steps in my life, I am able to let go of the false parts -- my anger, bitterness, resentment, spite and self pity. Since nature abhors a vacuum, kindness, concern, appreciation, forgiveness and love automatically rush in to fill the void. Little by little I am changed.

Before God graced me with a moment of clarity I gave my attention to the material world of making money and acquiring possessions. What I am coming to understand is that the material world is constantly changing and shifting. There is no real security. It's like building a house on sand.Giving my attention to these things sooner or later will bring me unhappiness, poverty and ill health.

But if I use my free to focus my attention on my program by practicing the spiritual principles contained in the Steps, I am led again and again to spiritual understanding and growth. Now I am building my house on firm bedrock and my life feels useful and contented.

Hope

2012-01-18T00:41:00.002+08:00

At a therapist's suggestion, I was going for a "look see" at a treatment program on Friday morning, so I had my last drink the on a Thursday night. The only thing unusual about my (hopefully) last drink is that I got cut off by the bartender -- something that hadn't happened to me before. I wasn't even that drunk. I was just being an obnoxious jerk -- a role I excelled in after 30 years of drinking and no spiritual rudder guiding my ship.

Between going to bed that night and waking up the next morning, something happened I can't explain. But I woke up different.

I kept my appointment at the outpatient treatment center and was given an orientation by a gentle man named Dean, himself a recovering alcoholic. Of all that Dean told me I really only remember that he said that I probably have a disease call alcoholism and it wasn't my fault that I had it. He also said that now that I knew my problem, I had a responsibility to myself to find a solution.

I had spent my last $3700 of credit on my Visa card as a down payment to get into the program. And with three days sober, I attended my first group session on Monday morning. There were six of us in the new group -- all shaky like me. I recall one girl was particularly hot. (God works in mysterious ways.) Anyways, they handed us l San Diego Meeting Schedules and told us that we had to attend at least three AA meetings a week or else they would kick us out. "Except for you, Jeff" Because I was unemployed I had to attend a meeting every day. Not knowing that this is the best thing they could have told me, I was of course resentful for being singled out.

The next day, Tuesday, at 11:45 AM I made my way up the back steps of the church for my first AA meeting. I was greeted by Will C., a gentle older man who seemed genuinely glad to see me. (No one had been genuinely glad to see me in years.) Slowly a few other members began to arrive and all warmly welcome me. They gave me some AA pamphlets and another meeting directory and everyone in turn wrote their name and phone number in the back. I still have that meeting directory today.

As soon as the sharing started a strange feeling came over me. It was a feeling of belonging, of fitting in. It's was as if, at age 47, I had found my way home for the first time. I was filled with hope that a new and better life was possible for me.

Since that day almost 14 years ago I try to make sure that the newcomers get the same kind of welcome I received. I have been privileged to see hope replace hopelessness in a number of men and women here in China during the past 10 years. Last night I saw the light in the eyes of three newcomers where just a few weeks before there had only been pain and confusion. What a great way to live.

Ego Deflation

2012-01-16T22:59:00.000+08:00

I didn't know I had a disease that was killing me. I only knew that I was unemployed and quickly running out of borrowed money and there was no one left who would lend me anymore. I wasn't looking for the doorway into a brand new life, I was just trying to figure out a way to get a job so I wouldn't wake up every morning in stark terror.

My job search wasn't going well. I went to a therapist I knew to find out why, after six months, I couldn't find the energy to even send out a resume. After she listened to me whine about my life for 40 minutes she told me she couldn't help me. Her almost exact words were "you have the emotional maturity of a thirteen year old, you don't have an ounce of humility in your whole body, and your brain is so cloudy from you daily drinking that you cannot hope to get any clarity on your life." Then she looked deep into my eyes and said "you're in trouble aren't you Jeff?" The voice inside my head screamed at me not to agree, but finally I whispered "maybe."

Without knowing it I had taken the first Step. The admission -- "maybe" I was in trouble -- deflated my ego just enough to give my Higher Power the space to enter my being and work in my life. Suddenly I was being led by an unseen hand. A few days later I walked into my first AA meeting on a pink cloud. The obsession to drink was taken completely out of me.

I don't believe for a moment that I could have stayed sober this long without continuously practicing surrender, inventory, confession, restitution, service and the other principles embodied in the Steps. My spiritual awakening got me sober, but the willingness to "completely give myself to this simple program" keeps me sober. "Completely" reminds me that I can always do more -- that I can never let up on my program of action.

Non-stop Lessons

2012-01-16T22:56:00.002+08:00

I believe that any day I spend in any form of guilt, shame, fear or anger is a non-living day. At the end of my life if I were to add up all the days I've spent being afraid, angry or guilty, I will find that I missed a big chunk of living. They might write on my tombstone "He missed it."

Living in the present moment is impossible if I'm angry about what someone did to me in the past, even if the past was just a minute ago. The same goes for being afraid about what might happen tomorrow. Guilt about what I did 30 years ago will pollute the present until I bring it to the light of day. The steps helps me do just that.

I've can pretend I'm not angry or afraid or guilty by putting on a happy face. Given enough time, sooner or later whatever it is might sink into my subconscious, but it does not disappear. Instead the voices wake me up at 4:00 in the morning. The "don't they know who you are" indignant voice, the "your gonna get it now" critical parent voice and the "you are a worthless piece of crap" voice of self loathing.

I perfect my character defects in an attempt to hide from you the fact that I am carrying around this guilt, fear and anger. I isolate, I blow up over trifles, I live my life trying to get your approval, I create drama to get "poor me" your pity, I try to control every aspect of my life and yours, The list goes on ad infinitum. Without any real peace in my heart, how can I expect there to be peace in the world?

I no longer want to live this way. I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. I no longer want to give away my serenity and the chance to experience the beauty of each moment. Fortunately AA has given me some tools to help me let go of guilt, fear and anger. Of all the tools the two most important to me are acceptance and forgiveness, but I must choose whether or not I want to pick up these tools.

It helps me to accept when I remember that everything happens to me to teach me, not to punish me. When I finally learn the lesson, I no longer have to have the experience again, but the lessons will keep coming until I learn.

AA Miracles

2012-01-16T22:51:00.002+08:00

They say recovery in AA is like playing a country and western record backwards, after a little while you get your girl back and your car back and your happiness back etc. It was like that for me. I was a couple of years sober and had started to get my life back. So there I was in my suit at a noon time meeting sharing that I had had a high bottom, etc. I was unaware that my sponsor had slipped in the room.

After the meeting he came up to me and said, "so you were a high bottom guy? Funny, I seem to recall that you are just now going through a bankruptcy, that you've been divorced, that you are deep in debt, that didn't have a job for two years and that you basically spent the last few months of your drinking inside your apartment. Doesn't sound so high bottom to me."

The truth is that before AA I was hopeless and didn't know it. It's taken me a while to realize how far down the scale I went. Even through I still had an apartment and a car and enough money to pay for those things for a couple more months, I was in deep doo doo. I was 47 years old, unemployed and living in a dirty apartment on borrowed money which was quickly running out. My mind told me that as soon as I found another big pay job everything would be fine. But my alcoholism had taken away my will to work and to make something of my life. I had no energy for anything other than getting high and watching lame daytime TV.

Then I got a moment of grace that led me to a therapist who told me the truth. Three days later I enrolled in a treatment program and three days after that I walked into my first AA meeting. Suddenly I was filled with hope that if I did what you did, I could get what you had. I floated on a pink cloud.

I loved everything about AA. I went to 400 meetings in my first year and did everything else that was suggested. By putting myself in the center of AA I make space for my higher power in the center of my life. Since then there have been non-stop miracles. It's almost hard to believe that I could get to where I am from where I was.

Almost eleven years ago I was called to work in Shanghai China and I've witnessed the fantastic growth of this interesting country. I met a beautiful, young and sexy Chinese woman and next month we celebrate our ninth wedding anniversary. My career was resurrected and today I run my own consulting company. Sure there have been challenges, but I've kept myself in the center of AA here and everything seems to somehow work out fine.

Character "Defenses"

2012-01-16T22:45:00.004+08:00

Self centered fears are at the roots of all of my character defects -- the fear that I’m going to lose something that I can’t live without or the fear that I’m not going to get something I think I need to live the way I want. My character defects grew out of these fears like so many weeds growing out of a cesspool.

I was afraid that you wouldn’t love me so I became a people pleaser, approval seeker and a perfectionist. I constantly lied in the attempt to make myself look better in your eyes. I manipulated you in a hundred different ways to get what I thought I needed and got angry, indignant and blaming when you resisted giving me what I wanted. I prepared myself for disappointment that I was sure was right around the corner by becoming a negative thinker. I became sarcastic and cynical.

Today, instead of judging myself a bad person because I have these character defects (and shoveling more guilt into the cesspool), I try to look at these fears for what they really are: defense mechanisms. While these defenses keep me safe they also keep me stuck, because every time I react defensively I am doing my will not God’s will. I am blocked off from the light and I cannot find my true place.

The work of steps six and seven is getting down to causes and conditions -- to develop the courage and patience and faith to continuously look beneath the character defect to discover the underlying fear. Once I become aware of the fear, the character defect seems to disappear like the mist on a pond when it is warmed by the morning sun.

Step Four

2012-01-16T22:43:00.002+08:00

Taking Step Four deflated my ego. It helped to make me right sized and create space in my being for my higher power to begin to work in my life. I learned some truth about myself -- that I wasn't always the nice guy I thought myself to be. I learned there as a lot wrong with me besides just drinking to much.

I discovered my part in soured relationships and began to take responsibility for my actions. Just the act of writing the fourth column took much of the fire out of my resentments. I learned that I was afraid about much of life and dependent on others to feel good about myself.

I relived and recorded embarrassing incidents in my past. I cringed recalling some of what I had done, both drunk and sober. Some of the things I used to laugh about were no longer funny. I wrote down icky secrets I'd been hiding for thirty years.

Writing my fourth was uncomfortable, painful. My disease wanted anything but the real honest truth and tried to get me off track by telling me to take short cuts -- to minimize, rationalize and justify. I put my pen down times, wanting to run. Only the date with my sponsor for the fifth kept me going.

In the end I fought through my demons and wrote my fourth step to the best of my ability. I'm sure I had some divine help to keep going, but my conscious motivation was simple. I wanted what you had. I wanted that sense of ease and comfort I saw on the faces of the oldtimers. I wanted to belong -- to be in the center of the herd. And I knew that the fourth was a key to gaining admission to the AA club.

Passing It On

2012-01-16T22:38:00.003+08:00

I rarely drank to be social. I usually drank for only one reason -- to change the way I felt. I drank to escape the guilt, the constant tension, the frustrations, and a “hundred forms of fear.” And I drank when I felt good because just feeling good wasn’t good enough for me. I wanted euphoria -- the perfect high. A few times I got close, but predictably I overshot the mark and when I did my repertoire of behaviors ranged from cynical and negative to argumentative and belligerent. Toward the end only my lower companions could stand to be around me and sometimes even the bar flies flew.

I came into AA on a pink cloud -- a sense of dreamy weightlessness that was better than any drinking high I’d ever experienced. Like any good addict, I wanted more and I was willing to go to any lengths to get it. Even though the pink cloud wore off in a few months, I did everything that was suggested to put myself in the center of AA and the good feelings have kept on coming ever since.

Working with others makes me feel good. When I am passing on the AA message of hope, joy and love, my life becomes more hopeful and joyful. When I'm taking the actions to connect with a still suffering alcoholic, my life feels more fulfilling, useful. There is no greater pleasure than to see the light come on in another drunk’s eyes. It's simply a wonderful way to live.

Inner Change

2012-01-16T22:33:00.000+08:00

I read once of an Indian tribe who cursed their enemies with “may you stay just as you are forever.” They understood that stagnation brings death. Everything in nature is constantly changing. Most of my life I held onto my fixed, rigid ideas about how life should work, until pain yanked them from my grasping fingers.

The new age minister at the church I attended in early sobriety said there are only two motivations for change: either we “feel the heat” or we “see the light.” Today I’m better at embracing change, probably because I’ve learned the hard way that doesn’t do any good to resist it. The pain always comes from resisting.

As an alcoholic I have learned all I can from pain. Now it is time to see what joy can teach me. All I have to be is willing -- willing to give up my fears, judgments and expectations, to “let go of my old ideas absolutely.” I’ve found it’s not as hard or scary as it seems.

It’s important to be gentle with myself. Trying to force myself to change because of self-dissatisfaction is just more violence against myself. All it really requires is that I pay attention to what’s going on inside of me. My Higher Power does the rest.

The sign said “Spiritual Pizza Parlor” so I went in and ordered a $12 pizza. I gave the waitress a $20. When she handed me my pizza, I asked for my change. She said “change comes from within.”

Old Ideas

2012-01-16T22:30:00.001+08:00

Where I got sober, a few of the oldtimers used to say "I came for my drinking, but stayed for my thinking." The process of working though the first nine steps to the best of my ability deflated my ego which in turn made room for my Higher Power to work in my life and remove the obsession to drink. I was able to discover some big chunks of truth about myself and clean up most of the wreckage of my past. But I still have plenty of "stinking thinking" down in my subconscious that can bubble up to the surface and cause me to say and do things that I regret. The 10th step helps me become aware of how these false and worthless ideas are robbing me of my peace of mind.

Staying sober is no longer a daily challenge for me, but living with poise and serenity is. When I churn in anger, lose sleep to a resentment, or project a doomsday scenerio in fear I can be sure that some old idea is at work. When I am reacting from anger, fear or guilt, I forfeit any any chance at authentic happiness for as long as it take me to return to sanity.

When I work step 10 regularly, I pay attention to to my life instead of sleepwalking through it. I begin to see patterns to my reactions. I see how self will, driven by "100 forms of fear," keeps me in a prison of my own making. Eventually I get "sick and tired" of giving away my serenity and I become ready and willing to do whatever it takes not to live this way any more. I believe this is what "entirely ready" means in step six.

Service

2012-01-16T22:27:00.002+08:00

I identify with Bill when he said in his story, "I was winning at the game of life." I too enjoyed significant worldly success before alcoholism took most everything I held including my interest in life itself. But even as I look back on those so called good times, in honesty I felt empty inside. I found out in the rooms that what I was missing was not more money or a bigger house, but a true partnership with a God of my own understanding -- a God I could do business with. I found that God in AA and I'm forever grateful.

I was 47 years old and about 90 days sober when I was elected the donut guy by the men in my home group. I looked at this as a huge honor and I've been looking at service as an honor ever since. I've been fortunate enough to do a lot of neat stuff growing AA here in mainland China. It feels good to help where I can.

In the 70's they used to say, "whatever goes around comes around." Whatever I put out into the universe comes back to me. Whatever I give I really give to myself. If I am putting positive thoughts and actions into the universe, it comes back to me 10-fold. That's been my experience.

I got my life back in AA. No amount of service that I can do can ever repay this debt.

Responsibility

2012-01-16T22:22:00.000+08:00

I was less than 24 hours sober when I met with Dean S. a counselor at the out patient treatment center to which I had been recommended by a therapist who had told me the painful truth about myself. Dean, sober for 16 years at the time, was giving me an orientation to help me make up my mind about committing myself -- and a big chunk of my meager funds -- to their treatment program.

I don't remember too much of what he said, but I do remember that he was a warm caring person, not judgmental at all. He was totally opposite in disposition and personality to the lower companions I met every day in the bar near my apartment.

One thing I do remember that Dean said made a deep impression on me. He told me I had a disease called alcoholism and that is was not my fault that I had it. Had he said that I was somehow to blame, that it was simply a matter of not having the willpower, well, I would have been right back out the door. As I was enjoying the moment of feeling off the hook, he said something else. "But, now that you know you have this disease, it is your responsibility to treat it. And if you fail to treat it, you will pay a bigger price than you can just now imagine."

I took those words to heart and committed to the treatment program. Three days later I walked into my first AA meeting and I have been treating my disease ever since.

To Thine Own Self Be True

2012-01-16T22:06:00.002+08:00

I am coming to believe that grace is not just the "good" things that happen to me, to you and to the world. It's also the painful stuff, the ugly stuff, and the downright cruel and hateful stuff. Today I'm not the tongue chewing, piss in my pants, wet brained drunk that I was on course to be and that's God's grace for sure. But the countless men and women who do fit this description are also receiving grace. The universe is doing it's best to point them in the opposite direction of the way they are heading. They are getting bombarded with moments of clarity where they can see as I did that there is a easier, softer way to walk through this thing called life. It's part of the great mystery why some of us get it and some of us don't, but it's clear that everyone receives an equal amount of unconditional loving grace.

If not to earn grace, then why do I practice the steps? The simple answer is that I suffer when I don't practice. I fall back to sleep and begin to ignore that small voice inside. The voice that is subtly urging me in the direction of Truth. As it says in the other big book, the trick is to be of the world, but not in the world. Practicing the steps sllows me to enjoy the beauty of life but not get caught up in it. Someone once wrote "there's not a shred of evidence that life is meant to be taken seriously"

It always amazes me to remember something I learned in grade school, that each snowflake is unique. There are no two snowflakes alike. If bazillinons of snowflakes are all different, it's not too much of stretch for me to believe that I am unique and that I was put here for a definite purpose. By practicing the steps I move closer to finding out who I really am.

Pride

2011-07-23T19:52:00.000+08:00

It seems to me that pride is the opposite of gratitude -- one of the most important tools in my AA tool box. Gratitude opens up the channel between me and my Higher Power, pride closes it. With my channel open I am capable of untold miracles limited only by my beliefs, with my channel closed my accomplishments are insignificant. I like to remember the quote "Man's greatest accomplishment is foolishness to God."

So what is it I want? To be connected to the power that created and maintains the universe and everything in it or the power than managed to get himself isolated in his darkened apartment in a dirty bathrobe drinking wine and watching reruns of Gilligan's Island day after day? Hmmm. let's see...

Certainly it's OK for me to take satisfaction in my accomplishments -- God gives us these good feelings for a reason -- as long as I remember that "i" didn't do it. There is only one Source, one Supply and one Power. It's all coming from God and it's all a gift -- "war" "peace" "good" "bad" whatever you want to call it.

Denial

2011-07-23T19:49:00.002+08:00

I'm not sure denial is a bad thing. Toward the end if I had the ability to see my life as it really was, who knows what I might have done to myself? I was pathetic but didn't know it. It's only now 10 years later that I can see that I was in really deep trouble. While I had not yet lost my apartment or my car, I had lost my interest in virtually everything that didn't involve getting high. Alcoholism has eroded my spirituality from the inside out. I was running purely on self will -- rationalizing, justifying, or ignoring all the events of my life. Denial is probably saving a lot of alcoholics (drinking and sober) from suicide, but not all of them. It didn't save my father.

It's uncomfortable to inventory and see myself as I really am. It's uncomfortable to see how my actions harm others. It's uncomfortable to admit I am wrong and uncomfortable to make amends. It's easier just to stay in the warm cocoon of denial. I think it takes a lot of courage to leave the comfort zone and work the Steps. If you are doing this work, you are learning what I am learning: "the truth will set (me) free."

Wanting What I Want

2011-07-23T19:47:00.000+08:00

I remember the story of a little boy who had watched Gone with the Wind with his parents. He saw Rhett Butler say to Scarlet "I want what I want when I want it." So the next day he tried this out on the little girl who lived next door. He swaggered up to her and said "I want what I want when I want it." She looked at him and said "Well, you'll get what I got when I get it."

I'm running on self will when I want what I want regardless of what God or anyone else may want. In this condition -- consumed with my own plans and ideas -- It's only a matter of time before I'll be doing mental, spiritual, emotional and maybe even physical harm to another of God's children. I'll be like that tornado the Big Book talks about ... running through the lives of the people around me.

I learned in AA that the only solution to self will is to do God's will instead. Fortunately the instructions on how to do God's will are neatly written down in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. All I gotta be is willing, honest and open minded.

The Three C's

2011-07-23T19:43:00.001+08:00

"The alcoholic is like a tornado roaring his way through the lives of others."

This line in the BB described me to a tee. I was so caught up in me that I was totally insensitive to you. I stepped on your toes, belittled you (just being "cute" you know), and used you to get my needs met. And I didn't even realize I was doing it unless you brought it to my attention, then I would argue with you. "I didn't mean to.." If I finally apologized, it was to get you off my back or to get me out of hot water.

As a few layers have come off the onion, I am a little more in tune to the fact that there are other people on the earth besides me, but admitting that I am wrong is still not one of my strong suits. But I do it (albeit sometimes not "promptly") because I believe that the program of Alcoholics Anonymous works IF you work it.

I'm pretty much convinced that my life is a result of the thoughts I think. If I'm carrying around a lot of negative thoughts, then my actions will be negative and I'll create more wreckage. So the challenge for me today with Step 10 is to pay attention to what I'm thinking. And I can find out what I'm thinking if I listen to what I'm saying.

If I can stay away from the three C's: Complaining, Criticizing and Condemning then a better life is possible for me.

Seeking

2011-07-23T19:40:00.001+08:00

After 30 years of drinking and causing wreckage and pain to myself and others, I received a moment of clarity. In a flash I was allowed to see the truth about what I had become. I saw that alcohol was involved in all the negative experiences of my life. I got a good whiff of myself and it wasn't a pretty smell. Along with this vision of truth, I got a feeling of hope. I learned later that this is called "grace" -- an undeserved gift.

I did not go to God to get this experience. He brought me to Him. He took away the alcoholic obsession and compusion. He loved me first and that's why I seek Him today. For me it's not blind faith, but faith based on the reality of my own experience.

There is not a time when I am apart from God. He is right here in my heart and has been there all along. But my experience of Him that changes based on my willingness to seek Him.

Its like we do a little dance. By taking the actions that demonstrate my willingness, I take a step closer to Him and he automatically takes a step closer to me. When I get caught up in life stuff and forget what's important I take a step backwards and God steps backwards too.

The difference is that after 10 years of this dance when I'm close, I'm closer than ever and I don't have to move backwards as far before I realize that I'm heading in the wrong direction.

Meeting Makers Make It

2011-07-23T19:38:00.000+08:00

There's a certain truth that exists for me in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous that I haven't been able to find elsewhere. By the time I got here, I had heard the lies for so long I believed them totally. The lies about relationships, success, how life works, even the lies about God. I believed that it was a "dog eat dog" world and whoever had the most money and other stuff at the end was the winner. I believed that getting and staying comfortable was the number one goal. I went to any lengths to get comfortable and sometimes, for brief periods, it felt like I was winning, but the emptiness would always return. For thirty years I drank to fill up
the emptiness. Today I realize that it was the spirit of God that was missing from my life.

Meetings for me are like cool clear water dripping into a bucket full of muddy, dirty water. Over time the water in my bucket has become clearer. But there are still rocks and sticks and rusty beer cans in the bottom of my bucket. Meetings will not lift these out of my bucket, only the continuous, dynamic action of the 12 steps applied to my life one day at a time has removed some of these big chunks.

Each meeting I attend has the potential of 12th step work if I am focused on what I'm bringing to the meeting rather than getting what I think I need. If I'm sitting in a meeting condemning, resentful, and judgmental, I'm not much help to anyone else. But I gotta keep coming back anyways. It's the only chance I have.

Life Changing

2011-07-23T19:35:00.003+08:00

I'm coming to believe that my life experience today is a direct result of my
thoughts yesterday. It is absolutely impossible for me to have a life that is happy, joyous and free, if I am entertaining thoughts of worry, resentment and fear. When I was still practicing, one of my favorite expressions was "life is a sh*t sandwich and it's always lunch time." This kind of negative thinking became ingrained in me -- self perpetuating. It's no wonder that I had a life that was mostly negative.

Like any bad habit, it's taken some time to reverse some of this negative thinking. This is work that I would not have even attempted while still drinking. But now that I've been able to see a little progress in the form of a better life experience, I'm enthusiastic about wanting more.

All of this has come as a direct result of increased contact with my Higher Power. The Steps and the Program of AA has made this increased contact possible. Mostly I feel my insides are cleaner today. I'm not carrying around so much guilt and shame, thus I'm not dogged by the constant feeling that something bad is going to happen. I feel lighter.

The AA suggestion of being of service is one that is serving me well. If I am truly a channel for God's Peace, Love, etc then the channel has to go somewhere. It doesn't end in me. My prayers for opportunities to be of service are being answered both in and out of the rooms. When my focus is on what I can give rather than what I think I need, my life just naturally seems to be better.

Self Discovery

2011-07-23T19:32:00.000+08:00

I used a spiral notebook for my 4th. Pretty much filled it up. The first pages were neatly written in my best hand. These were the pages where I was intellectualizing my fears, harms and resentments. The final pages (where I was rushing to get finished before my appointment with my sponsor) looked like another person had written them. This was the true stuff, the painful stuff, the embarrassing stuff. These were the twists and crannys. I wrote this stuff down quickly, trying not to look.

Then just before my fifth, I decided to "clean it up a little." After all, what would my sponsor think if he saw my sloppy handwriting? So I rewrote it on the computer with justified margins and subheads. Like a college thesis. Even gave it a title, "Instincts Gone Awry." I reduced 30 pages to two and a half.

It took me about 15 minutes to read my "manuscript" to my sponsor. He looked at me kind of blankly and said "is that all there is?" I showed him my spiral notebook and he said why don't I read that too. Two hours later I had read it all, even the embarrassing bad handwriting pages. He gave me a hug, told me he loved me and said that now I'll never have to be alone again.

I'm coming to believe that once I crossed the line into alcoholism every drink or drug I took me further and further away from Reality. So when I came to at age 47, I had no idea who I really was or how life worked. To me the Twelve Steps is very much about discovering the Truth about myself. The willingness to go though this process of self discovery brings me closer to my Higher Power and the Promises begin to come true.

Change

2011-07-23T19:27:00.000+08:00

I heard that there was a South American indian tribe that cursed their enemies by saying "stay just the way you are." If I'm not growing and changing, I'm stagnating and dying. Which is exactly were my alcoholism was taking me before God graced me with a moment of clarity that led me to Alcoholics Anonymous.

The biggest road block to change is the idea that the best way to live is to avoid pain and to just get comfortable. I don't use alcohol or drugs to try and get comfortable today, but other things. Sweets, exercise, numbing out in front of the computer, working too much, controlling too much, and the list goes on. I'm sure I've missed a good part of life because of the fear that some new experience or a change in my routine would take me out of my comfort zone.

The New Age minister back in San Diego said there are only two reasons why we would want to change: because we see the light or because we feel the heat. Thanks to Alcoholics Anonymous I'm more willing today to try and see the light.

Repetition

2011-07-23T19:20:00.003+08:00

By the end of my drinking, I had become an expert at playing the role of the devil's advocate. I prided myself on my ability to tell you exactly what was wrong with any plan or idea you had. If I was looking at a beautiful garden, my eyes would automatically focus on the one weed. My outlook was cynical and my humor sarcastic. My favorite expression was "life is a sh*t sandwich and it's always lunch time."

By the time I staggered into the doors of AA, negativity had become an ingrained habit. Years of negative thoughts and words produced negative deeds. But I was so wrapped up in self that I was only vaguely aware of how my actions affected others. I didn't purposely set out to have a negative life, but as alcoholism eroded my spiritual center, I really had no other choice.

It's only by practicing moment by moment, the actions I learned from the Steps and from sober, recovering people in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous that have I been able to break the habit of negativity. Oh sometimes I still see the glass half empty, but generally my outlook is positive. And this positive outlook is paying dividends in a positive living experience. AA really is the softer, easier way for me.

Forgiveness

2011-04-27T10:28:00.002+08:00

As long as I am unwilling to forgive, I block my HP out of my life. The light goes out. Then I’m back to running on the destructive energy of my anger. My mind whirs in a constant state of condemnation. I send out the vicious attack dogs to find more evidence of your guilt. They return and obediently drop it at my feet. Now I have new bones to chew on. I’m drinking the rat poison waiting for the rat to die. True happiness is impossible. Man o’ man, I just don’t want to live this way anymore.

I don’t practice forgiveness because I’m a good guy. I practice because I don’t want to suffer. It is forgiveness of self and others that wipes away the anger. This doesn't mean I condone what you did, it’s just I choose to forgive you for it. Sometimes it takes a while to get to the place of forgiveness, but I notice that the amount of time I’m willing to sit in my own crap is less and less as the years roll by.

Through the years I’ve tried everything suggested. I’ve tried to see the other person as spiritually sick, I’ve prayed, I’ve written steps. I try to remember when I point my finger of condemnation at someone, I’ve got three fingers pointing back at me. When I realize that I have done the very same things to others that you have done to me, forgiveness comes easy...well, easier.

The Easter message of forgiveness is a good one for me. Forgiveness is the E-ticket to my own peace of mind.

It's All About Me

2011-03-20T13:41:00.001+08:00

AA works because it's all about me: my sobriety, my spiritual growth, my sense of usefulness and purpose, my joy. I receive these gifts by being of service to others. Since it's in my best interest, I share my ESH with anyone who wants to listen. It is an added bonus if I can play some small role in helping another human being turn their lives around, but it's none of my business who "gets it" and who doesn't. I just do what I learned from my sponsor and others and try to get out of the way and let God do its thing.

Buddha said to find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life. I do not consider my 12-step activities to be work--much less self-sacrifice. I might think differently had I come along thirty years earlier. I've heard old timers describe 12-step calls back then. How they often left their warm beds in the middle of the night to go to some flophouse and clean vomit off wet drunks. How they put their belts between the teeth of a shaking alcoholic so he wouldn't swallow his tongue. How they abandoned their wives and kids to help some poor wet-brained sot stay away from a drink for few hours more. A self-centered person like me might conclude that a steady diet of these activities is self-sacrificing. But the principle is the same. The old timers did this work to stay sober themselves and for the joy it gave them. Self-interest pure and simple.

Am I doing enough? I have no idea. I know that I am sober; I know that I feel much more comfortable in my own skin today; I know that my life has meaning; I know that the spiritual love we alcoholics have for one another has grown in me over the years. All these gifts are a direct result of passing on to others what was so freely given to me. Self-sacrifice? Hardly.

Perfectionism

2011-03-20T13:38:00.002+08:00

The issue of my perfectionism came up in the treatment center almost seventeen years ago. The counselor said, "Trying for an 'A' in everything you do is making you nuts. Why not shoot for a B minus?" It sounded simple at the time, but it is anything but that. Essentially she was asking me to change the way I view the world entirely.

In AA I learned the only way I can change what I see on the outside is to change on the inside. The good doctor in his Opinion calls this "a deep psychic change." This interior change requires me to let go of all my old faulty beliefs about who I am and how life works and allow myself to be restored to the person I am meant to be. Only the repeated action of the 12 Steps makes this possible.

I am not cured of perfectionism, but I am much better. I have a better idea of what it means to do my best. The critical voices from my childhood no longer yell, but they still whisper.

AA Centered Life

2011-03-20T13:34:00.006+08:00

As I look back on how I got here and what has kept me coming back, I can see my Higher Power’s hand in every detail of my surrender, my willingness to do what is suggested and the realizations I’ve had throughout the years that a Higher Power is working in my life. Today I even see grace in the thirty years I spent in front of the ass kicking machine before I got sober. I could not have come to where I am today from where I was without drinking every drink and telling every lie.

Age forty seven and recently unemployed, I had spent the better part of eight months drinking in isolation. By then I had chased everyone else out of my life. Something inside me called out for help. I was directed to a therapist with integrity -- my Eskimo. She didn’t mince words. "You don't have an ounce of humility in your whole body, you have the emotional maturity of a thirteen year old and your brain is so foggy from your daily drinking that you can’t hope to get any clarity on your life.” She looked deeply into my eyes like she was looking at my soul and said, “you’re in trouble, aren’t you Jeff?” My ego fought hard against admitting anything. “Maybe,” I whispered. I didn’t realize it at the time but that “maybe” opened the door to a whole new life. The next gift came a day or so afterward in the form of a vision--my moment of clarity. I saw that all the negative events of my life were connected to alcohol. The truth about my drinking moved from my head to my heart.

I liked everything about AA from the moment I walked into my first meeting. I was shocked to hear people speaking from the heart. I laughed, really laughed, for the first time in years. I kept coming back. My mind began to relax. My life began to feel lighter. I floated on a pink cloud. One night when I was a few days sober it came to me that I had not thought about a drink for the whole day! I had absolutely no desire to drink. The obsession had been removed. I knew then without a doubt there was a power greater than me at work in my life.

I took the actions suggested and put myself firmly in the middle of AA. Since I was unemployed I went to two meetings a day. I made a bunch of new sober friends and looked forward to coffee after the meetings with other alcoholics. I worked through the steps with a patient and loving sponsor. My home group elected me the doughnut guy. I began to change. I found work and I fell into a comfortable routine of meetings and work. By this time I was sponsoring a couple of guys. The promises were coming true. I was almost three years sober when the crisis hit.

I was fired from the job it took me two years to find, sabotaged by unhealed character defects. Fear had me by the throat. I plunged into darkness. Instead of drinking, I picked up the phone and called my sponsor. I told the truth at meetings about what happened. I worked through Steps one through nine on the job loss issue and made my amends. After a few days the voices stopped and the fear evaporated. I was lifted up on another pink cloud. I had an overwhelming feeling that somehow everything was going to be all right. Three months later I accepted a wonderful job offer in China and embarked on the adventure of a lifetime. I went from the bottom of the heap to the top of the world in three months. There is no possible way this could happen, but it did.

After nearly seventeen years, AA is still in the center of my life. I keep coming to meetings because I enjoy them. I sense there is still much more to learn. I remember reading a famous book when I was still drinking, Seven Habits of Highly Successful People. One of the habits suggested was to live a God centered life. I do not know how to bring God into the center of my life, but I do know how to put AA in the center. God seems to follow automatically when I do.

AA Role Models

2011-02-12T09:30:00.001+08:00

Every single person I meet in AA or anywhere for that matter has something of value to teach me if I am willing to learn. There are some people I don't want to learn from. They make me feel uncomfortable so I tune them out. What I know is that the discomfort comes from seeing a reflection of myself in them. It's not their BS I hear, it's mine. It's not their rigidity I sense, it's mine. It's not their confusion I see, it's my own. I grow by having the willingness to look in the mirror when it is handed to me. Some days I have this willingness, some days I don't.

This mirror also reflects my good qualities back to me. These qualities might not be showing up in my life right this minute, but the potential is down there somewhere just waiting to be released.

Those men and women in my journey who stand out in my memory are the ones who make me feel good about myself when I was around them They came from different backgrounds -- one guy sold shoes at Sacs, another worked the swap meets, still another was a retired oil executive -- but they share a number of common qualities that drew me to them.

They all love drunks and share freely with anyone and everyone. They are good natured and don't take themselves too seriously. If they get angry, they seem to have an ability to let go and regain their peace of mind quickly and easily. They are not afraid to gently tell you the truth, even at the risk of hurting your feelings. They are kind and considerate to all. I guess you could say they are wise, though they wouldn't agree. They have a certain light in their eyes.These are the qualities of the people who have what I want.

I read somewhere that we are all but single strands of thread, but together we make a perfect cloth. No one strand is more important than another, but some strands, might be just a little brighter than most.

Freedom from Self

2011-02-12T09:26:00.002+08:00

Dependence on others, negative thinking, worry, attachments and desires, family and cultural ties, and prejudice and judgment all keep me bound to self. Some are heavy chains some are thin threads, but all keep me in the self-centered prison of my own making. I start to free myself from bondage as I begin I let go of all these things that block me from a true experience of the life my higher power planned for me.

Chained against the wall in my self-centered prison, I must be full of fear because I know unconsciously that I have no power to free myself. This relentless fear creates dis-ease. Since I have been conditioned that all pain is bad, I won't look for the cause, but I’ll look for something to bring about a sense of ease and comfort. I’ve spent my whole life trying to make myself comfortable in my prison.

Growing spiritually does not mean that I can make myself Holy. I can only hope to become aware of what’s blocking me from a full experience of peace, abundance and joy -- that feeling of useful and contented sobriety. I use the 10th step and tools found in other spiritual literature to discover what’s blocking me. I’m coming to believe that this simple awareness is 99% of the work.

If I am willing to look honestly at myself and see where I am still selfish, fearful, dishonest or resentful, I begin to see patterns in my behavior. Each of the patterns binds me to self. Certainly I am willing to do this work when I am in pain. Then I’ll go to any lengths. But unless I’m willing to do this work continuously, even when I am feeling good, I’ll continue to stay in my prison, unable to truly love anyone else, even me, and still trying to make myself believe that a few scraps of stale bread is a lavish banquet.

Courage to Change

2011-02-12T09:24:00.000+08:00

I never really saw the need to change anything all those months I sat alone and unemployed in my darkened, dirty apartment drinking cheap red wine and watching lame daytime TV. After all I was a pretty good guy who at one time was winning the game of life and would do so again as soon as I could find another big paying job. Except for the fact that I was running out of borrowed money and could not find the energy to even send out a resume. Denial was so strong that I didn't really believe there was anything wrong with me that a new job couldn't fix, so why would I want to change?

What I wanted was my life to be fixed, not changed. I wanted more energy and enthusiasm. I wanted my old "can do" attitude to return. I wanted the secret to a happy fulfulling life. Almost weekly I would head to the bookstore to the self help section and carefully select a new solution for my life. I liked to read and think about the ideas in these books, but since I didn't have the courage to actually DO anything differently, I stayed stuck in my dirty easy chair with my bottle of wine, overflowing ashtray and a week's worth of empy fast food bags and pizza boxes strewn on the carpet at my feet. The dull ache of fear grew daily.

God works is mysterious ways. One of these books was about men experiencing mid-life crises. This book sent me to a therapist who made it clear that my symptoms -- low grade depression, feelings of uselessness, and worry about the future -- were more due to alcoholism than any mid-life crisis. At her suggestion three days later I entered an outpatient treatment program. Three days after that I walked into my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. I have been changing ever since.

It's only when I look backwards to where I was can I see how far I've traveled. I have moved from a life of materialism toward a life of simplicity; from a desire to achieve success to a desire to connect with others; and from jealousy of what you have to certain gratitude for my gifts. I haven't reached the end of any of these roads, but I'm making progress. Practically no area of my life looks the same as it did fourteen years ago. Consequently I'm happier than I've ever been.

It takes courage to walk the path we are on. It's not been easy for me to leave the comfort zone and challenge self-destructive habits after so many years of living in the insanity. It takes guts to honestly share with others what's going on with me and to walk through fear when the voices say "run away." Without courage I can't move forward with my life.

It helps me to remember that this courage doesn't come from me. It comes from my Higher Power in the form of grace. Courage is always available to me as long as I am sincerely willing to seek it.

Dancing with God

2011-02-12T09:22:00.002+08:00

My first sponsor told me on a couple ocasions that spirituality was a gift from God -- there's nothing I can do to "make" God come alive inside of me. It's grace, a free gift that I neither deserve or can earn.

When I practice the principles I deflate my ego and make space in my being for God. As nature abhors a vacuum, spirit seems to rush in and fill up the space. It's like I take one step towards God and he takes two steps towards me. Then when I get caught up in things of the world and retreat -- He steps backwards too. Pretty soon I begin to feel disconnected and without purpose. Finally I wake up and remember what is real and the dance starts again.

God and I have been doing this dance for years. He patiently waits until He senses that I am ready to receive the gift that He wants more than anything to give me.

Letting Go of Results

2011-02-12T09:16:00.002+08:00

Years ago I remember seeing an interview of George McGovern by Barbara Walters. Mc Govern was a former presidential candidate. He had five beautiful daughters. One had our disease. Despite numerous treatment centers and spin drys, she passed out drunk in the snow and froze to death. McGovern had tears in his eyes. He said he just never knew when to be tough and when to be soft. I can identify.

Alanon teaches detachment with love. This has to be the most difficult thing a human can do. We are asked to watch people we care about make self desstructive choices putting themselves in harms way while we sit on our hands. Yet that is exactly what is asked of us.

As soon as I put myself between the alcoholic and the consequences of his thinking and actions, I am trying to do God's job. Better I just put out my hand, be available, share my ESH, and take the person through the steps and let go of results completely. Whether anyone "gets it" or not is none of my business.

Willingness to Grow

2011-02-12T09:15:00.002+08:00

I was told when I was new that just saying I was willing was not enough. I had to demonstrate my willingness by doing the things suggested. Today most of what is suggested like going to meetings, socializing with other alcholics and sharing my ESH doesn't require much willingness because by now these things are comfortable, even fun. I might be able to stay sober on meetings and fellowship alone but I don't believe I can grow spiritually. And if I'm not growing, chances are I'm slowly slipping backwards into the cesspool of my own thinking.

I demonstrate my willingness to grow when I make the effort to see myself as I really am and to become "cleaner" inside. The steps help me do this. I grow when I sit with uncomfortabble feelings instead of running away or numbing out. I grow when I try to understand the messages that the fear and anger bring. I grow when I am willing to look honestly at myself, to search for my part in every disturbance, to admit when I am wrong and make amends.

A part of me doesn't want to do these things. A part of me wants fo fall back to sleep in the childish illusion that my life will succeed by doing only the things I enjoy. And sometimes I do fall back asleep, I'm no saint. But sooner or later I realize that when I do fall back asleep I just stay stuck and the same lesson will just keep presenting itself over and over until I finally get it. There's no escape.

If I'm paying attention I notice that every day life hands me many opportuinites to look at myself and grow. The main thing for me is to be willing to look in the mirror when it is handed to me.

My Movie

2011-02-12T09:13:00.000+08:00

I heard that trying to "get spiritual" was like standing in water up to my neck trying to get wet. I can't become spiritual because I already am. I just don't realize it much of the time as I get so caught up in the things of the world. I feel closer to my higher power when I can escape from the "worldly clamors" that seem to demand constant attention.

It helps me to imagine that I am watching a movie. I sit in the theatre looking up at the screen. The movie seems to be about me because I see glimpses of myself and people I know. I spend alot of time trying to figure out the plot and if the the other people in the movie are "good" or "bad." I wonder how it will turn out. I'm become convinced that this movie is all about me and my life.

What I am learning is that the movie is not about me and my life. I am not the movie. I am the light coming out of the projector. The light is real. The movie is not real. The movie is not real because the light from the projector passes through the filters of my beliefs, attitudes, and programming before it reaches the screen. Thus as my attitude changes so does the movie I see.

My "whole attitude and outlook" has changed since I begin my spiritual journey in Alcholics Anonymous. When I look up at the movie screen today I see I much happier movie than I did when I was back sitting in my dirty apartment in my "command chair" with my bottle of wine, bag of pot and my remote control watching reruns on Gilligan's island.

Not My Fault

2011-02-12T09:08:00.000+08:00

Twelve hours sober and three days before I walked into my first AA meeting I was in an orientation meeting with Dean, a counselor for an outpatient treatment program. I had to decide if I should commit most of my remaining meager funds to enroll in the program. I was skeptical because if I spent the money on treatment, what would I drink on?

At the outset Dean said something I'll never forget -- something that I've repeated hundreds of times since. He told me that I have a disease called alcoholism and that it was not my fault that I have it. Just like having cancer would not be my fault. But he also said that now that I know I have this disease, it is my responsibility to treat it, and if I fail to treat it I would pay a much greater price than I could imagine.

Had Dean said to me that I was somehow to blame for my disease, that I had it because I lacked the willpower to put down the bottle, I would have been right out the door. My fragile little ego just could not have stood the thought that it was my fault.

I need to let myself off the hook with my ego too. This small, separated part of me was formed while I was still a little kid by well-meaning but ignorant and fearful parents, teachers and others who filled me with false ideas about what's important in life. I was scared to death that I couldn't measure up, but I just couldn't let anyone see my fear so my life became a lie that drinking made bearable.

It's absolutely true that all the pain I experience in my life today is of my own making. I make decisions based on self (ego) that put me in a position to be hurt. As long as I remain in bondage of self I will continue to experience pain even if my motives are good. It's the only way the universe has to tell me I'm on the wrong path, that I'm holding on to tightly -- that I'm heading away from the light.

Like my alcoholism, it's really not my fault that I have a frightened ego. But now that I now I have it, I am responsible to treat it -- to reduce it's illusionary power over my decisions and actions. I treat my ego by trying to the best of my ability to practice the spiritual principles contained in the 12 step. The steps give me a way out of ego and the corresponding pain it brings to me and others

Then and Now

2011-02-12T08:42:00.003+08:00

About one year before I got sober, I flew from California to Florida every other weekend to be with my parents while my mother was dying of late-stage cancer. I made five or six trips before my father ended her suffering and took his own life. It’s no coincidence my sobriety date is exactly one year to the day from the date they died. Today my beautiful young Chinese wife lies in a hospital bed slowly recovering from her sixth major cancer surgery in the past fifteen years. When I compare how I handled my mother’s sickness while still drinking to how I am handling my wife’s health challenge today, it’s clear my whole attitude and outlook has changed.

Seventeen years ago, with no spiritual center, I was terrified of death. I worried about painful long term illness. Thanks to Alcoholics Anonymous I am now connected with God of my own understanding. I have come to believe that only the body dies, that death is nothing more than a continuation of life in a different form. And as far as extended illness goes, I have seen so many of you walk through so much physical and emotional pain without a drink, that I just know I can too as long as I stay close to the program.

I remember during one my trips to Florida during my mother’s last days. I sat up all night by her bedside and killed most of a fifth of cognac until I passed out in the chair. I just didn’t want to feel anything. It’s equally as hard to see my wife suffer for days on end, but I haven’t once had the thought to run. I consider it an honor to walk through this difficult time with her. I look forward to showing up at her bedside this afternoon sober, being of service where I can and helping her stay positive. The contrast between the way I was then and the way I am now amazes even me.

Asking for Help

2011-02-12T08:41:00.003+08:00

A minute after she declared that I had probably had a drinking problem, the therapist looked deeply into my eyes like she was looking into my soul. "You're in trouble aren't you Jeff?" My ego fought hard against the truth. "Maybe," I admitted.

As it turned out, this slight admission that perhaps there was this one tiny aspect of life I couldn't handle myself -- this pesky 30 year drinking problem -- was just enough to give my Higher Power an opening to begin to work in my life. Almost seventeen years later I'm only slightly better at admitting I need help. I'm getting pretty good at asking for help on the big stuff, but my response to the challenges and vexations of daily living is usually "OK God move over, I'll take it from here" rather than "Thy will not my will be done."

Self-will held me hostage in the hospital a few days ago. I wasn't happy about the speed of my wife's recovery, her treatment, or her caregivers. I even found a reason to be resentment against my fragile Chinese mother-in-law. I felt my attitude plunge. For a couple of hours I sat in the hospital room looking out of my crap-colored glasses at everything that was wrong. I tried and failed to coach myself out of it. I even tried praying, but I had my fingers crossed behind my back. A part of me didn't really want to feel better. Finally, reluctantly, I called another alcoholic and let him know what was going on with me. After the call it felt like a tiny bit of light seeped in and the darkness began to evaporate. An hour later my positive attitude returned.

Help is what I needed seventeen years ago and help is what I need today, but admitting I need help and asking for it doesn't come easy. I was raised to be a rugged individualist and those old tapes are still playing. Fortunately the whole AA program is set up for people like me. In one sense everything I do in AA is an admission directly or indirectly that I need help. Attending meetings, calling other alcoholics, putting out my hand to newcomers, being of service to the group, sponsoring, reading the literature and working the steps are all ways I ask my Higher Power for help. Help always comes if I am willing to take the actions that prove I really want help.

My Blind Side

2011-02-12T08:38:00.000+08:00

Bill talked about my blind side when he wrote:

"Very deep, sometimes quite forgotten, damaging emotional conflicts persist below the level of consciousness. At the time of the occurrences, they may actually have given our emotions violent twists which have since discolored our personalities and altered our lives for the worse." 12x12 pg. 77

"How are you, Jeff?" a member asked when I was a few months sober. "Fine," I replied. He looked at me and smiled. "Fine, for people like us, means frustrated, insecure, neurotic and emotional." I couldn't see how this could be true because I felt fine, I really did. The obsession to drink had been removed and I was floating on a pink cloud. Today I can see the truth in what he said. I can feel fine, but as long as I'm carrying around the accumulated guilt, fear, anger, shame and resentment from the past in my subconscious, I'm really not fine. I'm just experiencing a temporary lull between fearful reactions to the people and events of my life.

When someone pushes one of my buttons -- and there seem to be an abundance of expert button pushers in my world -- I instinctively react. I don't see it coming. Often my defensive, angry reaction seems to be stronger, more violent, than the situation calls for. For many years it used to surprise me when simple anger would turn to rage or a tiny mistake would turn to shame. Today I know whenever I over react it's because of some ancient hurt in my subconscious that's not yet healed. Fortunately I have a spiritual program that works both above and below the surface of my consciousness to make me whole. All I need is the willingness to take the actions suggested.

Group Of Drunks

2011-01-13T15:52:00.003+08:00

As I made my way through the church doors to my first AA meeting I wasn't sure I wanted what you had, but I was convinced beyond a doubt that I didn't want what I had.

The man who would become my first sponsor held out his hand when I introduced myself as a newcomer. "Some of us go to breakfast after the meeting. Why don't you come along?" I mumbled that I'd like to, but I had a lot to do that day. With a knowing smile he said, "I'm sure you do, Jeff, but why don't you come along anyways?"

I really didn’t want to go. The fear that kept me on the outside looking in throughout my life had morphed into chronic isolation. I hadn’t a clue about how to interact with others without a few drinks first. Besides, the men who surrounded me after the meeting in welcome seemed a little too happy, a little too up.

But the same unseen hand that guided me to AA nudged me to the breakfast. There was six or eight men altogether. I laughed for the first time in years. I remember driving home, caffeinated to the hilt, thinking “who are these people?” It didn’t take long to find out that these guys were a Group Of Drunks who shared a common problem and a common solution. All I need to join is a desire to quit drinking.

Moment of Clarity

2011-01-08T09:33:00.001+08:00

“You have the emotional maturity of a thirteen year old, you don't have an ounce of humility in your whole body, and you brain is so cloudy from your drinking that you can’t hope to get any clarity on your life." After brutally taking my inventory, the therapist looked deep into my eyes. It felt like she was looking directly a my soul. After a few seconds she said, "you’re in trouble, aren't you Jeff?" I stalled
for a few seconds, my ego fought against admitting anything was wrong. "Maybe,
I whispered."

It turned out that this “maybe,” this slightadmission of powerlessness, opened a tiny door to my HP. I was graced with a dose of truth about myself. For the first time I saw that every negative event in my life was connected to alcohol: the drunk driving arrests and nights in jail, flunking out of college, painful divorce, insane financial decisions, failed relationships, poor business judgments. Taken separately over my thirty year drinking career, these were just isolated incidences of bad luck that probably happened to everybody so I thought. But when I saw them altogether in one snapshot, the evidence was overwhelming. I experienced that moment of clarity that I believe every one of us must have if we are to stick in our program. I had finally discovered what was wrong with me.

A few days later I sat in the first group meeting at an outpatient treatment center with five or six other newcomers. I had just spent the last of my Visa credit to enroll. The short, rotund woman who ran the program, an ex-heroin addict from New York, was giving us the run-down. This woman had no tolerance for BS. She had a sign on her desk that read, “I go from zero to bitch in two seconds.” “This is an AA-based program,” she said. “To graduate you must attend at least three AA meetings every week.” Then she looked at me and said, “Except for you Jeff. Since you are unemployed, you are required to go to a meeting every day.” I burned with resentment about being singled out, but I didn't dare speak up. The requirement to go to a meeting every day turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me.

I made my way up the backstairs of the La Jolla Presbyterian Church to my first AA meeting. Secretary Will C. greeted me. He was 70-something with a graying beard and hair and gentle eyes. Slowly a few other members began to arrive. There were seven or eight in all. Big Al was there, Bobbi, Jay and Duncan and a couple of others. There as a doctor named Bill who was new too. Apparently he was losing his medical license for taking too much of his own medicine. Dave M. was there. Dave became a good friend and remains so today. Each person's eyes lit up when they heard it was my first meeting. They gave me some AA pamphlets and passed around a meeting directory. Each person wrote their name and phone number in the space provided in the back of the directory. I still have that meeting directory today, more than 16 years later.

When the sharing began big Al T started off. I don't remember what he said, but I do remember that almost as soon as he began to talk I had a strange feeling that I was right where I was supposed to be. It was as if I had found my way home after a long, painful journey. I was filled with hope that a new and better life was possible for me. It is through my desire to pass on what I was so freely given that the promises have come true for me. This, to me, is the magic of Alcoholics Anonymous.

True Identity

2011-01-01T12:49:00.002+08:00

I am a miserable failure at turning my will and life over to the care of God, but I'm beginning to understand why. It's because a part of me continues to believe that I am a limited separate individual self that will pass away when my body dies. The truth is I am an unlimited eternal spiritual being. All attempts to get "more spiritual" will fail because I already am 100% spirit. I just haven't fully realized it yet.

I like the story of the baby eagle that falls out of the nest and is adopted by a flock of chickens. The little eagle grows up thinking he is a chicken. He pecks and clucks and does all the other things chickens do. Then one day another eagle swoops down for a fresh chicken dinner and spots the chicken-eagle. He says "Dude, what are you doing with these chickens? Why don't you fly away?" The chicken-eagle responded, "I'm a chicken. Chickens can't fly" Nothing the eagle says can convince the chicken-eagle that he is not a chicken. So the eagle walks him over to a nearby pond to see his reflection. When the chicken-eagle sees the truth about himself, he spreads his wings and soars away.

So it is with me. As long as I identify myself as being purely human, I must live in constant fear of sickness, death and abandonment. This fear drives me to control people, events and circumstances, to hold onto life instead of letting go. Out of my need to control outcomes, my character defects grow up like weeds -- people pleasing, perfectionism, pride. The roots are deep. Just like the chicken eagle, I don't think to question them.

The twelve steps help me realize my true identity. They offer me a process to become aware of my character defects, to question them, to discover their roots. All I need to be is willing to take the suggested actions and fail repeatedly.

Peace

2010-12-26T08:09:00.001+08:00

When the you-know-what is hitting the fan I repeat the Serenity prayer like a mantra. I am no longer trying to change God's mind, I'm am trying to change my mind. I don't know how it works, I only know that it does. When I remember I'm not here to judge, compare and control, but only to accept people, events and circumstances exactly as they are, I open a tiny door to peace. When I fail to accept life on life's terms, I am arguing with reality. I've learned the hard way that every time I argue with reality, I lose.

In the face of certain failure to effect any meaningful change in myself, I need courage not to give up, roll over and go back to sleep. Oh I might be able to change my behaviors for a little while, but, like the good doctor said in his opinion, something more than human power is required for any kind of permanent change. So about the only thing I can change is to hold on no matter how much it hurts, keep coming back and do what is suggested.

I'm coming to believe that wisdom has very little to do with ideas in my head. Along with spiritual qualities like strength, courage and serenity, Wisdom arises from my innermost being as my attitude and outlook change. Wisdom can't arise if I think I know what's best. As I continue to recover and let go, more and more the power of the universe guides me peacefully though life.

The Circle of One

2010-12-19T20:38:00.002+08:00

I took my first step towards "we" when I said "I'm Jeff and I'm an alcoholic" at my first meeting. I was four days sober. Big Al was the first one to speak that day. I don't remember what he said, but I was shocked at his sincerity. Even though my cells were saturated with alcohol, I sensed something magical at work. I kept coming back.

I was drawn to the laughter. The clenched fist inside my head began to relax. I began to see I wasn't unique. Our stories were different, but the underlying feelings of fear, self-hate, and hopelessness were exactly the same. I tried to hang on the outside of the circle, but you put out your hand and pulled me in.

I saw peace and freedom in the eyes of some of the members, a lightness of being I lost years before. I really wanted what you had so I got a sponsor and began to take the steps. After taking my fifth, I felt I was a full-fledged member of the AA club. My home group elected me "doughnut guy." Without any effort on my part, a power greater than me removed my e obsession to drink--proof positive that it works. I was hooked.

I experienced the joy of recovery when I began giving away to others what had been so freely given to me. The greatest pleasure in my life today is playing some small part in helping a shipwreck of a person find his or her way into the circle of we. This has to be the best way to live.

Disturbed vs Concerned

2010-12-19T20:37:00.002+08:00

“It is a spiritual axiom that every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with us.”

No matter what the cause? My wife is facing another major surgery. Wouldn’t there be something wrong with me if I wasn’t disturbed? No. I think Bill had it right. Anytime I react to any one of a hundred forms of psychological fear, there is something wrong with me. I am believing what my head is telling me even though it is not true. It is only False Evidence Appearing Real.

My mind, trying to protect itself, takes fearful memories and other "old ideas" from the past and projects them into a worst-case future scenario. My body experiences this fear like the future is happening now. It feels real but it isn't. I feel anxious even though nothing has actually happened. I drank against this anxiety for thirty years.

As long as I choose to believe the illusion my mind creates, I am constantly living in the fearful future, not the present moment. I feel compelled to try to control outcomes--to change a future that hasn’t even happened yet! Whenever I try to control the people and events in my life, I am doing my will, not God’s will. Even though I know this intellectually, I can’t stop trying to control. These currents of fearful belief are deep. The best I say is that I’m a little better.

I am learning there is a difference between being disturbed and being concerned. I'm concerned for my wife, but I'm not constricted in fear. This way I can show up, stay positive and see where I can be of service. I learned all of this in Alcoholics Anonymous.

Mistaken Identity

2010-12-19T20:35:00.003+08:00

I have not slipped or stumbled on the so-called spiritual path because I've never stopped doing what was suggested to me in my first week. I keep coming back to AA, not anymore because I fear picking up a drink, but because I enjoy it. My life feels useful and contented when I am passing on to others what has been so freely given to me. I am becoming less interested in having and doing and more interested in learning how to simply be.

Like a moth to a flame, I am drawn to learn more about spiritual truth, both in our program and in other spiritual traditions. It doesn't feel like I'm making any conscious effort, more like I'm being gently pulled deeper into a mystery. I can report I haven't learned anything about what is true, but I've learned quite a bit about what is false.

I've discovered there is much freedom in realizing that I am not the "self" my mind tells me I am. More and more I realize that this self is nothing more than a bunch of old, tired ideas that keep me in everlasting bondage. It's taken a while but I'm beginning to see that Jeff, as I understand him, is only "false evidence appearing real." As I continue to let go of these beliefs and concepts and stop playing God, my true identity, spirit, begins to wake up.

Keeping It Green

2010-12-19T20:34:00.004+08:00

At every moment of the day I stand at a "Y" in the road. One road leads away from a drink, one road leads closer to one. When I'm spiritually fit, I tend to choose the path leading away from the drink. I am more focused on connecting with others rather than achieving more stuff for myself; I'm better able to overlook the differences between us and see similarities; Peace of mind is my number one goal.

If I get loaded down with fear and doubt I choose what appears to be the easier softer way. Comfort becomes my number one goal. As I move toward the drink, I struggle to be special and unique; I believe the noise in my head is truth; I complain, criticize and condemn. Sooner or later my program becomes stale. I get restless irritable and discontented. I may not drink, but life begins to lose its luster. I know what dragging myself through life like a zombie feels like. I don't want to go back there.

So the challenge for me is to keep it green. I've found that annual retreats, going to different meetings, performing annual house cleanings, and developing new friendships within the fellowship all help to keep my program fresh and growing. But sponsorship is still the most valuable component. There is no bigger thrill for me than seeing a human shipwreck turn his or her life around and sail proudly out of the AA harbor. Playing a small part in this miracle is simply the best way to live.

Sweet Surrender

2010-12-19T20:34:00.003+08:00

I've had very little experience with dying, actually none personally, but I'm not sure I'll be very good at it when the time comes. I just recovered from a change-of-season cold/flu and felt so shitty I didn't smile for two weeks. They told me when I was new that God never lays more on a person than he or she can handle. I'm not so sure about that.

Yet I've known people both in and out of the rooms who are terminal. They have no hope of ever getting better, but they seem to be doing OK, some seem happy in fact. I don't know how they do it, but I'm guessing there must be some kind of major surrender that goes on that I just can't now imagine. I guess faith is the certainty I'll be given what I need when I need it. Not a moment before.

Thinking about death brings up self-centered fear. My mighty ego cannot imagine itself no longer in existence. Fortunately I am working an ego-dissolving program called the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. Even though I'm not yet "wearing life like a loose robe," I'm no longer being dragged kicking and screaming through life either.

I plan to continue grinding down ego, making tiny surrenders each day. Hopefully I'll get to the point, when I'm standing in front of death's door, that I am more a human "being" and less a human "doing." I want to be able to let go of the steering wheel in my little boat completely and just float on down the river. Merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.

Serenity

2010-12-19T20:32:00.001+08:00

Shit happens. Life is a wonderful, awful mix. In my heart of hearts I know that it takes both the wonderful stuff and the awful stuff to give life it's texture. I've faced a few calamities in my sobriety: unexpected job losses and my wife's painful battle with cancer to name a couple. I've watched others walk through much, much worse.

On any given day my recovery program has to be just good enough to get me through the absolute worst thing that can happen without picking up a drink. This is what I believe Bill meant when he says "matching calamity with serenity." If I can walk directly into the fear of whatever is happening without picking up, I have a chance to grow my faith. If I pick up, I forfeit that chance and probably make things a whole lot worse.

I have the power to resist the drink and walk through the fear if I do the things that invite God into the center of my life: I get out of myself by looking for another alcoholic to help; I dont' keep secrets, but share honestly about what's going on; I comb through the wreckage until I discover the black box -- my part and I make direct amends; I double up on my meetings to strengthen my connection with the fellowship.

When I take these simple actions I open up the channel to my Higher Power and my peace of mind eventually returns.

Gratitude is a Verb

2010-12-19T20:29:00.000+08:00

Before I was graced with a moment of clarity that led me to Alcoholics Anonymous, I felt entitled to everything I received. After all I battled the world day in and day out for these few scraps happiness. Mostly I resented life for not giving me more. Over time these "old ideas" slowly dissolved by continuing to do the things that were suggested to me in my first week. A grateful attitude is beginning to flower.

I try to remember that everything I put out into the universe returns to me in one way or another. Every thought is a prayer. When I have grateful thought, energized by grateful feelings, abundance flows in my life. Too often I overlook the many small blessings each day brings. I often wonder how good my life would get if I practiced an attitude of gratitude in all my affairs.

My sponsor taught me that gratitude is also a verb. It's not just how I feel, it's what I do. If I feel grateful for my health, I take good care of my body. If I feel grateful for my job, I find a way to do it better. If I feel grateful for my recovery, I show it by being of service.

I'm grateful to be an alcoholic. I've come a long way from my dirty, darkened apartment, overflowing ashtray and bottle of red wine at 11:00 in the morning. Today most days are peaceful. I feel useful and content. I have enough. There's no possible way I could get to where I am today from where I was without having a disease that was going to kill me if I didn’t treat it.

A grateful heart
Thou that hast given so much to me, Give one thing more, a grateful heart. Not thankful when it pleaseth me, As if thy blessings had spare days; But such a heart, whose pulse may be thy praise. - George Herbert

Psychic Cesspool

2010-12-19T20:28:00.001+08:00

I drank against the anger, the anxiety, the guilt and shame, and against the dark secrets that were going to my grave with me. I stuffed a life time of fear into the psychic cesspool hidden deep within my subconscious. This toxic cesspool spawned faulty beliefs, “old ideas,” that motivated my thoughts, words and deeds, making a life of peace, beauty and freedom impossible. The steps ask me to clean out my cesspool one bucket at a time.

I hold my nose, but can’t help getting a good whiff of myself in steps four and five. In step six I begin to see the weeds of my character defects growing up from the cesspool. I try pulling off the tops but the weeds grow back. After a persistent effort in step seven I discover the old idea at the root of the defect. I allow HP to change my mind, to re-mind me, and the character defect falls away effortlessly.

Steps eight and nine - getting right with the world and the people in it -- provide the greatest opportunity to bucket out my cesspool. I am no longer “Mr. Wonderful” who can do no wrong. I am a fallible human being who makes mistakes. I become teachable, willing to learn how to live in peace and harmony with others. It’s easy to understand why Bill put the promises after step nine.

Step ten helps me continue to spot faulty beliefs and resist falling backwards into old energy habits, dumping new crap into my cesspool. It asks me to compare my life with a perfect ideal and to take corrective action. When I practice step ten I demonstrate my willingness to grow along spiritual lines -- the whole point.

I’m not sure if it is possible to clean out my psychic cesspool completely and exorcize the demons that still live there. I’m not a saint. But I do know that the bucket work I’ve done so far has been well worth the effort

Staying Awake

2010-12-19T20:27:00.000+08:00

The program of Alcoholics Anonymous is like "No Doze" for spirit. As long as I continue to do what is suggested, spirit stays awake. But if I let up on my program of action, spirit rolls over and falls back asleep, just like I do sometimes on a lazy Sunday morning.

If spirit falls back asleep, I'm right back to sleepwalking through my life, interested only in entertaining myself, always struggling to squeeze a drop of happiness out of people, places and things. Eventually discontent sets in, then irritability and restlessness. Sooner or later I'm suffering -- right back in my darkened apartment, drinking cheap red wine and smoking pot, full of fear.

Waiting for pain to motivate me to continue to grow along spiritual lines seems like such an inefficient way to live. I'm learning the hard way to take my hands off the steering wheel and let spirit, fully awake and free, guide me to a useful and contented life.

Reminders of Recovery

2010-12-19T20:23:00.002+08:00

My anniversary chip is the shiniest thing in my pocket. But the most vivid reminders during moments when I catch myself feeling comfortable in my own skin -- when I compare what it was like then to what it’s like today.

Today I experience moments of happiness for no reason. Adrenaline pumping excitement is no longer necessary for me to feel like I am alive. I don't seem to struggle to win attention and approval. It might be that I'm just getting older, but concern about what other people think about me is diminishing. I seemed to have miraculously recovered from a severe case of terminal seriousness. I somehow have begun to see that we are all just two bit comedians in a third rate play. I laugh more. I am no longer deeply concerned with how the movie of my life turns out. After cringing and wincing at myself for for the better part of 50 years, I have finally concluded that my movie has very little entertainment value. I am no longer obsessed with the way it turns out. I read "when the shoe fits, the foot is forgotten." Today I fit better in my own skin than ever before. Walking through life no longer gives me blisters.

These reminders help me realize that I’m being restored to my natural state of being. I am closer to being the person I was intended to be than ever before.

Lessons

2010-12-19T20:21:00.000+08:00

Like is says in Step Two, I’m coming to believe that, as long as I’m willing, the the universe pulls me towards spiritual wholeness. It provides non-stop lessons that point me away from self-centeredness towards truth, towards peace, towards love and tolerance. If I resist the lessons, the universe, in all it's benevolence, keeps ratcheting up the pain. The pain turns into chronic suffering. I drank against this suffering for thirty years until a moment of clarity led me to Alcoholics Anonymous.

I was chained to the belief that success in the world was all I needed to live happily ever after. Success was my north star. I believed that as soon as I had the world’s approval, as soon as I had enough money, power and prestige, then I could rest. I spent my life getting close, but never arriving. The silver chalice was always just out of my grasp. I watched my alcoholic father take this painful journey, but somehow it would be different for me. Such is the power of illusion.

Finally, the pain of resisting spirit’s pull towards sanity became too great to ignore. Something inside of me said “uncle” and I reached out for help. AA was there with the road map for the journey and a whole bunch of friendly traveling companions.

Remembering

2010-09-11T09:52:00.001+08:00

Sin is forgetting the truth about myself--that I am a pure spiritual being having a human experience. In forgetting this, I also disregard this truth about others. The remedy is remembering. As I grow, I remember more. Or maybe it's the other way around.

On a purely human level I will always fail. I either over-step the mark or come up short. I give too much here and take too much there. I never seem to be right on target. I never seem to find that peaceful place where I can rest.

All my life there was a nagging feeling that something was wrong. I lived in a constant state of dis-ease even when I achieved success by worldly standards. I falsely concluded that the problem was life itself. So I struggled for thirty years trying to escape life through alcohol, drugs, sex, cookies, work, marriage -- you name it, I tried it. "My will not Thine be done." Nothing worked for long.

Fortunately I was graced with the disease of alcoholism. Either I had to become willing to try and live life on life's terms or I die. Something in me chose life. I applied the tried and tested formula of steps, traditions, meetings, sponsorship, and reaching out and connecting with other alcoholics. As my true nature awakened, I began to remember. Today I realize that I don't so much work a program, but the program is working me.

Dancing with God

2010-09-10T18:38:00.001+08:00

My first sponsor told me on a couple occasions that spirituality was a gift from God -- there's nothing I can do to "make" God come alive inside of me. It's grace, a free gift that I neither deserve or can earn.

When I practice the principles I deflate my ego and make space in my being for God. As nature abhors a vacuum, spirit seems to rush in and fill up the space. It's like I take one step towards God and he takes two steps towards me. Then when I get caught up in things of the world and retreat -- He steps backwards too. Pretty soon I begin to feel disconnected and without purpose. Finally I wake up and remember what is real and the dance starts again.

God and I have been doing this dance for years. He patiently waits until He senses that I am ready to receive the gift that He wants more than anything to give me.

Fresh Bread

2010-09-10T18:23:00.001+08:00

In one of my prayers I ask God to "give us this day our daily bread." Bread may be ideas, intuition, hunches, money and material things. What ever it is I need He provides, but he only provides it for today. It would be easier if God would give me a year's supply of bread, then I wouldn't have to worry, but that's not the way it works. One day's supply at a time.

One thing I try to do is to finish today's work today. If I am doing yesterday's work today, I am living on stale bread. I try to have a clean slate to start each day. This is major recovery for a life-long procrastinator!

It seems I get today's bread by believing wholeheartedly that it is provided for me, by asking for it, and by putting my HP in the center of my life.
Before AA I didn't know how to put my HP in the center of my life. There wasn't room since my ego was firmly in the center.

I just try to do what was suggested in my first few weeks -- Don't drink, put my hand out to other alcoholics, ask my HP and others for help, don't let myself get to hungry, angry, lonely or tired, get to a meeting and a few other simple things -- by putting AA the center of my life I put God there too and I receive everything I need to live one more day in peace and harmony.

Willingness

2010-09-10T18:21:00.001+08:00

I was told when I was new that just saying I was willing was not enough. I had to demonstrate my willingness by doing the things suggested. Today most of what is suggested like going to meetings, socializing with other alcoholics and sharing my ESH doesn't require much willingness because by now these things are comfortable, even fun. I might be able to stay sober on meetings and fellowship alone but I don't believe I can grow spiritually. And if I'm not growing, chances are I'm slowly slipping backwards into the cesspool of my own thinking.

I demonstrate my willingness to grow when I make the effort to see myself as I really am and to become "cleaner" inside. The steps help me do this. I grow when I sit with uncomfortable feelings instead of running away or numbing out. I grow when I try to understand the messages that the fear and anger bring. I grow when I am willing to look honestly at myself, to search for my part in every disturbance, to admit when I am wrong and make amends.

A part of me doesn't want to do these things. A part of me wants fo fall back to sleep in the childish illusion that my life will succeed by doing only the things I enjoy. And sometimes I do fall back asleep, I'm no saint. But sooner or later I realize that when I do fall back asleep I just stay stuck and the same lesson will just keep presenting itself over and over until I finally get it. There's no escape.

If I'm paying attention I notice that every day life hands me many opportunities to look at myself and grow. The main thing for me is to be willing to look in the mirror when it is handed to me.

Perception

2010-09-10T18:13:00.001+08:00

I heard that trying to "get spiritual" was like standing in water up to my neck trying to get wet. I can't become spiritual because I already am. I just don't realize it much of the time as I get so caught up in the things of the world. I feel closer to my higher power when I can escape from the "worldly clamors" that seem to demand constant attention.

It helps me to imagine that I am watching a movie. I sit in the theater looking up at the screen. The movie seems to be about me because I see glimpses of myself and people I know. I spend a lot of time trying to figure out the plot and if the the other people in the movie are "good" or "bad." I wonder how it will turn out. I'm become convinced that this movie is all about me and my life.

What I am learning is that the movie is not about me and my life. I am not the movie. I am the light coming out of the projector. The light is real. The movie is not real. The movie is not real because the light from the projector passes through the filters of my beliefs, attitudes, and programming before it reaches the screen. Thus as my attitude changes so does the movie I see.

My "whole attitude and outlook" has changed since I begin my spiritual journey in Alcoholics Anonymous. When I look up at the movie screen today I see I much happier movie than I did when I was back sitting in my dirty apartment in my "command chair" with my bottle of wine, bag of pot and my remote control watching reruns on Gilligan's island.

Connecting

2010-09-10T18:11:00.001+08:00

Growing up I never really learned to care about others. I was programmed by fearful parents, teachers and society to place acquiring and achieving way ahead of connecting with others. I was taught many things to help me get "ahead" and be "secure" in the world, but I was never taught how to connect with others, how to care, how to be a friend among friends. Maybe normal people learn this naturally. I never did.

They taught me how to compete, not how to connect. If I wanted all the good things in life, I had to be smarter, faster, better than you. I could not ask you for help. I could show no weakness. I could rely on no one else. Certainly no higher power was going to help me. I became self sufficient.

This idea of self sufficiency nearly killed me. Toward the end, it had me sitting alone in my darkened apartment day after day drinking wine, smoking pot and watching endless hours of stupid television. I was in extreme isolation, but I remember thinking that this was a good way to live. This thought, that it was a good thing that there was no one else in my life, is one of the saddest I can recollect.

I was graced with a moment of clarity that eventually led me to Alcoholics Anonymous. It was there I learned how to connect with and care for other alcoholics. In the beginning my motive was definitely self-serving. I did it to not drink -- to stay alive. Slowly, I became "a part of" instead of "apart from." It took some time, but finally I came in from the cold and allowed myself to be warmed from the fire that burns in our fellowship.

Today I have a spiritual love for all alcoholics. It’s easy to connect with you because we walked through alcoholic hell together. We shared the same pain, confusion and frustration. We are shipmates in the lifeboat leaving behind the wreckage of our old lives and being awakened together into a new life. I don’t like all of you, but I love you all.

I find it difficult to connect with non-alcoholics. Maybe there is no need to, but I am getting the feeling that I should begin to take what I've learned outside the rooms to the other parts of my life and begin to connect -- rather than compete -- with all others who God puts in my path.

Cooking with Gas

2010-09-10T18:09:00.002+08:00

Utilizing the twelve steps to live on a spiritual basis is like cooking on my gas stove top. The stove has a tiny flame that never goes out. It also has a pipe that is connected to an unlimited supply of gas. But these two features alone cannot cook the food. There is not enough energy (power) to change raw food into something more appetizing. If I want to cook anything I must turn the knob to open the gas flow.

Similarly, if I want my life to change into something more appetizing -- I turn the knob by going back again and again to the simple wisdom of the Twelve Steps. As I take the actions prescribed by the steps I am released from resentment, fear and guilt. I connect with an unlimited reservoir of abundance, joy and peace.

I "took" the 12 steps to awaken the desire in my heart to be changed. I "work" the 12 steps today because there is no such thing as standing still. If I am not growing, I am slowly slipping backwards into the bondage of self and the cesspool of my own thinking.

Treating the Disease

2010-09-10T18:07:00.000+08:00

Becoming Sensitive

2010-09-10T18:01:00.001+08:00

One more time I had reacted in anger that bordered on rage. I said things I regretted. I completely lost my serenity. I ruined another day. I sat in my office fuming as the adrenaline from the argument coursed through me. I noticed it didn't feel good, like I was going to puke. As I began to cool down I started wondering how it happened. I realized that this incident was just part of a continuing pattern of reaction that had gone on as long as I could remember.

I was about nine years sober at the time. I had attended many hundreds of meetings, sponsored a number of guys and had worked through the steps many times. I had shared with sponsors many of the other incidents when I reacted in anger. I would be OK for a while and then, almost out of the blue, someone would do or say something that would trigger a fear in me and I would react in anger. I simply could not help myself. Restraint of tongue and pen was impossible.

That night I reached a bottom. I had become sick and tired of being sick and tired. Right there and then I made peace of mind the number one goal of my life. I put peace of mind ahead of my work, my relationships and my 401K plan. I became willing to go to any lengths to protect my peace. I began to pay attention to my peace of mind. When I lose it I ask myself why in morning inventories. I have discovered many things about myself.

Unlike my compulsion to drink, my fearful reactions were not lifted out of me in a flash. It has been a long slow process, but I'm much better today. I believe I became sensitive to the quality of my inner peace through working the steps. The steps also gave me the tools to look within at causes and conditions and the faith to ask my Higher Power for help in seeing the truth about myself.

Bricks in My Bucket

2010-09-10T17:57:00.002+08:00

When I got to AA my mind was like a bucket of dirty, muddy water, filled to the top with fear, resentment, guilt and shame. As I began to give AA a try, it was like I placed my bucket under a spiritual faucet. Every time I took one of the actions suggested by our program, a drop of cool clean spiritual water dripped into my bucket. When I went to a meeting.. drip. Said my prayers.. drip. Put my hand out to others.. drip, drip. Called my sponsor..drip. Slowly, the spiritual water started diluting the dirty water.

It would seem that given enough time under the spiritual faucet of AA, eventually all the water in my bucket would be purified. But there is a problem. Besides dirty water I also have some bricks, rocks and rusty beer cans at the bottom of my bucket. These were my dark secrets, and the embarrassing things I did both drunk and sober that caused major harm to others. These were the things that made me cringe when I thought about them. No amount of dripping was likely to dilute this junk in the bottom of my bucket. This work requires the dynamic action of the steps -- getting down to causes and conditions. Steps four and five are a good start to this process.

I did my first fifth step with my sponsor at 90 days sober, swallowing a ton of ego in the process. When there was nothing more left to share, my sponsor gave me a hug, told me he loved me and said that now I didn't have to be alone anymore. I felt cleaner inside. I felt that I was now a full-fledged member of the AA club.

Grateful for the Pain

2010-09-10T17:55:00.000+08:00

I'm learning that God's grace is not always what I consider a good thing. It says in our book that God is either everything or nothing. If I choose everything then God's grace must also be in wars, sickness, and all manner of suffering in the world I see.

I suppose grace is like a cosmic guidance system. I was graced with a moment of clarity that led me to Alcoholics Anonymous. I was graced with a personal surrender that allowed my ego to rightsize enough to see that you people had what I wanted. I have been graced with an ongoing change of attitudes and beliefs that have freed me from some of the chains that bound me to self. I have been graced with a more sensitive conscience. My internal guidance system has improved. Now there is a little voice that warns me when I'm about to hurt someone with words or deeds. I don't always listen by the voice is there.

God's grace also shows me through pain and suffering where I am clinging, hanging on, afraid to let go. If there was no pain, if I didn't suffer, I would never let go. And never grow.

I was fired from first job in sobriety when I was about three years sober. The pain from the fear was unbearable, but I didn't drink. Instead I shared about it. At one meeting after I shared about how I was suffering an old timer came up to me and said, "one day you will be learn to be grateful for the pain."

Today I know what he meant. I can learn from every one of my life's experiences, even the ones that hurt. Especially the ones that hurt

Getting Real

2010-09-10T17:53:00.001+08:00

Bill used many names for God in the big book. I like "the Great Reality deep within." It reminds me that there is only one universal truth. We each have our individual truths -- what is true for us, but our truths are based only on our individual perspectives. What is true for me may not be true for you and visa versa.

It seems to me that the process of growing spiritually is the process of letting go of what I think is true and moving closer to the universal truth that I call God. Standing between me and "the great reality" are illusions: The illusion that money, power and prestige brings me security, peace of mind and happiness, the illusion that the chief aim in life is to get comfortable and keep myself entertained. The illusion that my life will be fine as long as I control it well. The illusion that I am somehow separate from you, that there is "us" and "them." The illusion that if I could just get you to feel good about me, then I could feel good about myself. The illusion that I was put on this earth to achieve something and I'm a failure if I don't. The illusion that because I am an alcoholic I am flawed in some way. As long as I am caught in these illusions, I cannot have a full experience of my Higher Power working in my life.

Getting real to me means that I continuously work on myself, becoming aware of these untruths and seeing how these beliefs and attitudes make my life unmanageable. It doesn't mean that I have to try to be perfect, because that would be a struggle and struggling just causes more suffering. It just means that I make it a priority to begin to notice that each of these illusions is another bar in prison I've trapped myself in.

Practicing the Steps

2010-09-10T17:48:00.004+08:00

Resolutions

2010-09-10T17:48:00.001+08:00

One of the by-products of getting sober is that my thinking improved. As the fog cleared I began to see the folly of doing the same things over and over again expecting different results. Today I can sometimes actually catch myself before I say or do something stupid. Not often, but sometimes.

When Bill channeled the Big Book and wrote “restored to sanity” in Step Two, he meant much more that just clear thinking. I believe he meant that I will come to believe I am being restored to my spiritual condition -- just the way I was when I first left the home office, one or many lifetimes ago as the case may be.

God, as I understand God, doesn’t care if I am crazy or sane or whether I’m a saint or a sinner. He is definitely not impressed with my my mind or my intellect. What God seems to care about is that I am free -- free of the chains that bind me to self. Free like the birds and the flowers just as He created me to be. As I am nudged ever closer to God’s sanity, I move into harmony with what is. I experience peace, abundance and freedom. As I continue to experience life in this way, my faith grows.

As it says in “How it Works,” I move closer to God’s sanity by seeking. I seek God by taking the actions prescribed in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. There are countless other ways to seek God, but this is the way that works for me.

It really boils down to how I choose to spend my time. At the treatment center they told me if I wanted to recover, I had to spend as much time taking recovery actions as I did drinking each day. I drank for an average of six hours everyday. Going to two meetings a day, hanging out before and after the meetings, calling my sponsor and other alcoholics, reading the literature and spending quiet time alone equals about six hours. I did this for the better part of a year. I believe it was that this early foundation saw me through some pretty tough times.

Maybe I don't need 6 hours of AA activities everyday anymore, but 6 minutes in the morning just doesn’t cut it. As I look forward to the coming year, I ask myself just how great is my desire to get to know God better? What actions am I willing to take? How much time will I commit? My honest responses to these questions are important. If I’m not careful my sobriety might end up just like all those unfulfilled resolutions I made last year at this time.

Getting Quiet

2010-09-10T17:45:00.000+08:00

The true nature of my HP is deep silence. I seek contact with the silence by getting quiet. I practice Step 11 by making time in my day for a period of quiet time. I find that first thing in the morning is best, after I have made my coffee and before the clamor of world starts to intrude. I also seek to connect with this silence by getting into nature alone, however there’s not too much nature here in Shanghai with 22 million people!

As the BB suggests I begin by reviewing the day ahead when it tries to project into tomorrow, I gently return it to today. If a fear arises, I inquire about it’s source. I ask to see what old programming is causing it. If it is a strong fear, I go back to Step 10. Allowing my mind to go where it wants is an important part of my practice. Finally -- usually after 5 to 10 minutes of thinking about today, it kind of “thinks itself out.” Without my mind going a mile a minute I am closer to the silence and my prayers seem more effective.

My prayers are very simple. First I ask my HP to help me to be kind to everyone I meet today and I ask for help -- courage, patience, vision, etc. -- in completing today’s tasks. Then I think about the alcoholics in my life, I think about the last meeting I attended and who is struggling, I think about the newcomers and I think about who I haven’t seen in the rooms for a while. Usually one or two faces show up in my mind. I make a mental note to call them and connect.

Then, as I continue to sit quietly, I listen for intuitive thought. I consider each thought that arises. If no thoughts arise I sit quietly for a few more minutes focusing on the peace within me. When my meditation is over I get up and do the next indicated thing.

This Step 11 practice is the most important 15 to 20 minutes I spend each day. Yet on some days I convince myself that I don’t have time. I guess I am not a saint.

The Train Trip

2010-09-08T16:20:00.000+08:00

I am on a train. On two outstretched arms I carry a heavy suitcase filled with the stuff of my life -- my attachments and desires, my worries and fears, and my beliefs and attitudes. Since the train and I and my suitcase will arrive at the destination all at the same time, why don’t I put it down? Because I can’t. I have been carrying this stuff for so long it feels like a part of me.

My arms burn and my legs are wobbly but I can’t put the suitcase down. I wouldn’t know how to be without it. As the pain of carrying the suitcase rachets up, I distract myself by looking out the window and dreaming.

I'm awakened from my dream by the pain. I just can't bear to carry the suitcase for one more second. With no other option, I ask for help. The porter comes, but, instead of taking the suitcase from my arms, he opens it and together we look inside. I notice a few old, musty things I had forgotten about. They are no longer useful and I wonder why I had been carrying them around for so long. I ask the porter to please remove them for me. He does so gladly.

Now the suitcase is lighter and much easier to carry. I tell the porter I won’t be needing his help anymore and continue on my journey. But I was wrong. The suitcase becomes so heavy again that I have to call the porter for help once more. We look again and I see many more useless things I’ve been carrying around. The porter quickly removes them. Again I feel comfortable and believe I can manage on my own. Again I dismiss the porter but by now I have become sensitive to the weight of carrying around useless baggage. I call him back again and again until my suitcase is empty.

As the train nears its destination, I ask him to take the empty suitcase from my arms. I know he will when the time is right.

Denial

2010-09-08T15:50:00.002+08:00

Exactly one week before I walked into my first AA meeting, I lay on a soft leather couch in a therapist's office whining about my life. I had just read -- skimmed actually (it was impossible to read anything of substance when I was drunk)-- a book that detailed midlife crises in a number of men about my age. In total denial about my real problem -- alcoholism, I concluded that this was what was wrong with me -- I was having a midlife crisis. This was the reason I had no energy or enthusiasm for much of anything, why my life was so mechanical and boring and why I could not seem to get it together to find a new job even though I was quickly running out of money. I wasn't so much there for therapy, but to confirm my own diagnosis.

After the therapist listened patiently to my sob story, she said something that shocked me. She said "I don't think I can help you Jeff, you are certainly welcome to come here once a week and pay me $80 to listen to you talk about your life, but I don't think I can help you." I swallowed hard, first because she didn't buy the midlife crisis theory, but mostly because deep down inside I knew I had no where else to go. When I asked her why she couldn't help, she hit me with the truth, right between the eyes. "You have the emotional maturity of a thirteen year old, you don't have an ounce of humility in your whole body, and your thinking is so cloudy from your drinking that your couldn't hope to get any clarity on your life." I was still reeling from her comments when she looked me deep in the eyes and said "you're in trouble aren't you Jeff?" The voice of my ego screamed that I shouldn't admit to anything. I paused for a long moment and looked at my feet. What actually came out of my mouth was a whisper -- "maybe."

It turns out that little "maybe" was just enough of an admission of powerlessness and un-manageability to make space for my higher power to begin to work actively in my life. I have profound gratitude to that therapist who had the integrity to tell me the truth rather than string me along as a patient. And for the grace I received in somehow being ready for the truth when I heard it.

A few 24 hours later I can still act like King Baby on some days and true humility often feels out of reach, but my thinking has, in large part, cleared up and I make mostly responsible choices in my life today.

Waking Up

2010-09-08T15:45:00.000+08:00

My ego presents a compelling argument that I cannot be happy without the love and respect of everyone I know, a ton of money in the bank, perfect health and appearance and all the comforts of life that the "have gots" enjoy. My ego convinces me that I have been put on earth to achieve something, to get recognized, to be all I can be and the price I pay for failing is to become a loser -- someone with no value.

The fear of being a nobody motivated me to do everything I could to win at the game of life. I worked my ass off, people pleased, manipulated, lied, cheated and tried to do everything perfectly. I strove to come out on top, to get my picture in the paper. I became a human "doing." I was stressed to the max but I figured this was the price that I had to pay. It's the way I saw my father go through life.

The illusion, of course, is that as soon as I get all my ducks in a row, life will be perfect. Then I can relax and live happily ever after in some kind of warm and comfortable cocoon just like the rich and famous in People magazine. I bought into this dream totally. There were times in my life when I did get a taste of success and the exhilaration it brought, but just as soon as I’d begin to relax someone would come along and spill the gravy on the new carpet of my life. Then I’d be off again trying to outrun the fear that nipped at my heels -- absolutely convinced that life will be just grand someday as soon as I discovered the secret formula.

Fortunately, I became an alcoholic. I have a disease that will kill me unless I awaken spiritually and see the dream for what it is -- an illusion perpetrated by my ego that keeps me in everlasting suffering. Without this malady of body, mind and spirit, I’m sure I would have continued sleepwalking through life, caring only about entertaining myself and staying comfortable, trying to outrun the fear. Instead today I am living a life of simple contentment that gets less fearful day by day.

Unity

2010-09-08T15:40:00.001+08:00

I sense that unity is one of those spiritual principles that I’m supposed to be practicing in all my affairs along with forgiveness, acceptance gratitude and all the rest. While an honest inventory about Tradition One shows that I do pretty well in my group, it is clear I have a long way to go to becoming a unifying presence in the world at large.

I come from a culture and upbringing that rewarded individuality. I was taught that each of us separate not only from each other, but also from God whose place is in heaven while I grovel around down here on earth. Instead of connecting with others, I learned to judge and compare. You are either better than me or worse than me, but never the same as me. I had to compete against you to make the team, to make the grade and to make a living. The problem with competition is that someone has to lose -- hardly a unifying force in the world.

I lived in conscious separation from other people and God for most of my life. It’s no surprise that during the last days of my drinking I ended up in almost total isolation -- drinking all alone in my darkened apartment day after day. I remember thinking how good it was that no one else was in my life. No one to hassle me about my drinking or give me any crap about not looking for work. How sad it is for me to recall these thoughts today.

My experience in AA has been very much about reconnecting with life itself. I was able to leave enough of my ego at the door and do what was suggested which placed me firmly in the center of AA. As I began to connect with Group Of Drunks -- I began to connect with my Higher Power too. Even though it was scary at first, I learned that being "a part of" rather than "apart from" was a much more satisfying way to live.

"...we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing. God either is or He isn´t. What was our choice to be?" If my choice is "everything" then I must believe that every person, place and thing in the entire universe (including Osama bin Laden) is God. Even though we all look different on the outside and each of us has unique talents and experiences, each of us is just God in drag.

Ego

2010-09-08T15:39:00.002+08:00

I awoke this morning with a familiar feeling of fear in the pit of my stomach. As soon as I opened my eyes my ego began to point out to me everything that could go wrong. It seems that it’s my ego’s job to keep me in fear of all the pitfalls that lie ahead and to convince me that there’s no way I can avoid them. It took me a good hour before I realized that I am perfectly fine and the fear is not based in reality, but only my ego trying to assert itself.

My ego is a false idea of who I am created by me in temporary ignorance of my true spiritual self. It’s the choice to be separate. I can always tell when I’m in ego. Whenever I’m arguing, reacting defensively, acting like a know-it-all, or in any form of self-pity, I can be sure that I’m coming from my little separated self. My ego is an illusion, but it is so compelling that I can’t help but get caught in it, like a dream I just can’t seem to wake up from.

I heard a good definition of ego -- a huge fortress with towering walls of steel reinforced concrete three feet thick and razor sharp barbed wire strung all around the top built ... around nothing. Isn’t it funny that my ego builds up these elaborate defenses and then someone says something I don’t like and the mighty walls come tumbling down. One tiny little comment is all it takes to reduce my vast defenses into piles of crumbled ruins. This is proof positive to me that my ego is an illusion and has no real power.

If ego had any real power wouldn’t I be immune to the comments and actions of others? But it has no power because there is One who has all power and it ain’t the ego.

The problem is not what my ego tells me. The problem is that I believe it. Thus I react in anger and say things I don’t mean. I lie to try and impress you in the false belief that if I can get you to feel good about me, I can feel OK about me. When I focus on everything that’s wrong with the world, I’m in ego, separated from the truth that life is just fine the way it is. My ego is not a bad thing. It simply can’t be trusted. One of the best pieces of advice I’ve received is "don’t believe your mind, and when in doubt, don’t believe your mind. This is so hard to do!

My ego is like the wizard of Oz behind the curtain pulling the levers. The lights are dazzling and I can’t help but get sucked into the drama. I’m not sure I will ever be completely free, but it’s clear that my desire to recover and my willingness to do what is suggested is slowly but surely leading me out of ego in the direction of my true self.

Working with Others

2010-09-08T15:36:00.001+08:00

AA is my church. The sharing of one alcoholic to another is sacred because somehow God has brought us together. Holiness is of little value in the AA church. We connect though our mutual brokenness. We share together not to save each other’s souls, but to save each others' asses.

My sponsor taught me to tell the truth by sharing his truth. I learned about his fear, his abandonment issues, and the problems of his life. When it came time for my fifth I had the courage to tell him my secrets, even the icky stuff. I learned by observation that the number one and perhaps only responsibility of a sponsor is to be available. He was busy and sponsored a lot of guys but he always had time for me.

We all need three things from our sponsors: love, discipline and direction. In my own work with others I have tended to slight the love part in favor of discipline and direction. I have tried to manage a sponsee’s recovery rather than play the role of friendly helper. I am learning that this controlling style does not work on most people and it is spiritually deadening for me.

Restored to Sanity

2010-09-08T15:34:00.000+08:00

I heard that trying to get spiritual is like standing in water up to my neck trying to get wet. I cannot get spiritual because I already am. I often forget this simple fact. When I go through my day remembering that I am a spiritual being I am able to see the world from a whole different perspective. Then it’s much easier to connect with others as fellow, fallible human beings, not because they have something I need or want.

I came to Alcoholics Anonymous mired in judgment, cynicism and negativity. Today, I am more often able to see that the world is perfect exactly the way it is and that you and I are OK too. I can still get so caught up in my stuff, that I miss the beauty that surrounds me. But at least I know it is there if I am willing to look.

Today I realize sooner rather than later that I am trying to run my own life. I have become more sensitive to self-inflicted suffering. A few years ago the adrenaline rush of self righteous anger used to feel good. Today it doesn’t. After my sobriety, my serenity is my most precious possession. I’ve learned through painful experience that without peace of mind a happy, fulfilling life is just not possible.

A holy man was asked to define spirituality. He said, “When you are hungry, eat! When you are tired, sleep!” More and more I’m coming to believe that life really is this simple, natural and effortless. As I continue to let go of the old complicated ideas, I get closer to the idea my Higher Power had in mind when he sent me here.

Practicing

2010-09-08T15:32:00.000+08:00

I had a year or so of weekly piano lessons when I was a kid but today I can’t play a single tune – not even chopsticks. Practicing spiritual principles in AA is just like practicing the piano. If I don’t practice what I am learning, the tiny light that was awakened inside of me will die out. If that happens, I’m right back to my darkened, dirty apartment with only my bottle of wine, bag of pot and remote control to keep me company. If I want my life to be a beautiful melody instead of a bad dream I have to practice.

A few years ago, I came upon a twenty-four hour practice plan. It is to show up, pay attention, do the next right thing, stay out of results and be grateful. This plan has served me well.

I show up by living in the present moment with the willingness to do what is suggested. I pay attention by getting quiet and listening for the still small voice inside me. I do the next right thing by following the guidance I receive, even if I don’t want to. I let go of results by not having any expectation of how my actions will turn out. I practice an attitude of gratitude by being aware of all the blessings I receive each day. Of course I don’t do any of this perfectly, far from it. But if my life gets wobbly, I can look at this plan and quickly see where I need more practice.

I am coming to believe that every human is given a unique gift. The gift is using our God given creativity to express love. Each of us expresses differently. I find my unique expression of love by practicing the principles in all my affairs. God does the rest.

Third Step Promises

2010-09-08T15:22:00.002+08:00

Whenever I read "How It Works" the word "One" as in "there is One who has all power" stands out. I imagine that the "O" in One is a circle that contains the entire universe -- everything that exists, both seen and unseen. I am reminded that everything inside the circle is interconnected like the threads of a beautiful fabric. Inside the circle I am a human "being." Outside I am a human "doing" - evaluating, comparing and trying to figure everything out, trying to fix things, thinking only about how to get and stay comfortable. Before I was graced with a moment of clarity that led me AA I spent most of my life outside the circle.

The Third Step promises come true inside the circle. In this place life flows naturally without effort. I do not have to strive or compete. I have that sense of ease and comfort I used to get from drinking. I am able to respond rather than react to challenges. My life is peaceful.

‘How It Works" tells me how to place myself inside the circle -- "let go of my old ideas, absolutely." It doesn’t say let go of my "bad ideas" it says "old ideas." I interpret this to mean that I must be willing to let go of every thought, attitude, and belief I have -- I must even be willing to let go of my beliefs about God. When I find myself outside the circle in some kind of pain or upset I can be sure that the cause is an old idea I haven’t let go of yet. The steps provide a clear cut process for becoming aware of these old limiting ideas and having them removed from me.

Of course God, as I choose to call God, is no more a circle than an employer or a director. It’s just one of the ways I try to wrap my tiny, limited mind around the infinite. Frankly I don’t have the foggiest idea who or what God is, but if I had to guess, I would say that God’s nature is love. If God is my employer, then my job description might simply read "let go and love well."

Already Here

2010-09-08T15:18:00.003+08:00

In my journey before AA I lived almost entirely from the outside-in. I got totally sucked into the idea that my good would only come to me if I were successful in the world. I entered the maze and began the frantic search for the golden cheese. I strove to get ahead, to achieve, to win at all costs. Today I know that it wasn’t money, power or prestige that I searched for, but the holy grail of self-acceptance.

I achieved a measure of worldly success that felt good for a while but it was never enough. There was always the next mountain to climb. As the years went by, I became increasingly disillusioned and cynical. Toward the end of my drinking my life was so heavy, I had trouble finding the energy to show up. It was in this state, at age 47, that I was graced with a moment of clarity that pierced the walls of my denial. I was allowed to see the truth about what I had become. I was not a vision for you.

The doors to AA swung open to greet me. In a very real way AA reconnected me with life itself. I worked the steps and began to strip away the "old ideas" that blocked me from my Higher Power. I got into the habit of spending some quiet time each morning listening to my internal guidance system. I am learning to be of service both in and out of the rooms. Today I know that the good I had been struggling to find was right inside of me the whole time.

Qualities of Sobriety

2010-09-08T15:13:00.002+08:00

Fortunately for me only a bare minimum of honesty, open-mindedness and willingness is required to make a start in sobriety. I don’t really have to be honest, I just have to have the capacity to be honest. If I can say, "my name is Jeff, and I’m an alcoholic" and mean it, I probably have the capacity. Our program doesn’t require me to believe anything. I can take what feels right and leave the rest. So what is there to be close minded about? And all I have to do to demonstrate my willingness is show up at a few meetings each week, drink coffee and laugh at the newcomers’ solutions; talk to my sponsor about my favorite subject -- me; and offer mostly parroted advice to people with less time than me. Seen in this light, I need to stop patting myself on the back for sobriety. It’s nothing I did anyways.

There is one more indispensable quality I would add to the list -- compassion. It’s strange that I can’t find mention of this word anywhere in the Big Book, yet it is critical to my recovery that I learn to care about others. I learn compassion when I connect with you through the shared pain, confusion and anger of our disease. I know what you’ve been through because I’ve been there too. As the saying goes, I’ve walked a mile in your moccasins. Compassion for others melts away my self-centeredness and asks "how can I help?" rather than "what can you do for me?"

I didn’t start out with a bucket full of any of these qualities, but I believe I am more honest, more open-minded, more willing and more compassionate than I was when I walked into my first meeting a few 24-hours ago. I consider myself recovered from "a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body," but I also recognize that I am a long way from being fully restored to spiritual sanity of Step Two. I'm no longer hopeless, but I'm not fully recovered either. I guess I'm right on schedule as my first sponsor would say.

As the voice of self hate continues to die down, I am beginning to hear another voice gently reminding me that my sobriety is a precious gift. I fully express my gratitude for this gift by being of service both in and out of the rooms and by continuing to hack away at all my old ideas, beliefs, and attitudes that separate me from you, from the rest of humanity and from God. If I had to guess, I would say that this is the work I was sent here to do.

Faith

2010-09-08T15:03:00.000+08:00

If you saw me at the grocery store during the last eight months of my drinking you probably wouldn’t think anything was wrong. You might have noticed that I was carrying twenty extra pounds of bloat around my midsection and if you looked closely, you might have seen those little red veins were beginning to pop out on the sides of my nose, but you never would have guessed that I was dead inside, just going through the motions pretending to be alive. Actually I didn’t think there was much wrong with me either that a new job wouldn’t fix. I was hopeless and didn’t know it. Such was the depth of my denial.

Then one day something happened. In one second of time -- before I asked God for help, before I had a sponsor, before I worked the steps, even before I attended my first meeting -- my whole life changed. The obsession to drink was lifted right out of me. I have searched ?cannot find any plausible explanation for what happened. It was a moment of grace. Since I was literally raised from the dead, I choose to call it a miracle.

This profound experience is the bedrock of my faith. I don’t believe a benevolent power exists that has my best interest at heart, I know it. Because a belief is a concept of mind, it can easily be shaken by doubt. Mine is a living faith, it is alive in me and nothing can challenge it.

Entirely Ready

2010-09-08T15:01:00.001+08:00

The first few times I read How It Works, I thought it said we had to let go of our "bad ideas," not our "old ideas." Today I know Bill had it right. It’s all the old ideas I’ve been carrying around for God knows how long that created the dis-ease I drank at for 30 years and the upset that pops up in my life today.

These old ideas are the roots of my character defects that grew up like weeds. If I want to rid myself of a character remove I must remove the root or the weed will just sprout back up. Most of the roots of my character defects are buried so deeply in the recesses of my mind that I don’t even realize they are there. That’s why self help programs didn’t work for me, but AA -- a God help program -- does.

I am way too lazy to look at the root causes of my anger, frustration, fear, boredom and the like unless pain forces me to. I believe becoming "entirely ready" means I have to first hit the bottom. I didn’t become ready to quit drinking until I became sick and tired of being sick and tired. The same is true with my character defects. I simply won’t weed the garden work unless I’m in some kind of pain that keeps repeating itself like bad Mexican food.

I confronted this kind of pain in 2003 when I reached bottom with my anger. After almost nine years of sobriety, I had become sick and tired of giving away my serenity to people and situations that didn’t follow my script. I finally realized that my angry reactions were hurting only me, not the bozos I held responsible. I made peace of mind my number one goal.

I began to pay better attention to myself as I went through my day. When I lost my serenity I tried to remember to ask why. At first I noticed only the big blow-ups, but as the years passed I became more sensitive to little upsets -- the ones caused by the termites of fear that gnawed silently away at my peace of mind. I identified a number of the "mouldy oldies" I had been carrying around since I was a kid like: "You should not criticize me in any way. Don’t tell me if I happen to do anything that bothers" (It used to be if you honked your horn behind me in traffic, you were criticizing me, goddamnit!) and "you should treat me at all times with courtesy and respect according to my standard of courteous and respectful treatment, not yours." It took a while, but eventually I came to see how irrational these beliefs were. It also became clear I was taking this stuff way too personally.

Today I still get angry when you do or say something that pisses me off, but I have fewer and fewer volcanic explosions. I don’t try to supress it because that just leads to depression. When I get angry I continue to ask myself why I am angry. The answers I receive always lead me back to some, old worn-out idea that I’m carrying around from my childhood.

Resentments

2010-09-08T14:57:00.001+08:00

I like the expression that a resentment is like holding a burning hot coal in my bare hands with the intention of throwing it at someone. It's only hurting me, but something inside me doesn't feel it right away. It's like I'm wearing teflon gloves. Instead, I get perverse pleasure from rehashing what you did (or didn't do) to me. I enjoy dredging up evidence of your guilt--going all the way back to the beginning of our relationship if necessary--and presenting it over and over again to the judge and jury that live in my mind. The verdict is always the same in my courtroom. Guilty! I sentence you to go without my love and affection for as along as I can stand it.

The penalty phase might last days, even weeks. Since I burn with anger I am incapable of peace of mind and happiness. But just when I want to throw in the towel I think about your offense and I can resist chewing on that bone for a while longer. Only when the pain is overwhelming am I willing to look for a way out.

Once I see that my desire to punish you is only punishing me, I can get started on the work of letting go of my resentment, not for your benefit, but for mine. First -- and the most fun -- is getting very clear about your guilt. I start writing and end up with a nice long list of all the stuff you've ever done that you shouldn't have: tube off the tooth paste, crappy birthday present, eating the last cookie, failing to return my call promptly in November, 1997, etc. I grade myself on the length of the list I compile. Once, during a resentment against my wife, I came up with three pages single-spaced, and we had only been married for five weeks! A+.

If I'm not looking for my part in a resentment, I won't find it. But again, if I'm in enough pain, as I review my list, I'll reluctantly try to locate the eensy weensy part I played. Usually my part is an expectation I had about some aspect of your behavior towards me. I realize that I had no right to expect you to behave like any normal, rational, loving, considerate human being would behave, but I don't tell you that. What I tell you is that I'm sorry I tried to make you responsible for my feelings. And that I accept you just as you are.

Emotional Sobriety

2010-09-06T21:26:00.000+08:00

There is no doubt that I made a royal mess of my life and it is equally clear I need spiritual help if I am to fulfill my potential as a human being. I want to depend totally and completely on my higher power. I really do. But the decision Step Three asks us to make is a bit much, don’t you think?

Step Three asks me to decide to turn all my thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes (my will) and all my actions, interactions, and reactions to people, places and things (my life) over to a Higher Power that I’m just beginning to believe in. Jeez, no wonder I sometimes feel like I have my fingers crossed behind my back when I’m saying the Third Step Prayer!

Specifically, I’m having very little success at turning over other people. Oh, I let my Higher Power handle all the little children (except my wife’s god daughter) and most old folks, but I have trouble letting go of everyone in between, especially those people close to me like my wife, parents-in-law, colleagues, friends and members of my AA group.

If I turn these people over, my Higher Power is just going to allow them to do what they do and be who they are. But what if I don’t agree with what they want to do? What if they don’t love, respect and appreciate me the way I think they should? What if they figure out they don’t need me to “help” them? What then?

The solution of course is to keep applying the Steps in my life in order to achieve the emotional sobriety that Bill talked about in his essay. Only then can I let go of my dependency on people and place my dependency where it belongs—with my Higher Power.

I’ve made very little progress toward emotional sobriety, but I have stopped giving the finger to stupid drivers here in China after I found out they don’t really know what it means.

Change

2010-09-06T21:24:00.000+08:00

As my alcoholism progressed, I went from liking to drink, to wanting to drink, and finally to needing to drink. My recovery program progressed too, only in reverse order. I went from needing to change, to wanting to change to where I am today--enjoying the process of change. As a newcomer, I needed the steps to deflate my ego so grace could remove the obsession. I got a little comfortable and began to enjoy my sobriety. But as time passed, I grew increasingly sick and tired of my angry and fearful reactions to people and situations. I made peace of mind my number one goal. I began to pay attention to myself as I went through my day. When I lost my serenity, I asked myself why. Slowly I came to understand the meaning of the words bondage of self.

When I'm living in ego (me-go), I am asleep to the truth of what I really am. I separate myself from life as it is and live in a dream about life as I think it should be. I lose my connection to the One who has all power. Sensing deep down I that I have no real power of my own, I live in doubt and confusion. I rationalize my anxiety by telling myself this is just the way life is. And then I have a another drink or, if I¡¯m sober, I buy myself something new.

The first step in waking up is to realize you are asleep. Not too long ago, after many years of recovery, I realized I'd been asleep my whole life. I grew up asleep with parents who were asleep. I went to school asleep, got married asleep and had a career asleep. I experienced a spiritual awakening during my first time through the steps, but awakening does not mean fully awake. I did not escape the gravitational pull of my ego, but at least I had a taste of what awake felt like.

Fully awake people don't grasp, don't hate and aren't deluded. They allow everyone to be exactly as they are and everything to be exactly as it is. They float effortlessly through their lives, responding not reacting to the circumstances that arise. They move beyond their limited minds to the source of their being. They are naturally intuitive, wise, compassionate and faithful. I'm a long way off, but, thanks to the orientation provided by my recovery program, at least I'm pointed in the right direction.

Today I'm excited by the possibilities of change. I enjoy challenging the worn out attitudes and beliefs I've been carrying around like so many heavy rocks in my pocket. Continuing to work on myself, continuing the process of awakening, is the best thing I can do, not only for me, but for the world too.

Q & A

2010-09-06T21:18:00.002+08:00

It helps me to remember that there’s already an answer to every question I could ever have. The answer exists in the universe (mind of God), waiting patiently for me to ask the question. It knows not only the answers to the big questions like who should I marry and what should I do for a living, but the small stuff too. It knows what color I should paint my bedroom for the best night’s sleep and what I should eat for breakfast for the most energy. God’s will for me is found in the answers to the questions I ask about my life. Since its will for me is a zillion times better than anything I could think up on my own, I often wonder why I don’t ask more questions or why I don’t hear the answers to the questions when I do ask.

There are many reasons I don’t ask more questions. The most obvious reason must be that I feel I already have the answers--I already have my mind made up. Yet if you asked me if I am open-minded I would say yes. It’s funny how I can fool myself. Another reason is that I don’t want to know the answer is because I haven’t yet learned to take guidance and direction. I want to do it my way. I want to tend to the man who is still sick my way even through there is a wealth of anecdotal evidence that, without God’s direction, my way doesn’t work worth crap.

Even when I’m open-minded and willing take direction, I don’t hear most of the answers because my interior house is too noisy. The voices of anger, resentment, jealousy and self-centered fear drown out the small voice of intuitive wisdom. My drive to achieve takes priority over my natural need to connect. I’m caught in the dream that there’s someplace better than here and sometime better than now. But of course I don’t realize these things unless I am willing to sit quietly. All I have to do is sit down and shut up.

The best thing I can do for the world is to recover. When one of us gets better, everyone everywhere gets a little better. That’s why it feels so good to see the light come on in a newcomer’s eyes. As he or she “gets it,” so do I move a little closer to my own spiritual sanity. Certainly the world dearly needs people to save the rain forest, feed the hungry, and demonstrate for peace, but just now, today, the best thing I can do for all of life everywhere is to recover--continue taking the actions that saved me from the ”hopeless state of mind and body” that is alcoholic hell. Asking questions and listening for the answers are priceless tools for recovery, but I have to remember to use them.

Un-Self Conscious

2010-09-06T20:59:00.000+08:00

If I have a hole in my tooth and it's causing me pain, all I can think about is that tooth; you might say I am "tooth centered." If I have a hole in my roof and a big rain is forecast, all I can think about is that roof; you might say I am "roof centered." If I have a hole in my being that's causing me pain, all I can think about is myself; you might say I am self-centered. I stay tooth centered until I get to the dentist. I stay roof-centered until roof is fixed. I stay self-centered until the hole in my being is filled.

In reality there is no hole. It just feels that way. I feel empty because I lack intimacy with my higher power. I'm here on earth being purely human and my higher power is off somewhere in the heavens keeping score. In this state of separation I must be anxious, I must worry about what you think because I sense that without connection to my higher power, I have no power at all.

As I take the steps and begin to identify false beliefs, negative attitudes, and mistaken concepts--old ideas--I make room for my higher power to enter my being and fill me up. As this process continues, I no longer need to think about myself so much, about my little plans and schemes. I don't have to worry so much about what other people think about me (they are just projecting their own insecurities onto me). Eventually I reach a state of un-self consciousness. I no longer worry. I trust. This is the new freedom promised in our book.

Emotional Sobriety

2010-09-06T20:57:00.000+08:00

Self centered fear is at the root of each of my character defects -- the fear that I’m going to lose something that I can’t live without or the fear that I’m not going to get something I think I need to live the way I want.

My character defects grew out of this fear like so many weeds growing out of a cesspool. I was afraid that you wouldn’t love me so I became a people pleaser, approval seeker and a perfectionist. I constantly lied in the attempt to make myself look better in your eyes. I manipulated you in a hundred different ways to get what I thought I needed and got angry, indignant and blaming when you resisted giving me what I wanted. I prepared myself for disappointment that I was sure was right around the corner by becoming a negative thinker. I became sarcastic and cynical. While these defenses keep me safe they also keep me stuck, because every time I react defensively I am doing my will not God’s will. I am blocked off from the light and I cannot find my true place. I am out of sync with life.

I cannot be emotionally sober until I muck out the psychic cesspool deep in my subconscious, one bucketful at a time. The steps supply me the tools to "uncover, discover and discard" all the old ideas that keep me in bondage, but I must be willing to do the work. As I get cleaner inside, the character defects seem to magically disappear like the early morning mist on a pond when it is warmed by the sun.

Psychic Change

2010-09-06T20:55:00.000+08:00

Before moving to China I enjoyed walks in the Southern California desert to see the wildflowers that grew in the spring. Since the topography of desert floor never changes much, I could walk for hours without feeling I was going anywhere. Only when I glanced backward did I see how far I had travelled. My recovery program is like that. Change happens so slowly, I only become aware of change if I look back to where I came from. It’s surprising to see how different my life is today.

Looking back I see that I struggled in all areas of life. I believed struggle was necessary. I watched my parents and everyone else struggle. Today I know that belief is a lie. I’m surprised at how easy my life is. The peaks and valleys have flattened out.

Somewhere along the way my competitive instinct fell away. I am no longer interested in “keeping up with the Joneses.” I don’t even enjoy competing on the golf course or a game of cards anymore. I don’t like to gamble like I used to. I’m beginning to see through the illusion of winners and losers.

I used to think that the person who dies with the most stuff wins the game of life. Today I know true comfort comes from having just enough. I read that a spiritual person is someone with two shirts who sells one for a dollar and uses the dollar to buy a flower. I aspire toward a life this simple.

I no longer need to figure everything out with my mind – to lay awake at night resenting, planning and scheming. Today I am more willing to accept life as it comes at me, not all the time, but much more often than even a few years ago. I sleep a lot better these days.

I seem to learning how to respond rather than react to life. I more often than not say and do the right things, even when my buttons are pushed. Sure, I still get angry. Stuffing it is not healthy. But I get over it quickly instead of chewing on it for days and weeks on end.

I’m certain that much of my mellowness comes because I’m getting older, but I’ve met enough old bitter people to know that it is more than just old age. The dynamic work of the steps created the space for my higher power to enter my life and change me at depth. My life today is simply a reflection of this “psychic change.”

The Truth of We

2010-09-06T20:48:00.002+08:00

I travel through the steps and awaken from the dream of me--my ego’s fearful idea of who I am and how life is supposed to work--to the truth of We. I put my big toe inside the circle of “One” who has all power. I begin to see through the veils of illusion I constructed to be safe in the world. Those flimsy walls Chuck C. called “conscious separation from.” I start to look past our differences and see the similarities. I drop my need to be right since it must make you wrong. My will to compete with you fades because I sense, for the first time, there is more than enough of everything to go around.

I practice Step 12 to keep from falling back asleep, back into the dream of grasping for people and things to keep my fear at bay, back into the dream that life will be great as soon as I learn to manage it better. I connect with truth by holding out my hand to others just as so many reached out their hands to me. I continue to hack away at my character defects knowing that each one leads to a false belief that serves only to keep me from experiencing unity with all that is. When I’m practicing there is no better place than here and no better time than now.

Pain is not punishment

2010-09-06T20:47:00.001+08:00

I'm coming to believe that genuine gratitude goes beyond a sense of thankfulness for my life and all the good stuff that has happened and continues to happen to me. I'm trying to learn that I can extend gratitude to every area of my life -- all the way to the emotional turmoil and upset I experience from time to time. An old timer said to me once that I will become grateful for the pain. It didn't make sense to me then, but I'm coming to see the truth in what he said.

Life doesn't follow my script. In sobriety I've experienced painful job loss, painful relationship problems, painful financial setbacks and the painful frustration of my wife's serious health issues. I've lived much of the time in uncertainty and insecurity. I wish these painful things didn't happen but they do -- they seem to be part of life's terms.

I begin to be grateful for the pain when I remember that the pain is not punishment from an angry God or some penalty I have to pay for screwing up. The emotional pain I experience is a message. It says to me that one more time I've lost my way. I'm holding on too tightly. I'm resisting. It tells me there is a lesson I have not yet learned.

Once I realize the pain is a message and not a punishment. I can begin the process of letting go and letting God. Then I get to be grateful for the pain because I wouldn’t grow without it.

Awareness

2010-09-06T20:44:00.001+08:00

I’m coming to believe the adage "let your conscience be your guide" is a most dangerous moral instruction. It’s clear from all the killing, cruelty and greed in our world that we humans are having real trouble doing the right thing. If the number of wars is any indication, neither do we seem to learn from our mistakes. Our consciences are guiding us alright -- right off a cliff!

When I make a mistake, my conscience sends me some pain, usually in some form of guilt, so I can correct my course. This design looks good on paper, but it doesn’t seem to be working all that well. My ego uses three well-worn tools to allow me to slither off the guilty hook: minimizing, rationalizing and justifying.

My ego presents compelling arguments why, for example, it’s all right for me to cheat on my income tax. It minimizes the consequences of my behavior by telling me "it’s only a few thousand dollars, compared to the national debt, it’s only a drop in the bucket." It rationalizes my actions by drawing comparisons with others "everybody cheats Jeff, don’t be a fool." Finally it searches its extensive Rolodex for the most plausible way to justify my dishonesty "why should you send money to support a war you don’t believe in?" The weaker I am spiritually, the harder it is for me to resist these false arguments.

Before I was graced with a moment of clarity that led me to Alcoholics Anonymous, I was a liar, a cheat and a thief. I roared through the lives of others like that tornado Bill W. describes in the book. I did what I wanted when I wanted for as long as I wanted, totally oblivious to the damage I was doing. I turned denial into an art form. If my conscience did manage to get my attention with pangs of guilt, I would pick up a drink or a drug and the guilt would melt away like nothing ever happened. Little did I know all that guilt accumulated in the center of my being, in fact I drank against this guilt for thirty years.

My conscience has become more reliable, more sensitive, the longer I stay on the path to recovery. I can no longer get away with much of the dishonesty that was common place while I was still drinking. My memory has improved too. I couldn’t come up with too many specific harms during my first trip through the steps, but in each successive fourth step I’ve remembered things my mind had conveniently slipped under the carpet in an effort to avoid the truth about myself.

There are no free rides through life. Sooner or later I must pay for everything I did. That's the law. Instead of sleepwalking though life, it’s better to try and be aware of how my thoughts, words and deeds affect others on the planet. Then when I screw up I can make amends as best I can. It is the only chance I have to be free.

Life Prayer

2010-09-06T20:41:00.000+08:00

Years ago I heard the minister of a new age church say, "your prayer life is important, but equally important is your life prayer." I'm beginning to understand what she meant.

My life prayer is my thoughts, words and deeds, in that order. Every thought I think has the creative potential to change my life. It can make my living experience better or worse. A thought can heal and it can destroy. I have millions of thoughts. Most of them are useless, but a few have the power to create. Only thoughts with enough energy behind them are transformative. I energize a thought by saying it out loud and then taking action.

Before I cared about growing along spiritual lines, I allowed myself to think all kinds of negative thoughts. Then I gave the thoughts power by saying them out loud. One of my favorite expressions used to be “life is a shit sandwich and it’s always lunch time!” I gave the prayer energy by acting negatively: greedy, resentful, cynical, ad infinitum. With this mind set, is it any wonder my life swirled down the toilet?

I’ve found just saying I’m grateful to be sober, even in prayer, doesn’t do too much. My life changes for the better when I demonstrate my gratitude. I can be of service to my group, put my hand out to a newcomer or put an extra buck in the basket. It’s the same with willingness. It is not enough to say I’m willing to go to any lengths. I must do something that demonstrates my willingness. When I act on my thoughts and words I energize my life prayer. Then the power flows in—a mighty power. And I get to stay sober for another day.

Friction

2010-09-06T20:36:00.000+08:00

The universe puts other people in my life to rub me the wrong and create friction. It could be a criticism from my wife, a fellow-AA carrying the mess, not the message or the man who cut in front of me in line at the convenience store. It doesn’t matter who or what, only how I react. If this friction causes me to react in some form of anger, fear, or resentment then there is some lesson I need to learn. If I’m not willing to learn, the pain keeps ratcheting up until I become willing. This is what “entirely ready” means to me.

We all get exactly the experiences we need to grow. Some are more pleasant than others, but they are all gifts from God. Grace. Painful experiences are the only way the universe has to help me change and grow so I can find my way back home.

It's All Grace

2010-09-06T20:34:00.000+08:00

My best thinking was that if I had a new high paying job I would get a new girlfriend, get out of debt and I’d live happily ever after. Of course I completely ignored the fact that I had had high paying jobs before and wasn’t anything close to happy or fulfilled, but this time would be different. I wanted God to change my outsides--to fix me--but I never really thought to pray to be changed inside. After all I was a pretty good guy.

It’s still hard for me to see that my life experiences are nothing but a reflection of my inner state of mind. Can’t I get away with holding on to resentment, anger, jealousy and fear--just a little? Nope. Sooner or later pain results and the pain keeps getting stronger until I become willing to let go. Pain is the only way the universe has to get my attention--to remind me that I’m heading in the wrong direction, against the current of life.

I’m coming to believe that it’s all grace, everything in life is grace. Alcoholism is grace; resisting spiritual help is grace and the resulting pain is grace--all gifts from a loving universe that wants nothing more from me than my highest and best good. I don’t have to learn anything new to receive the keys to the kingdom. All I really have to do is to be willing to let go: let go of everything I think that is right and everything I think that is wrong; let go of big things; let go of little things. Let it all go.

A Vision for Me?

2010-09-06T20:31:00.000+08:00

What is my vision of God’s will? The book says God’s will is for everyone is to be happy, joyous and free, to be unconditionally loving and kind, but those are just words. God’s will is what is happening here and now. But I can’t see the truth of this moment because I’m still looking at life through the filter of my faulty beliefs. So coming up with a vision is no easy job for me.

The only hint I have of God’s will that feels right comes from looking at the flowers in our garden. I can’t tell if the flowers are happy or joyous, but they are certainly free. They don’t struggle. They seem totally unconcerned about what the other flowers think about them. They seem to know how to respond naturally to life in each moment. When the earth rotates causing the sun to fall on them from a different direction, the flowers don’t get all upset. They simply turn their faces face gently toward the sun. Flowers live the most beautiful lives they can. When it’s time, they pass away without a fuss.

Observing the flowers leads me to believe that God's vision for me is to be free, to live without struggle and not to worry about what other people think. God wants me to return to my natural state; to learn to respond to life rather than react; to stay out of the future and just do the next thing in front of me in each moment; and to finally realize that that death is nothing to fear. If carried this vision into all my activities, how could I not be happy, joyous and free?