Clear Cut Instructions

The Authority Problem

Fat Charlie the Archangel — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 20:03:01 GMT

This is a simple discussion, and one which has shown up many times in these pages. But it keeps seeming - to me - that everything comes back to this.

Where do you find out what to do?

There's always only one real question - "What do I do now?" Anything else is daydreaming or curiosity. Even if "what I do now" is go to sleep, it's still the next thing on the agenda.

My pondering this question is a particularly useless exercise; it is a bit of wondering why the world is the way it is, which is a short sidestep away from thinking that it should change. And that attitude is actually the real problem - it's called "playing God", on page 62.

But I was in a Big Book study yesterday, and I found myself wondering these things, again. It seems that AAs (at least) get their instructions from these sources, mostly:

1) The Big Book
2) The 12 & 12 (as much as I say that there aren't any real instruction in there, it's not true; they aren't framed and structured the way I see the BB's instructions, but they can be found or inferred).
3) Their sponsor
4) Things they hear at meetings
5) Their own minds.
6) The Grapevine (and other literature)

The above list is in no particular order, BTW. I said "the Big Book" because that's what comes to mind for me, immediately; I can't tell that most folks go there first.

I have nothing against reading the other literature (including the 12 & 12) or listening at meetings or talking to my sponsor, but I have made a conscious decision that authority rests with the Big Book. Anything that extends what I read in the Big Book is useful; if it seems orthogonal to the Big Book's content, then it might be informative, and if it contradicts the Big Book, then I ignore it with all the vigor that I can muster.

Now, one might note above that number 5 can include God's direction via intuition or inspiration, and I would concur with such a viewpoint. And one might say that God should always be the Ultimate Authority (like our Tradition suggests) and I wouldn't be able to agree fast enough with that statement.

But how do I trust my own mind? I use the same criteria as I do with the other sources: if what I think (or receive from what I believe to be my Higher Power) extends or conforms to the Big Book, then I'm all for it, but if it contradicts the Big Book, then I try to ignore it.

That may mean that I wind up missing some really good stuff from God - but I'm willing to take the chance that He's not going to try to confuse me by sending me instructions that would go against the disciplines that allowed me to find Him in the first place.

This is really a topic that I think more of us could profitably investigate - but that very notion is, once again, playing God, so it's going against the Big Book, so I should shut up now : )

Administrative Note - I've Stopped Comments

Fat Charlie the Archangel — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 13:15:38 GMT

The spammers hit me in force last night, and so I've had to alter my settings to 'moderate all comments' - and to turn off emailing of comments so that my inbox doesn't fill up with bad English suggestions for me to buy Chinese Viagra.

So you can leave a comment if you wish, but it will never see the light of day until they get this bug fixed : )

Sorry about that.

Behavioral Allergy - A Working Model

Fat Charlie the Archangel — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 22:08:13 GMT

I'm a compulsive overeater.

We OA¹s say that we use AA's 12 Steps and 12 Traditions; when I got here, they told us that the program was in the Big Book, and the Chocolate Book was our personal stories, to replace the alcoholic personal stories in the back of the Big Book.

So good so far.

Then we get the instructions - and with the exception of Steps 1 and 12, they are just the same; Step 12 only changes "alcoholic" to "compulsive overeater", and otherwise it's a good fit. Step 1 changes "alcohol" to "food", and, as the joke about the dwarf goes, "that's when the fight started" :)

In the first place, I don't agree with the use of the word "food" there, strictly speaking. If we're going to replace the term "alcohol", then we need to replace it with the actual problem, and the problem is NOT "food". If food, as food, had the same effect on me that alcohol does on an alcoholic, then there would never be any recovery possible for us compulsive overeaters.

My problem isn't food - it is excess food.

An alcoholic can never safely take in any amount of alcohol, ever again - but obviously I can take in food, and do so several times/day. So obviously we don't mean "food".

So I started some time back using the phrase "excess food" when I am talking about "the thing that starts off a binge", which is what alcohol is to the alcoholic. (I'll admit to the existence of "trigger foods", but I simply include them in this definition, as ANY amount of those items is "excess" : )

But if I'm going to read the Big Book to find out about my illness, it's going to tell me about something called a "physical allergy", and that this allergy manifests as a "phenomenon of craving".

Okay - let's see what an allergy is - seems that if I put the definitions together and find the common ideas, it comes out as an "adverse abnormal reaction to a substance" - it has to be adverse, or nobody would be complaining : ) and it has to be abnormal - else, it would simply be "a reaction". If I take some cyanide, I'll have an adverse reaction, but it won't be abnormal, so I'm not "allergic" to cyanide.

And there's that term - substance.

But how can the "substance" food cause the craving? It doesn't. And the substance of "food" is the same substance as "excess food", only there's more of it.

So I fiddled with this a bit, and something that my sponsor once said (in another context) came back to me - he pointed out that my brain is the biggest pharmacy in the world. My brain (and nervous system) can trigger the production of more chemicals than Dow ever imagined, and they are as powerful as anything Lilly or Roche might come up with.

So, as always, I wanted to follow the Big Book, and thus I followed the alcohol model, and here's what I found.

Alcohol, in small doses, is actually a stimulant, rather than a sedative. So is food.

In larger doses, alcohol acts as a sedative. And it has that effect on everybody, not just alcoholics.

Well, in big enough doses, food acts as a sedative. Or, at least, my body responds to excess food by becoming lethargic - and that's not just true for compulsive overeaters. It works that way for everybody. (Just wait til Thanksgiving and look at everybody in mid-afternoon : )

Heck, it even works that way for animals.

Kurt Vonnegut once said something to the effect of "you can't be really worried when your belly is full".

So what if what's really happening is this - that the body responds to the presence of excess food by generating a chemical that causes lethargy? A biologically-produced sedative? SOMETHING makes all of those people that sleepy. And it's not just the extra weight they are carrying from all the turkey, because for some of them that's not a very big fraction of their body weight : )

So what if the "alcohol" that I'm allergic to, that is a sedative, is actually that chemical that my body is producing when I overeat....?

Further - in order for an allergy to become active, the body must first be sensitized. Just maybe I ate so much popcorn and ice cream that any amount of those things, at all, generates that chemical? -- such that any amount at all of those foods would set off a binge?

This idea is, of course, probably wrong. It might not bear up under any experimental scrutiny. But, just like Dr. Silkworth's original idea of the "allergy", it seems to explain things to me and allows me to use this as a model for moving ahead with my recovery - which may have been the original idea after all.

¹ The term "OAs" bothers me, purely from an English angle : ) because OA stands for "Overeaters Anonymous", so "OAs" would mean "Overeaters Anonymouses" :) - but it's possible that it's a perfectly normal usage of acronyms.

Thy, Thee, Thou and Other Fancy Stuff

Fat Charlie the Archangel — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 18:53:17 GMT

Some time back - oh, ten years or so ago - I heard a young fellow say at a meeting (paraphrased, of course, because I don't remember his exact wording :) -

"I hate that Third Step Prayer - I hate all the "thee"s and "thou"s; it just sounds so stilted, so made-up - but I have noticed that doing things my own way hasn't been working, so I think I'll go ahead and say that prayer, just the way that it's written."

Those of you who know me will know that I sorta smiled inside (maybe outside too : ) when I heard this - and, after the meeting, the young fellow came up to me and asked me to sponsor him.

No coincidence, that, I suppose - I'm known as a fellow who at least tries to pay attention to the directions as given, and I don't spend too much time trying to find a way around them.

But some time later, I got to noticing that I had heard the same sentiment expressed several times - people who found the "thee" and "thy" language in some of the Big Book prayers to be distasteful; some thought that they were too religious and formal, as well.

So I started thinking about those words, myself. Why are they used in so many prayers?

I came to an understanding, but of course it required several levels of uncovering : )

First off, I assumed that this language wasn't accidental - it shows up in so many Christian denominations. So, if it wasn't accidental, then it probably came from a single source.

"Thee" and "Thou" were Elizabethan (and prior) English, of course - and that pointed at a simple and singular source; the King James Bible. And that same source might be the proximate cause of the irritation, no doubt - folks associate the King James Bible with religion, and quite possibly with their religion of origin, which (as we all know) is ¹the only justified resentment allowed in the Twelve Steps :)

Okay, case closed. It's the King James Bible.

Uh, but wait a minute - I'm willing to accept that as the source of the language, but that doesn't explain the use of "Thee" and "Thy" in the prayers in the King James Bible. Quite often, the King James scholars used "you" and "your", and sometimes they used "thou" and "thy". Why? If I'm going to know where this came from, I have to know why "thee" is used instead of "you".

Well, there's our first clue - there are two ways to say "You" in Elizabethen English - "you" and "thou". Okay, why? Well, any study of any language that is anywhere close to English in geography or lineage shows that all them them, as well, pretty much have two ways to say "You". In German, it's "Sie" and "Du" - in Spanish, "Tu" and "Usted", in French, "Tu" and "Vous".

Okay, why two second-person pronouns? It's obvious to anyone who's studied those languages - one of them is intimate, and one is formal. One shows closeness and familiarity, one shows respect and distance.

Okay, so we know that English is derived from Germanic and Latin roots (mainly), so we can assume that, just like those languages, English has two second person pronouns, as well - one is formal, one is intimate. Okay, lesson learned - we say "Thee" and "Thou" to show respect to God.

Uh, not so fast, my friend : )

If we want to see proper Elizabethan English, there's no better source that ol' Will Shakespeare. So what can we learn from him?

Well, what did Juliet say when leaning out the balcony, calling her sweetie? "Wherefore art thou, Romeo".

What did Mark Antony say while giving a speech? "Lend me your ears".

"Thee" and "Thou" are the intimate forms of the pronoun. We don't say them to show respect - we say them to show intimacy.

When we're talking to the Almighty, He is, without a doubt, all that and a bag of chips - but a small child of that era would use "thou" in talking to his father, no matter how great a king or lord that father was. When I am speaking to God, I am speaking to somebody who sees me when I'm on the john.

We say "thou" and "thy" in prayer because it's the one place in our culture where we still intend to show that intimacy, that closeness.

And suddenly, it doesn't seem quite so "stilted" or "phony", anymore : )

¹No, of course it's not : ) But it is surprising how often it seems that way - folks can sit in a meeting in a church basement, and badmouth the church, as long as it was the church that they came from - because it seems that so many folks believe that it was what they learned in that church that caused them to become alcoholic/compulsive overeater/whatever. The funniest part of all this, to me, is that Joe will blame his problems on the Catholics and join the Mormons after he's recovered; Phil will blame his problems on the Mormons and join the Catholics : )

Defective Characters

Fat Charlie the Archangel — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 16:39:26 GMT

Here's one that folks go round and round about.

It can easily start with the question "why doe the Sixth Step say "shortcomings" and the Seventh Step say "defects of character"?" -- there are whole meetings dedicated to this topic, and there is even one Twelve Step fellowship that included a discussion of the differences in their basic text.

All the while, there's material out there that quotes Bill W as saying that he didn't want to end two sentences that close together with the same words : ) What he meant was the same thing, as far as we can tell.

But that begs the question that doesn't often get asked - what in the heck ARE these "defects of character"?

The Big Book never lists them, explicitly. Like the "principles", it references them as being understood, but - unlike those "principles" - no listing is ever provided (we'll talk about the "principles" later : )

I've heard folks say that "Selfishness, Dishonest, Resentment and Fear" are "the character defects", and that they are described as such, and listed, in the Big Book - but nowhere does it ever say that these are the "defects of character", and at least one place, there's a slightly different list (selfish, dishonest, self-seeking and frightened) so things aren't very black-and-white.

To muddy the waters further, the Big Book says that it's the selfishness that is the root of our troubles - which, if that's the intention of the phrasing, then there's only one "defect of character"' it then goes on to say that fear is at the heart of the problem, and even shows the fears being the cause of our resentments. And most of my dishonesty is aimed at avoiding the consequences that my fear and my selfishness have brought about. So those four things seem to be interrelated to some extent.

And Bill - writing as Bill, not with the first 100 checking his text - seems to me to have confused things even more with the 12 & 12.

After some years of parroting what I heard in meetings, I decided that I didn't like doing that any more; I wanted to know what the "defects of character" actually WERE. For one thing, the Big Book has a Seventh Step that mentions asking God to "remove" them, but everybody would sit in meetings and say - of course - that God never actually "removes" these things, but that He relieves them a little bit. And there often seems, to me, to be some sort of smirkiness attached to the idea of God "removing" them.

I don't like smirkiness attached to the Steps, and I don't like the idea that the Steps aren't intended to do what they say that they will do.

So I went back to the only place that I know to go back to - the actual black words on the white pages - to see if I could find out, in the text itself, what in the heck they were talking about.

I can start with that quote from Bill saying that "defects of character" and "shortcomings" are the same things - okay, cool. I can hang with that.

So I go to the Big Book to find out what, exactly, it says that I am "becoming willing" to have God remove, and there in the directions it says "all the things which we have admitted are objectionable". Hmmm....if there were just four things, it seems to me that they would be listed here. But instead it is saying that there's another list that are the things that I have admitted are objectionable, and that THE LIST IS NOT IN THE BIG BOOK, BUT IS IN MY FOURTH STEP - which would mean that it would be my list, and my list alone; an individual list, not a common set of attributes.

Okay, got that. And, if I've "admitted" that they are objectionable, then it turns out that Step Six happens to be preceded by a Step where I "admit" stuff - the "exact nature of my wrongs". So the "exact nature of my wrongs" and "the things which I have admitted are objectionable" and "defects of character" and "shortcomings" are now seen as four phrases with the same meaning.

It also says that my admitting is not just being selfish or dishonest or resentful or afraid - it says that I'm "illuminating every twist of character, every dark cranny of the past". That doesn't sound like a four-item list.

So let's link those phrases going backwards through the Steps:

DEFECTS = SHORTCOMINGS = ADMITTED OBJECTIONABLES = EXACT NATURE OF OUR WRONGS

Having said that, then, are any of these phrases in the Big Book?

Hmmm...well, since Step Four precedes Step Five, that might be a good place to look. And any Big Book student would be able to tell you where the quickest place to find such an item might be - that would be in the paragraph for the (never named) Fourth Column - the "Our Part" column, as many of us call it.

Putting out of our minds the wrongs others had done, we resolutely looked for our own mistakes. Where had we been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking and frightened....The inventory was ours, not the other man's. When we saw our faults we listed them. We placed them before us in black and white. We admitted our wrongs honestly and were willing to set these matters straight.

Wow - there; it says "our wrongs", in black words and white pages. Okay, cool It also says "we saw our faults", and if there's a more likely synonym for "defects of character" than "faults", I don't know what it might be.

So it combines those phrases with that listing of "selfish, dishonest, self-seeking and frightened" - but it doesn't list them as individual attributes, but instead it asks "WHERE HAD WE BEEN selfish, dishonest, self-seeking and frightened?" - not HAVE we been, but WHERE have we been, those things.

My actions. The things I did, and said, or didn't do - my MISTAKES, as it says. "Selfish, dishonest, self-seeking and frightened" are not mistakes; they are attributes, or potentials, or motives, but it is the ACTIONS THAT I TAKE or THE ATTITUDES THAT I ASSUME base on those things that are my actual mistakes.

That would imply that my MISTAKES == MY WRONGS == SHORTCOMINGS == DEFECTS OF CHARACTER.

Here's a whole new way of looking at things that was right there in the Big Book the whole time. It's not a matter of BEING "selfish, dishonest, self-seeking of frightened" that we're talking about, but it's the ACTIONS AND MISTAKES AND WORDS AND THOUGHTS that I DID that are the real problems, and that have to be addressed.

This seems to follow up as well in the questions in the sexual paragraph, as well. It keeps asking me what I actually DID, and the motives for my ACTIONS. Huh.

And finally it made sense, and fits together, for me. It's not that I am dishonest, but it's that lied to Joe and stole from John. It's not that I was resentful, but that I was angry at Mark and Mary. It's not that I was frightened, but it's that I ran away from those situations that I was scared of. It 's not that I was selfish, but that I acted selfishly.

The Big Book and the Twelve Steps are, of course, not religiously based, but they do tell us in the text that the Steps are based on principles "common to most denominations". The folks who wrote this Book were, after all, Oxford Groupers, and thus they were attempting to practice First Century Christianity - and they were, indeed, CHRISTIANS, most of them.

And Christians believed that, if somebody confessed, was contrite, and made restitution for a sin, then that sin DISAPPEARED. It went away completely - it was, to quote, "cast as far as the East is from the West".

So if I go through these Steps with a situation, then when I get past Step Nine, that situation, from a spiritual perspective, NEVER HAPPENED. It's gone. It's not on my karmic wheel anymore.

So I've chosen, since reading the words on the pages, and taking the phrase from Step Four and finding it in Step Five, and taking the phrase from Step Five and finding it in Step Six, and reading that the phrase in Step Six is synonymous with the phrase in Step Seven, to believe that it says what it means.

My defects of character ARE removed. They are GONE.

They are - forgiven.

Join the Tribe!

Fat Charlie the Archangel — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 22:02:37 GMT

I'm posting this purely to keep it out there - it was taken out of the Third Edition of the Big Book.

I am now going to say something opinionated (please don't be shocked - I have no opinion on OUTSIDE issues. I'm eat up with opinions on inside issues : )

I suspect that this story was removed for political correctness.

I have little to go on with that suspicion, other than the fact that, in another story that was carried over from the Third Edition, they replaced the phrase "darkest Africa" with "the ends of the earth".

So here, preserved at least one place on the Web, is the story that was published in the Big Book as "Join the Tribe!"

Son of Tall Man
January 05, 2009 Story of the Day

February 1976
Vol. 32 No. 9

I PROUD TO be son of Tall Man, American Indian, and member of AA for many moons. We all one as Great Spirit walks through AA like sun walks through day. This first story I ever write. Sorry for mistakes. Love has no words to spell or lines to start and stop. Our language has few words to say many things.

I was born a Maliseet Indian on reservation in Canada, oldest of thirteen children. Was altar boy at church on reservation. Had first drink in young teens, but was scared of my father, so didn't drink much then. Now think I was alcoholic from first drink. Never forgot magic in firewater.

When I was twenty-one, my cousin come home from U.S. Army on leave, just before Pearl Harbor. I stay with him at aunt's house in Maine. That night, we drink beer at taverns. He had bottle of hard stuff. He gave me many drinks from bottle. Next thing I know, it was next day. First time I have blackout, but not last. My aunt had sharp words for me about drinking. I not listen to old woman.

I hear about Pearl Harbor and join Canadian Army, December 13, 1941. Could not run away from problem. Soon found wet canteens serve drinks to Indians in uniform. Went overseas on beer. Soon change to hard stuff. Then many blackouts for next two years. God must watch over me. Got into no trouble. Came home just before D Day. Met father (Tall Man) at fork in road--one way to reservation, other way to State of Maine. We went to booze joint in Maine. Remember only first two drinks. Then I black out and get home four days later. Now I slide down mountain fast. Take many pledges but break them.

I get arrested on VE Day, again on VJ Day. Judge say I go to jail next time. So I change counties in Maine. When counties run out, I move to Connecticut. Climb on water wagon for few months. Build houses for some cops--ha-ha. Soon I drink beer. Then hard stuff. Then I find jails in Connecticut, too. Cops say for me to call them, they get me out. I think they sorry they tell me this. Next two years, I call them many times. Last time in jail, I have two black eyes. Cops now sick of me, so they buy me one-way ticket to Canada. Pack my clothes and put me on train.

My brother and me find work on turnpike in Maine. I stay on wagon for while, but miserable. Then I drink again, but more miserable. I want to stop this bad life, but where to turn? Last time I drink, I go to room. Think about kill myself. Then went on bridge to jump. By grace of God I stop, think two things: This would kill good father and mother; then remember boys talk about Indian fellow who been sober three years. I hear about AA, but think it religion. I have a religion. But now I change if it bring good life.

I find Indian fellow. We talk long time. Tell him I want to get away from bottle and misery. How he do it? He say he take me to AA meeting. I go with him to first meeting, in small town in Maine. My sponsor say men who talk speak truth. Then I know we walk same trail. This was July 15, 1954. Have not take drink since.

I hear men say, "One day not drink. Not try no drinks for Lent or for life. Just one day." This sound easy, so will try. They say call friend before I buy drink. Talk and meetings make me feel good. So I jump quick from First Step to Twelfth Step to help my brother, living with me. Two weeks later, he come to AA meeting. Came to believe. Have not drink since. We both happy. After six months, we move to Bridgeport, Conn. Find same AA, same Spirit. Year later. I go to Canada to carry message to Tall Man, but he not listen to son. He old, sick, want to he alone with bottle.

Miracles happen all time in AA. Two years later, brother take Tall Man to first AA meeting, September 1957. Tall Man was blind, but soon he see. He stay sober. Start group on reservation, and carry message, help start other groups all over Maritimes and New England. He was old, but now he grow young with new life in AA, and travel all time. When he speak from heart, big men cry. Words of truth and love are strong medicine. Tall Man die September 1970, a sober, peaceful, happy man. Maine newsletter (Boomerang) say: "With tireless devotion and humility, this venerable Indian gentleman traveled thousands of miles humbly pleading for sobriety. He planted many seeds, and it will be many moons before another rises to walk in his shoes." Tall Man now see Great Spirit in Big Group in sky.^[1]

To find work, I have travel much. At every place, I find AA group first. I keep it simple, go to many meetings, carry message to those who listen. To me, program is spiritual. I feel Great Spirit at all meetings and when talk to AA friends. I know peace. "How?" they ask me.

I say, "Just let it happen." This sober Indian say to sick, red-eyed alcoholic who want good medicine: "Put cork in bottle. No drunk hopeless if he want to follow sober guide along right trail. Go to AA meetings. Listen, not just hear noise. Get sponsor and phone numbers. Call friend in AA when bad thoughts come. Let group spirit of love and understanding protect you. Take my hand. Walk with me up Twelve Steps of AA to peace."

To Indians, I say: "Don't be afraid to join AA. I once hear people say only Indians crazy when drunk. If so, AA full of Indians. Join the tribe!"

¹The story of Tall Man was told in the November 1962 Grapevine.

Maynard B.

Connecticut

Charge!...no, Retreat!

Fat Charlie the Archangel — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 22:08:18 GMT

I spent the weekend at an OA retreat in the mountains near Julian, California.

In spite of being Californians, the folks there actually owned Big Books (okay, now, play nice! Don't throw things at your computer screen. It won't hurt me - it'll only hurt the screen) and a lot of them had a lot of things highlighted in their books.

But I still think I was able to bring a good bit to the table, because I tend to read my Big Book simpler than many people do - it's that whole "Black Words on White Pages" notion, of actually reading the text as though I needed to know what was in the text, not as though I were "filling in the gaps around the important stuff that I've heard in meetings and from my sponsor".

Take that word "invariably" on page 62:

Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt.

During the discussion, there were folks who deny this simple statement - they told me that it wasn't always their fault, that they didn't have a part in their injuries - that it wasn't because of any decisions that they made.

Okay, that's cool - I don't have any intention of changing anyone's mind.

However, the weirdness came up when they said "You're just interpreting it, anyway - it's just your interpretation. It's not always that way".

Okay, ma'am - I can swallow that - but just how, exactly, do you want me to interpret the word "invariably"?

Oh - uh-huh. Yeah. Okay. So then that left the objectors having to, at least, say out loud that they don't believe what the Big Book says. Cool.

But let's make sure that that's what we're saying, and not fuzzying up the words in the Big Book. Because a lot of folks have had a lot of discussions about a lot of the words in the Big Book, and - so far - nobody has made any headway in any attempt to change the wording in any real way.

And that's what I really left the retreat with - the feeling that there were folks who were reading the Big Book after they went home differently than they were reading it before they got to the retreat. And by "differently" I mean "actually reading".

Hard for that to be a bad thing, to my way of thinking.

Now I've just got to rest up from talking for so many hours, non-stop : )

The Heart Of The Matter

Fat Charlie the Archangel — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 22:46:24 GMT

"And I'm trying to get down
To the heart of the matter
But my will gets weak
And my thoughts seem to scatter, but I think it's about -
Forgiveness,
Forgiveness -
Even if, even if
You don't love me anymore..."
-- Don Henley

No, I don't usually quote ex-Eagles in these pages, but this one seems appropriate.

I was in a meeting the other day - an "As Bill Sees It" topic - and they read an excerpt from some of Bill's writings that said (paraphrasing) that, if we're going to go around asking for forgiveness (I assume in Step Nine) that we'd better start out by forgiving those we were angry at - including ourselves.

Bill, Bill, Billy-Bill Bill - sometimes I think that you shoulda stopped when you hit page 165 : )

I don't doubt that forgiveness is important - although the only place that I can find it in the first 164 pages (at least, in a quick mental skimming) is on page 86, where we ask God's forgiveness in our evening 11th Step. But I'm not sure that

a) I need to actually work on forgiving others, or
b) I have any business forgiving myself.

The first part is simple - if I'm angry at somebody (as a steady-state thing) then I have a resentment. If I have a resentment, then I'm supposed to do the work in Step Four. If I do that work, then I will do the fourth column(even if this is a shortened discussion in Step 10, the same principles apply). If I've done the fourth column, then I've seen my part(s) in this situation and/or in the generation of the resentment, and so I'm no longer angry at whoever I listed in the first column. If I am still angry, I have more fourth column work to do, because I haven't really found my part yet.

(N.B. - this does not mean that I'm not capable of generating more anger about it later, even if I have found my part - because if I haven't done 6, 7 8 and 9, it's a pretty sure bet that I'm hanging on to something).

So I won't be getting high-and-mighty and forgiving anybody - I'll be asking for forgiveness, but the wind will be out of my sails.

And this business of forgiving myself - speaking as a person coming from a Christian background, I have no business doing that, either. If I can really forgive myself, then what is God for?

So I don't think that it's by accident that there aren't any "forgiveness" instructions in the Big Book - because it ain't my job. My forgiveness happens as a result of my own inventory.

"I hope he gets what's coming to him..."

Fat Charlie the Archangel — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 13:52:00 GMT

In the Fourth Step, I'm supposed to set down on my grudge list the names of "people, institutions or principles" with whom I am angry.

Well, how do I know who they are?

That may sound like a silly question - I've once heard someone say that the Fourth Step should be easy, because any drunk knows "who he is mad at, what he's afraid of, and who he's slept with".

But I've done such a good job of hiding from things that I'd rather not look at, that sometimes it's difficult to find them at all, even when I go looking for them. Sure, there are many folks who come to mind right off, but some take more digging - and it's possible that the ones that have to be "dug up" in this way are the ones that I'd best find out before they fester any more.

So I've come up with several methods or questions to find out who's name goes on the list - since the Big Book says that I first write the list, and then fill out the other columns, I have to get the names first, and then the "what I'm angry about" will come to the front of my mind.

Sometimes I just sort through the faces of people that I know, on a mental Rolodex - if the image of a person makes me twinge inside, then I suspect that they belong on the list.

I ask myself "Is there anybody that I dislike?"

"Is there anybody that I would rather not see?"

"When I'm tired, who do I think about?" (this is an interesting one - some years back, I lived on a road in the middle of a long hill. When I would go for a run, at some point I would have a long uphill to climb. I found that when I got tired, I would wind up thinking about somebody that I was resentful at, as this was my mind's way of generating enough adrenaline to get me up the hill. I wound up calling it 'resentment hill" : )

"Is there anyone that I talk to when they aren't in the room?"

And a new one showed up this morning, in my reading - "is there anybody that I would like to see punished?" Other than my children, I have no business deciding who should be punished or how - that would pretty much be (for me) a definitive symptom of "playing God".

It can be as simple (and as petty) as having somebody pass me on the highway in a manner that I see as aggressive, and hoping that I'll turn a later corner and see them pulled over by the police. Or it can be as complex as seeing a behavior in somebody, and hoping that something or somebody intervenes to make sure that they stop that behavior - which is, regardless of how subtle it might see, a desire to see someone punished, which means that I've already decided that they are wrong, and I am right.

I'm even capable of condoning this sort of thinking under the Golden Rule, by saying "well, if I was doing that, I would hope that somebody would stop me" : )

I need to consciously add this query to my list of "ways of finding out who I'm resentful at", whether for Step Four or Step Ten (or Eleven : ) because I suspect that it happens really, really often. One of the downsides of having my behavior improve is that it makes me more self-righteous, which in turn lends itself to being quicker to see others judged- and punished.

Providing Advice

Fat Charlie the Archangel — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 21:13:12 GMT

A word that has a hard time these days is "advice".

It seems that folks don't want it, and to give advice is considered arrogant.

Sheesh - when I walked into the rooms, I desperately wanted advice. And folks were not at all hesitant to give it to me. Vigorously : )

In Chapter Seven, "Working with Others", we're told that

"He has read this volume and says he is prepared to go through with the Twelve Steps of the program of recovery. Having had the experience yourself, you can give him much practical advice."

So I figure that my "advice" to the newcomer is supposed to be about how he can work the Twelve Steps as outlined in the Big Book.

Somebody asked me how I do this; I familiarize the newcomer with the instructions via a series of discussions.

I break it down this way:

* The Doctor's Opinion
* Bill's Story - if they are alcoholic; I also tell them that while they are doing these readings, I want them to read some of the stories in the back of the book. If they are compulsive overeaters, I tell them to read some of the stories in the Chocolate Book.
* Chapter 2 through the italics on page 24, and then we discuss what the BB means by "powerless".
* The rest of chapter 2, then we discuss Dr Jung, the business man, and how alkies got struck sober "here and there, once in a while" and the difference between that and what happened with Roland.
* Chapter 3, and we discuss what's in there
* Chapter 4, and I ask them to find out if it says that we need faith to work this program.
* Chapter 5 through a), b) and c) - and then I ask them if they are convinced of those three things. If they are, then I tell them that "..they are at Step Three" because they've read the book up to this point and are convinced of the three pertinent ideas.
* Through the paragraph after the Third Step Prayer, and I tell them while they are reading this section (over and over?) to find the answers to two questions - 1) what is the first requirement to working the Third Step? and 2) when they try to run their own lives, what delusion are they suffering from? I also tell them to think long and hard about what those pages say, and decide if they want to do that Third Step.
* After they've done that reading, I ask them if they have thought long and hard, and do they want to go through with this? If yes, I do the Third Step prayer with them (after discussing what it means to me).
* We go over the next paragraph together, where it says that in order to have any permanent effect, this Step must be followed by the rest of the Steps. I then send them home WITH A NOTEBOOK and tell them to a) read the rest of the chapter and b) start their grudge list TODAY.
* While they're working on the inventory, we talk about the various sections whenever they have questions.
* When they are near to getting done, I have them read Chapter 6 through the "quiet hour" afterward, and let them decide who they are going to do their Fifth Step with.
* After the Fifth Step, I point out the quiet hour, and what the Big Book says to do for Steps Six and Seven. I tell them that, if they do those Steps, to then take their Fourth Step and put all the names down in a list (leaving some room for what the amends might be) and read Chapter 6 through the Ninth Step Promises.
* Send 'em out with their list, after discussing any questions that they may have about specific amends.
* As they are progressing with their list, I tell them to read the rest of Chapter 6, and then we discuss Steps 10 and 11 as a discipline.
* I then tell 'em to read Chapter 7 and discuss what it says, and tell them that it is time for them to make themselves available to newcomers as a sponsor.

There is nothing in here about if the newcomer should date Suzie, or take that job in Nova Scotia, or stop smoking. I neither know nor care what sort of decisions the pigeon makes; as far as I'm concerned, until they get to Step Eleven, it's all a roll of the dice anyway : )

Step Nazi

Fat Charlie the Archangel — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 14:05:00 GMT

Not too long ago, I heard the phrase "Step Nazi" in a meeting.

It seemed to be said in a lighthearted way, but there was a smugness and a sarcasm attached - or perhaps I was reading my own fears and projections into a flip comment? If so, I've read those same things in that sort of comment many times.

The idea - however it is phrased - has two components; the first can be voiced in many different terms ("Step", "Big Book", "Program" etc) but it is always referring to some aspect of regimen or structure or discipline of our way of life. You never hear the phrase "Feelings Nazi" or "Love Nazi" or "Gratitude Nazi". It always is in relation to some following of directions, rather than free-form or improv.

That's because of the second word, which is always "Nazi". You never, ever hear the word Nazi in a positive connotation, and with good reason. They were not nice people. (I'm willing to concede the possibility of a Nazi who really believed that his cause was just, and felt himself to be acting out of love and compassion for humanity as a whole, but I suspect that the other Nazis would have shunned him, and not allowed him to play in any Nazi games). But one thing about Germans as a culture - they are disciplined. They are thorough. They aren't wishy-washy, and they don't screw around with efficiency. And the Nazis took this virtue into their endeavors, and tarnished it with their purpose.

I used to take the term "Step Nazi" as an unintended compliment - it meant that the speaker felt that I (if they were referring to me) was exhibiting discipline and thoroughness in the Twelve Steps. And that is, possibly, exactly what they were doing - however, they intended it as an insult. And they were never speaking to me at the time, but usually someone else - possibly somebody newer. And it was being delivered as a warning - "...you wanna keep away from those Step Nazis" was the general gist.

So then I got to thinking about my eldest son. He's a nurse in an urban emergency room. All sorts of cases come into that facility, at all hours of the day or night. And these folks are expected to know what to do when those cases come in.

In just about any instance, there is a given set of procedures, in a given order, that is to be followed to save the life of the patient. These are called "protocols", which are "document[s] with the aim of guiding decisions and criteria regarding diagnosis, management, and treatment in specific areas."

The staff on duty administering care are expected to follow those protocols. They aren't supposed to discuss them, debate them, or talk about how they feel about the specific treatments for the specific instances - they are supposed to follow the instructions given in the "document with the aim of guiding...treatment".

My son has been doing this work for a good many years. He is bright, dedicated, and he has an excellent memory, so he is able to remember these protocols and implement them quickly and efficiently and rigorously. He saves lives daily in doing so.

But, strange though it may seem, nobody ever calls my son an "ER Nazi".

His colleagues call him a "good nurse", and the patients call him a lifesaver.

A Selfish Program?

Fat Charlie the Archangel — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:28:00 GMT

If you're like me, you shudder when you hear the phrase "This is a selfish program".

Usually this phrase will be followed with a statement about one's behavior - quite often, totally reasonable and unselfish behavior (to my way of thinking), but behavior that the speaker seems to feel guilty about, and thus wants to plead mitigation for because (as he was told) "this is a selfish program".

But a problem here is that newcomers hear this, and then go out and engage in some pretty selfish stuff, because somebody told them that "this is a selfish program". I've heard of folks telling their family members that they have to get rid of their booze or demanding other accomodations from their friends or employers, all because "this is a selfish program".

Now, as we've already discussed, selfishness is the problem, not the solution. And the Big Book itself tells me that I cannot recover at another person's expense - that's why the Fifth Step must be done with someone who will "understand, yet be unaffected", and the Ninth Step can't be done if it will injure the recipient, or a third party.

For a long time, I just sort of internally shook my head; while it's my responsibility to explain about this to anyone that I work with, it's not my job (and not my privilege) to chase anybody else down and explain it to them; besides, I've often noted that, if one thinks that they've been given a license to behave selfishly, it's difficult to derail that sort of thinking : )

But not too long ago, when this topic came up during a meeting, it suddenly hit me -

"And it come to me
It come like a flash
Like a vision burnt across the clouds" -- The Motorcycle Song (The Significance of the Pickle) - Arlo Guthrie

-- this can't be a selfish program, because it works.

The Big Book tells us, on page 60, what happens when we act out of selfishness - there's a whole paragraph of what I call "the signs and symptoms of self-will. It says "what usually happens? The show doesn't come of very well....he becomes angry, indignant, self-pitying...is he not, even in his best moments, a producer of confusion rather than harmony?"

None of these things are what happen while we are avidly following the program - therefore, the program can't be selfish.

Contrariwise - if we think that we're "working the program" and these things happen AS A RESULT OF OUR EFFORTS, then we're off the beam entirely.

I'm glad we had this little talk :)

Pigeon or Sponsoree or Sponsee?

Fat Charlie the Archangel — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 18:23:00 GMT

I answered the phone a while ago, and had a very brief chat with a pigeon; when I hung up, a friend sitting nearby (an NA type) must have heard the same sort of abbreviated conversations before, because he asked me "Sponsee?"

I answered (before I thought about it) "Yep".

But a bit later, as we were walking, I told him that I should not have answered "yep", as the word "sponsee" is not actually a word.

We've played this gamed before, but that's all right - I don't mind.

If somebody is (for instance) inducted into the army, then the person who manages the process is the "inductor", and the person who undergoes the process is the "inductee".

If someone is causing an orchestra to conduct itself in a particular way, that person is the "conductor" and the folks playing the instruments are "conductees".

If someone performs an oration, then he is an orator, and the people listening are oratees.

But nobody ever "sponses" anybody - they SPONSOR them.In order for the word "sponsee" to actually be a WORD, then "sponse" would have to be a VERB - i.e "Joe sponsed me for the first five years, but now Ted sponses me".

Back when I was a little baby drunk in central Texas, I learned the word "pigeon", because we take care of 'em, we keep 'em locked up until they're able to fly on their own, they often seem to poop on everything - and we hope, someday, that they will carry a message.

The Big Book uses neither term - it says "protoge" or "prospect" for the person to whom one is carrying the message to (for the first time) - after that, it simply says "the new man". But, then, the Big Book never even discusses the sort of long-term relationships that we now indulge in, through the process of "sponsorship". It allows as to how you make two visits to a man, and - if he decides that he wants to go through the program - you make yourself available for Steps 3 and 5.

Hmmm...I wonder....it's just a notion, an unclear idea - but maybe (just maybe, and I'm only questioning this myself) I should even be DOING those kind of long-term relationships; perhaps I'm doing the "pigeonee"¹ a disservice by taking on a role or responsibility that is not described or dictated in the Big Book. It's entirely possible that that is one of those things that my current sponsor calls "AA Folklore" (and it's funny that I can reference my sponsor in a passage that is questioning whether or not the term itself describes a valid concept :)

I wonder if that sort of long-term relationship actually fosters dependence on another person, rather than dependence on God? I've always understood my responsibility, as a sponsor, to be to get the protoge/pigeon/pick-a-word as quickly as possible to Step 11, so that he can then detach from me and get his instructions directly from God. Why, then, would we keep the relationship going after that?
I would figure that, if this were a necessary part of sobriety, that it would be in the Book? - maybe this is one of those "God will constantly disclose more to you and to us" thingies.

I don't like ambiguity. I reckon that I'm gonna have to do some more reading - and praying.

¹ Yes, I know that's not a word either. Just a little Rule #62 on my part :)

We've Taken Some Interesting Turns (OA)

Fat Charlie the Archangel — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 22:31:00 GMT

(N.B. - this post will be sent off to the OA Lifeline. Now, I'm not saying that it will be PUBLISHED there, but it's my intention to send it there)

Well, the Mon/Tues/Wed/'Thurs night meetings of Overeaters Anonymous at the North Scottsdale Fellowship Club formed themselves into a group - the Into Action group of Overeaters Anonymous.

We got ourselves a chairman, two co-secretaries, filled all of the office, got a checking account - and, when we tried to get registered with the World Service Office in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, we ran into a little hitch.

OA doesn't have "groups".

Forgive me - OA has groups, that are MEETINGS, but if you have more than one meeting, each meeting has to be a group. We do NOT allow "groups" to form that have more than one meeting.

Now, this is Overeaters Anonymous, the bunch who says "...we use AA's Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, changing only the words "alcohol" and "alcoholic" to "food" and "compulsive overeater"." Now, that's not entirely true - we got rid of a comma in the Twelfth Step, and we added "television and other public media of communication" to the Eleventh Tradition.

I don't know how we got smarter than the Big Book and decided to rewrite the Step - I suppose that we, as a fellowship, must have approved that. And I can see how "television and other public media of communication" is in the spirit of the Eleventh Tradition, although I've noticed that AA has managed to get along without updating that wording; folks aren't stupid, and AAs seem to be more concerned with leaving openings for weirdness to sneak into their program than they are with having to cover all of the bases.

But this particular bit of strangeness - forcing each meeting to be a group - seems, right off, to violate the Traditions immediately by blowing off group autonomy - I can just imagine what would happen if AA's General Service Office tried to tell some group how many meetings that they could have.

In addition, it messes with the Second Tradition, by (it seems) allowing folks to belong to more than one group, thus allowing their votes to be reflected more than once at Intergroup, Region and World Service levels.

But more than that - it's a concept, a restriction, that is completely foreign to the AA way of implementing their Traditions. Most AA groups have more than one meeting - many of them have as much as (say) 35 meetings/week (early morning, noon, early evening, evening, late night, for seven days a week).

But OA has decided that we won't do things the AA way.

So why are we still saying that we follow AA's Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions? There is nothing about the difference between compulsive overeating and alcoholism that would require a different interpretation of these Traditions.

I reckon that this is just a small part of a much bigger issue - that being that we keep moving away from the way AA does things. It seems to me that the further away that we get from the AA way, the worse the results get. Yet we seem to keep trying to be creative; trying to prove that we are more than just an AA knockoff.

And that's just a bad idea. What in the world is wrong with copying the Miracle of the Twentieth Century? - it reminds me of some NA bumper stickers that I've seen - "My book isn't Big - it's Basic" - loudly proclaiming "Hey, look - we're different than AA!".

Yes, we are different from AA. And the more different we get, the more obvious it is.

To Boldy Go Where The First One Hundred Didn't Go

Fat Charlie the Archangel — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 22:11:00 GMT

A couple of weeks ago, during the Friday morning Big Book Study, we talked a bit out the fact that, in Chapter Seven, the Big Book changes mood and person, from first person plural declarative (in the past tense) to second person imperative. In other words, it stops saying "We did this" and "We did that", and starts saying "You do this - you do that".

I've noticed it before, but never really thought too much about it. But, for some reason, on this particular morning, it really struck me.

It is very obvious just where and why the Big Book uses the first person plural, past tense - it's because of that bit in Chapter Two, where it tells us how the first 100 are going to pass this message on to us -

"It is the purpose of this book to answer such questions specifically. We shall tell you what we have done"

So they are going to tell us what they have done - this means that, with few exceptions, Bill and his buddies are going to give us leadership by example, all the way up through Chapter Six. Every now and then they will break out with specific advice, but usually they keep things in the tone of "here are the things that we have done", with an understanding that, if I want what they have, then I'll be willing to do what they have done.

But, right at the first paragraph of Chapter Seven, it switches to the imperative mood -

"Carry this message to other alcoholics! You can help when no one else can. You can secure their confidence when others fail. Remember they are very ill."

When I finally got to thinking about why they do this, it hit me like a ton of bricks - it's because I am now one of the we!

See, all the way through the first eleven Steps, they are telling me what they have done, as a result of which they have had a spiritual awakening; at the start of Chapter Seven, it is assumed that I have now actually done the same things that they have done, which makes me one of them; at that point, I become one of them -I become one of "us".

From that point on, the book is talking about how I will meet another alcoholic, and how I will carry the message to him - and, as I note from the directions, that message-carrying follows the same format that the Big Book used to carry the message to me.. So, at that point, I am now telling him what I have done.

But that alone wouldn't force a change of mood - the book could go right ahead and keep saying "We have done this - you do it too". But, as it happens, that's not actually the case. You see, the First 100 didn't go out all alone to carry the message; with the rare exception, they actually acted together in carrying the message, and the contacts were already in place, so they can't say (for instance) anything like this -

"Perhaps we were not acquainted with any drinkers who wanted to recover. We could easily find some by asking a few doctors, ministers, priests or hospitals"

No, they have to say -

"Perhaps you are not acquainted with any drinkers who want to recover. You can easily find some by asking a few doctors, ministers, priests or hospitals"

(italics mine - jim p)

....So, when Chapter Seven tells us to go out, alone, visiting these professionals or institutions to seek out drunks, then they are telling us to do something that they, as a group, hadn't done - they hadn't been alone. Thus, they had to drop the "we did this...we did that" format of using their own examples, and go out on a limb by giving us instructions to do things which many of them had never done - because we would not have the benefit of direct contact with them while we were getting started.

(yes, I know that some of 'em did do just that - Clarence in Cleveland comes to mind - but still, it wasn't their normal way of doing things, so simple rigorous honesty forces them to shift from "we did this" to "you do that" : )

Of course, nowadays, very few of us are all alone in some remote place with just a Big Book in our hands. So we don't have to follow those exact instructions for finding other drunks, as it just so happens that most communities will have gatherings of drunks most nights of the week.

But it still helps me, when I am having my first talks with a prospect, to pattern them after those first and second visits outlined in Chapter Seven, because - after all - now I have stopped being "you" and become "we", which makes the guy on the bed the new "you" :)

Some Recovery Resources

Fat Charlie the Archangel — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 19:55:00 GMT

I'm setting this up as an entry - just so that I can use the same look and feel. I'll make a link to it in the sidebar, so that folks can always get to it.

Just in case anybody is interested - here are some MP3s and such that you might find interesting.

(N.B. - the ones currently listed are just me; when/if I get permission, then I'll put the general sessions up here as well)

Dallas OA Convention 2009

Friday Night Speaker

Friday Night Talk Part I - for some reason, the folks doing the recording broke my story into two parts :)
Friday Night Talk Part II

Satuday Sessions

The Problem I - Saturday Session AM
------ (One Powerpoint presentation that spans both sessions)

The Problem II - Saturday Session PM

Sunday Sessions

People Who Need People - Sunday AM Session
Powerpoint

ASDI Sponsorship Workshop September 2007

Powerpoints
Disk 1
Disk 2

ASDI Summer Retreat 2006

Disk 1
Disk 2
Disk 3

Zoning Out

Fat Charlie the Archangel — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 21:26:00 GMT

I spent this last weekend at an OA convention in Dallas, TX. (Gotta love Dallas :)

One of the most interesting things that I heard, I heard not in a meeting or from a speaker, but in a private conversation with my oldest friend.

He pointed out that there's a comfort zone, and that people have to be pushed out of their comfort zone in order to grow; as long as they are comfortable, there's too much inertia causing them to stay the way that they are. Okay, nothing really new there - I've been hearing, and saying, that for years - except for the idea of that area of discomfort, just outside of the Comfort Zone, being called the "Growth Zone".

But he followed that up by saying that if folks get pushed too far our of their comfort zone, they wind up in the Panic Zone, and they can't grow there either - instead of being unwilling to move because they are comfortable, they are unable to move because they are paralyzed with fear.

I liked it so much that I drew a picture :)

So I brought that home, and thought about it, and it really explains a lot - and then, during this morning's Big Book Study, we were reading about "the first meeting with a man, in Chapter Seven (page 91) talking about the Twelfth Step -

"After a while, turn the talk to some phase of drinking. Tell him enough about your drinking habits, symptoms, and experiences to encourage him to speak of himself. If he wishes to talk, let him do so. ... If he is not communicative, give him a sketch of your drinking career up to the time you quit.... If he is in a serious mood dwell on the troubles liquor has caused you, being careful not to moralize or lecture. If his mood is light, tell him humorous stories of your escapades. Get him to tell some of his."

...and I thought back on all of those first conversations I've had, after a meeting or when they first give me a phone call, and I realized how perfectly the above instructions map into these thoughts about "Panic Zone, Growth Zone, and Comfort Zone".

See, telling my own story, and doing so from the perspective of "yes, it really was that bad, but I'm all better now", has the tendency to pull the listener into the Growth Zone, regardless of which zone he's in now.

If he's ready to grow, we can identify, and then we get moving.

Then, for the ones that are a little too placid - the ones who think "gee, I'm not that bad a drunk" or "I couldn't really be a compulsive overeater" - me telling my story, and focusing on those examples of powerless that got my attention, might cause them to think "Uh, oh - huh, I drink/overeat like that" and - as the Big Book says -

"Maybe you have disturbed him about the question of alcoholism. This is all to the good. The more hopeless he feels, the better."

So the comfortable ones get "disturbed", and that's a good thing - they get pushed out into the Growth Zone. Maybe not right away - but perhaps a few more episodes, a few more binges, might get them there - especially when they have our words still ringing in their ears.

But then we have the other ones - the ones who are almost hysterical with grief and remorse. These sad, sick cases have reached the point where they don't believe that anything can be done for them. (It's funny how quickly many of us go from "I don't have that bad a problem" to "nobody can help me - I'm a goner" :) When I think of these, I tend to think of Bill D., "Anonymous Number Three", who was the Man On The Bed - the one who was sure that he was too far gone, the one exhibiting maudlin remorse over having punched a nurse the night before.

These folks are in the Panic Zone - they are ready to jump off a bridge (but not just yet) and will quickly deflect any attempts to help them by saying "No, no - nobody can help me. I'm too bad, too evil, too sick"; however, hearing a quiet recitation of our own struggles, our own powerlessness - while there we sit, obvious examples of recovery - can have the power of calming these hystrionic ones down, and moving them into the Growth Zone, where they are ready to get started.

It sort of reminds me of the old circuit riding preacher¹, who would show up once a month and say "I am here to comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable"; this helps both groups. The afflicted can't grow until they hear a message of hope; the comfortable can't grow until you light a fire under them.

I'll close with this further illustration - this model also explains some of my own behavior, as a sponsor, and the funny stuff I've seen from my own sponsors.....Have you ever noticed how, when you explain to your sponsor how bad things are, he tells you that they're not so bad?...but then, when you give him a smug answer, and you're puffed up with your own self-satisfaction, he'll burst your balloon quickly and tell you that you're in danger, and that you'd better get to work? :)

¹ Aside to Alan - yes, I'm still using that "circuit-riding preacher" analogy. I'm sure that it will wear off eventually :)

Shut Up And Eat Your Peas

Fat Charlie the Archangel — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 21:23:00 GMT

For years, it's bothered me to sit in gratitude meetings.

I never could figure out just why - I don't see anything wrong with gratitude, of course. I'm GRATEFUL for gratitude. I enjoy being grateful. Gratitude is that wonderful response to a gift - it's not a smug triumph over something I've "earned". (I used to be resentful that I didn't get everything that I deserved; after a few inventories, I'm very glad that God is a God of mercy, not justice :)

But when I would sit in a gratitude meeting and hear people talk about making gratitude lists, it sorta made me squirm inside. And part of my squirming was discomfort over not knowing what I was uncomfortable about - after all, what's wrong with making a gratitude list?

Absolutely nothing, of course. I even managed to convince myself that a gratitude list was a good example of a meditative exercise, such as the Big Book talks about in Step 11, where it says that "there are many helpful books also" - I decided that a gratitude list was an implementation of St. Paul's instructions to the Phillipians:

"Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things" (Philippians 4:8).

And that may, indeed, be the case - I might still believe that.

However, coming up with that way to look at things didn't stop my squirming. I'd still get the heebie-jeebies every time the subject came up.

I found some comfort in my wife's notions - she said that telling people to be grateful reminded her of how mothers used to say "Eat your peas and be grateful that you have them - there are children starving in [pick distressed country or continent of the decade] who would love to have those peas." As far as she could tell, all that did was make the kid feel guilty - it didn't make him feel grateful, although he would (no doubt) shut up and eat his peas.

At today's noon AA meeting, however, I finally got my answer - now I know why the mention of "making a gratitude list" always made me squirm.

It's not in the Big Book.

Yes, you know that and I know that - however, as I said above, I could find a place in the 11th Step instructions where it might fit quite well. But a friend of mine mentioned today that it's not in the Big Book, although to him that was no big deal

But then, the next person who shared was a young drunk saying today that his sponsor told him to make a gratitude list every time he started to get angry or self-pitying (as far as I could tell, pretty much any negative emotion) - that a gratitude list would keep that emotion from growing and leading him to a drink.

a-HA! As soon as he said that, I had it.

We don't recommend that people do gratitude lists as meditation - we tell them to do those lists as a treatment for the emotions that might make them drink - and that feeds into the belief that it's emotions that get us drunk; that we're drinking as a result of our feelings, and that we should be treating those feelings directly, rather than get to the underlying causes.

My book says that when I feel those negative emotions, I'm supposed to

1) ask God at once to remove them
2) discuss them with somebody else immediately
3) make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone, and
4) resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help.

Instead of - and as a replacement for - all of that structure and introspection, we often tell folks that "you should make a gratitude list". So we give this advice as a substitute for the Steps, rather than as an adjunct or supplement;.

And then, with that simple notion in place, I was able to expand on Ethel's "eat your peas" objection - when we tell somebody to make a gratitude list, we are telling them that they should change the way they feel - which is always dangerous advice for a drunk. And the making of a list seems to be us telling ourselves "These are the circumstances that should be making me happy" - which follows that old false belief that I worshiped for so long - the belief that my circumstances are my problem, rather than my internal state.

(I did say, above, that prescribing a list is telling somebody to change the way that they feel; I'll admit, however, that6 it's possible that we might indeed be saying "change the way you think, which should then change the way that you feel" - but even that is saying "Treat the mental issue directly", which is a step back from AA's 12 Steps. Those Steps seem to me to say "Take an action on the spiritual plane, and the mental, emotional and physical results will follow from that.")

As far as I can tell, gratitude does not lead me to humility; nope, it's the other way around. The 12 Steps operate on a spiritual basis to generate "ego reduction at depth", and that leads me to a simple humility - and, when I am humble, I don't HAVE to make a gratitude list; being grateful then becomes my normal state. Everything that comes along is met with a smile and a heartfelt "thanks, God!"

Contrariwise - if I'm trying to fix my mental or emotional state directly, quite often I find that everything on that gratitude list of mine is actually onerous indeed; the very same possessions, relationships or events that seem to be blessings on Tuesday can be burdens on Thursday.

AA is a spiritual program; we're not psychiatrists or psychologists, and what we have to offer is not gimmicks or motivational therapy. It's miracles, plain and simple. If we stick to the Steps, then gratitude is the RESULT of our actions - it's not the CAUSE.

We Must Be Rid Of This Selfishness

Fat Charlie the Archangel — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 22:52:00 GMT

Some time back, I was going over the Third Step in the Book.

I have every intention of taking the Big Book literally. But sometimes, some of the phrases seem to skew my ability to do so. For instance, there's that sentence in Chapter Three where it says "Nobody likes to think he is bodily and mentally different from his fellows".

Hah. I used to "like to think" exactly that - specifically, that I was mentally different - mentally superior, in point of fact :)

The evidence that eventually accumulated caused me to drop that pretense, although it still shows up from time to time. But still, whenever I read that phrase, it makes me do a double-think, trying to figure out - am I that strange, or does the book mean something other than what it seems to be saying?

And suddenly I realize - this is the same page where it says "the delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed". It doesn't specify drinking, but elsewhere in the book it tells us that many alcoholics are entirely normal except in the effect alcohol has upon them.

So, when it says that the idea that we are like other people is a delusion, it means "with respect to drinking". So I reckon that when it says "bodily or mentally differnet", in this context, it means "inferior; sickened; weaker or flawed in some way" - specifically, that we can't drink like other people.

So, when I saw on page 62 this admonition -

" Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must, or it kills us!"

...and I really took it in, it sorta gave me the heebie-jeebies. I mean, do you know any alcoholic who has gotten rid of selfishness? It doesn't say "have it reduced", or "maybe not be quite as obnoxiously self-centered as we were in the old days" - it says "we must be rid of this selfishness...or it kills us".

That bothered me for a long time.

Then, one day while going through the Step 3 prep with a pigeon, I realized that there is an extra word in there - "this". Not "we must be rid of selfishness", but "we must be rid of this selfishness".

And I realized what was being addressed. Self-centeredness - that is the problem.

The Third Step is where we ask to have our self-centeredness be replaced with God-centeredness (that's a term from Appendix II) - up until this point, I don't have any other option. I operate on the basis of self, and, when that doesn't work - I "try harder", still operating on the basis of self.

But now, I am no longer centered on SELF - I have another Voice in me. I have another Option - another Decision Maker. Now, when I realize that I'm being self-centered, I can actually stop - and turn to that Other that has awakened in me,

The book doesn't say (in Step Four) that I'll get drunk if I have resentments - it says "if I HARBOR them" - give them a safe place to stay. When I'm self-centered, that's my only option. But when I am God-centered, I have another option.

Same with Step 10 - I still have selfishness at this point (it says "When these crop up", not "If these crop up : ) - but I can turn to something other than Self to be relieved of it.

So the way that I get rid of this selfishness is that I make a decision, work the rest of the Steps - and I have another Self awaken in me.

Live Easy But Think First

Fat Charlie the Archangel — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 22:32:00 GMT

Where I got sober, we had five signs across one wall (as I recall; it's a little hazy. It's been about 8563 days, after all), all in a sort of Gothic font - red letters on a white background - that had "the slogans", as they were called.

The five "slogans" were

Live And Let Live
Easy Does It
But For The Grace Of God
Think Think Think
First Things First

and I recall spending a surprising amount of meeting time talking about them. They kept coming up; they seemed to be important, but I was never sure why. It seemed to me that four of them indicated attitudes that I was to take, and the fifth (Think Think Think) was an action that I was supposed to do.

I recall that somebody said "Live Easy But Think First", that being a sentence created by taking the first words of each slogan and ordering them in a syntactically (and semantically) sensible matter.

(I remember that my sponsor at the time told me "Do you see that last one there? "Think Think Think"? That doesn't apply to you. When it does, I'll let you know." It's been twenty-three years; he hasn't let me know yet).

As time went by, I found out that three of these slogans were in the Big Book; I wasn't sure where the others came from, but - since they were on the wall at the meeting house - I figured that they must be good ideas. I learned that the "suitable for framing" prints themselves could be purchased through the Grapevine, and that meant - to my understanding - that they must be solid, hard-core Conference Approved you-betchas, and that I'd best listen to them.

Well, I don't listen to all of them any more. And I don't listen to any of them in the same way.

First off, I became aware of just where the three slogans that are in the big book are located - they are at the end of Chapter Nine, "The Family Afterward". In other words - these slogans represent attitudes that I am supposed to assume as I assume this spiritual path as a way of life - they are NOT mentioned earlier in the text, when I'm being directed through the Steps before entering that way of life.

I suspect that this may have something to do with the peculiar role that the Steps have taken - as seen by many in the Fellowship - in the intervening years; once upon a time, the Steps were something that were to be grasped "with all the desperation with which a drowning man grasps a life preserver" - now, they seem to have been relegated to some sort of background process, with the idea that going to meetings, hanging out with sober people, and talking to one's sponsor (about WHAT?) are "the program", and the Steps are something that are supposed to be done whenever one gets around to it. In the meantime, "Easy Does It".

So I'll talk about the three slogans from the Big Book later; today, I'd like to talk about the other two, because (see) "they ain't in my Big Book" :)

I understand that "not being in the Big Book" is not an indictment; there are a lot of things that are true and good that aren't in the Big Book. "Two plus two equals four", "you can't roller skate in a buffalo herd" and "keep your weight forward and your belly-button downhill" are all good and true, and none of them are in the Big Book.

But none of those sayings are slogans that are being proposed as part of a comprehensive program aimed at a spiritual awakening designed to guarantee a profound personality change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism. That's what the Big Book is supposed to be; it's supposed to provide everything that we need to get this job done. So, when phrases or slogans or ideas get added to that program after the fact, then perhaps they should at least be inspected for validity, or (at least) consistency.

And the two non-Big-Book slogans just do not cut it, to my way of thinking.

To one of them, my objection is fairly basic, and that is "Think Think Think". And it's true that my sponsor told me that that didn't apply to me, but that's not the problem here - the Big Book says that, by Step Eleven, God will direct my thinking, and it tells me in there to think quite a bit; it also tells me how to think.

But this slogan is (always?) used to mean "Think the drink through - think about what will happen if you take that drink" - in other words, it is asking me to rely upon a mental defense.

What does the Big Book say?

"At a certain point in the drinking of every alcoholic, he passes into a state where the most powerful desire to stop drinking is of absolutely no avail. This tragic situation has already arrived in practically every case long before it is suspected.
"The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Our so called will power becomes practically nonexistent. We are unable, at certain times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink.
"The almost certain consequences that follow taking even a glass of beer do not crowd into the mind to deter us. If these thoughts occur, they are hazy and readily supplanted with the old threadbare idea that this time we shall handle ourselves like other people. There is a complete failure of the kind of defense that keeps one from putting his hand on a hot stove." -- page 24

" the actual or potential alcoholic, with hardly any exception, will be absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self-knowledge. This is a point we wish to emphasize and re-emphasize, to smash home upon our alcoholic readers as it has been revealed to us out of bitter experience." -- page 39

"Once more: The alcoholic at certain times has no effective mental defense against the first drink. Except in a few cases, neither he nor any other human being can provide such a defense. His defense must come from a Higher Power." -- page 43

So much for "Think Think Think". It's basically a slogan that is telling me to rely on something that the Big Book says will not, can not, work - the problem being that, when folks try this and then it doesn't work, they have little choice but to say "AA didn't work for me", since it was the AAs who told him this silliness in the first place.

Then there's the other one - and it's really sneaky (I'm going to step outside the fourth wall here and add this phrase - "....to my way of thinking". I don't really see any reason to do that, since - OBVIOUSLY - this whole blog is being written from my viewpoint. But, since I'm going to talk about a slogan that has God's name in it, I have to be very, very careful) to my way of thinking, because it almost sounds like good AA doctrine. When I hear this one elaborated on, it's in the context of "If it weren't for the Grace of God, I'd be drunk, like those other folks who aren't sober - there, but for the Grace of God, go I".

And - apologies to anyone who finds this offensive - no, I don't think that that's what's operative here at all. It sounds all humble and everything, but it actually seems to me to be one of the most arrogant statements that a person can make.

Again - this is just the way that I see it - but my own conception of a Higher Power doesn't include a God who will shed his Grace on one man, and not another.

So there must be something else operative here.

What might it be? How about this? "Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path".

I have little doubt that it is the power of God that is keeping me sober; but my Big Book tells me that that power can only save me if I am willing to take certain actions and attitudes - twelve of them, to be precise. Why is one member of AA sober, and another out there drunk? Because one of them thoroughly followed the path, and the other one didn't do so.

So this slogan is pretty sneaky, in that it promotes the idea that my sobriety is the result of unearned favor or merit (Grace) and has nothing to do with my own effort or willingness. And that's a thought that will kill a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, as sure as a gun to the head.

So, once again, I find that those things that we've added to our "AA Folklore" just don't suit me; I can't see that they add to the Program as outlined in the Big Book, and they seem to me to actually be misleading.

Funny about that.