Clear Cut Instructions

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.

What Does A Sponsor Do?

Fat Charlie the Archangel — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 20:07:00 GMT

Not too long ago - a couple of years back - I was given the opportunity to lead a "Sponsorship Workshop" for our local OA intergroup.

It wasn't a big deal - just a few hours in which I gave my understanding of what a sponsor is supposed to do in OA. (Interested parties can find the Powerpoint and audio files here). It was occasioned by many folks asking the question "What does a sponsor do?" and not getting a satisfactory answer.

Well, if you ask me a question, then you're (generally) gonna get one of two things:

1) What I think the Big Book says about the topic, or
2) What I think about the topic, if I don't think that the Big Book covers it.

If I'm completely clueless, then I might just tell you what my sponsor said about it (or what I've heard) but that will be accompanied by a pretty big disclaimer.

At the time, I told them that, as far as I could tell, the idea of "sponsorship" as we use it today - meaning an ongoing, long-term relationship with an "elder member" of the fellowship who acts as a sort of life-coach and sounding board - simply was not a part of the Big Book message; and I still find that to be the case.

But lately we've been reading Chapter Seven in our Wednesday Night Big Book Study meeting ("study" means "read on paragraph and beat it to death, then - if there's enough time left - move on to the next paragraph". I was sad to miss the night, some weeks back, when we were finishing up Chapter Six - I wanted to know if we could make a whole meeting out of the shortest paragraph in the Big Book - "It works - it really does." I'm betting that if Harlan was there, they got an easy forty-five minutes out of that one :) - anyway, we've been going through the chapter "Working With Others", and I'm struck by how simple the instructions are, and - once again - by how internally consistent the Big Book is.

The Big Book is meant to be the ultimate Twelfth Step - it is meant to be read by the lone alcoholic, so that - by following the instructions - he can have a spiritual awakening (which, as a by-product, keeps him sober) and then - having had that spiritual awakening - he carries that message to other alcoholics, and thus winds up forming a fellowship about him.

After a brief medical introduction (to give the book some credibility :) it starts out by telling us the personal story of one of the Fellowship's founders; it then gives us two chapters of information about the illness of alcoholism - with increasingly alarming details that hammer home the hopelessness of the situation - and follows that with a chapter detailing the need for - and the possibility of - an investigation into a spiritual solution.

After that comes the instructions (yes, that's right - if you'll read the next-to-the-last page of Chapter Two, it tells you that you won't get any instructions until Chapter Five :) for working the recovery program (up to and including the instructions for carrying the message to others), chapters addressed to the wives and employers of alcoholics, a discussion of the family life after recovery, and then a brief (anonymous) history of the movement so far, along with a hope that the reader will further that movement in his own locale.

What I find very interesting is that, in Chapter Seven - when the Big Book tells me how to carry the message to a newcomer - it seems to follow (very closely) the same order of operations that it (the Big Book) follows itself in bringing the message to me.

First off, on my first meeting with a prospect, I'm supposed to tell him some stories of my own drinking and the progression thereof; as I've moved into this, he's free to match my stories with some of his own (just the way that we all do, when we are reading Bill's Story). After he has done this - basically saying "Hey! I drink like that!" we are supposed to describe ourselves as alcoholics.

We then tell him that it's an illness, and we discuss the nature of that illness - the physical allergy and phenomenon of craving, coupled with the mental illness that causes us to drink even when we don't want to - and give a good picture of how hopeless it is.

(That's kind of a trap - we don't say "Hey! Guess what! Alcoholism is a progressive, incurable, and terminal illness! Now that I've told you that, let's find out if you have it!" No - instead, we let them identify as being the same sort of drinkers that we are, and then tell them that we're alkies, and just what that means and what it entails. Sneaky of us, isn't it? :)

Once that foundation of hopelessness is laid, we then tell them that the only remedy is a spiritual remedy. We briefly outline the program of action, and then we leave them alone; not only that, but - if they still want to quit - we leave them with our copy of the Big Book.

That's just how Bill Twelve-Stepped us all, in those first sixty pages - he told us his story, he described the illness and hammered home the hopelessness, told us (in Chapter Four) of the need for a spiritual solution, outlined that solution (in the short, numbered version of the Twelve Steps) and told us that "if you want what we have, and are willing to go to any lengths to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps".

Then, on page 60, we have to decide - are we convinced of a), b) and c)? If so, then ..."we were at Step Three" and it was time to get into action.

The original manuscript says, at that point, that if we were not convinced, that we should reread the book up to that point, or throw it away.

Then, at the second meeting, things are much simpler; at this point, it is assumed that the newcomer has read the book. Nowadays that's a pretty big assumption; but with those first last-gaspers, it was pretty much "root, hog or die". But that was what was necessary for the newcomer to continue with the program; since the program was in the book, then the book had to be read.

But since the newcomer has read the book and has some idea of what is to be required of him, I'm supposed to let him know that I am available "if he wishes to make a decision and tell his story".

That's powerful stuff. Funny about those first eleven Steps; the only time that another person's assitance is required is in Step Five ("tell his story"), and it is considered very helpful when saying the Third Step Prayer ("make a decision"). So the book says that my roles - once the newcomer has decided that he's going to go through with this - is just to be the person to pray Step Three with, and the person to share the Fifth Step with.

And not even those are mandatory; the book goes on to tell me "do not insist upon it if he prefers to consult someone else".

And that's pretty much it. After that, it talks a little bit about possibly helping him to find a job, or giving him a place to stay if it seems appropriate. But nothing about having them call me every day or telling them what meetings to go to or advising them on their marriages or divorces - nope, none of that.

I'm not saying that it didn't HAPPEN. Just that it's not in the INSTRUCTIONS.

And I'm trying - still, again, all the time and after all these years - to learn to follow the INSTRUCTIONS; to read the black words on the white pages :)

An Unlikely Candidate

Fat Charlie the Archangel — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 18:29:00 GMT

It's sort of strange that I turned out to be a Big Book Thumper.

Before I got to the Fellowship, I never read the directions for ANYTHING until I had to do so; in any endeavor, from putting together a toy on Christmas morning to raising children, I only looked for instructions when all of my attempts to "wing it" failed (and failed in such a way as to indicate that it was my mistake, and not the fault of the toy's packagers or the child's mother).

And when I did stumble into a meeting, desperate and willing, I still didn't do things the Book way. I knew that the Book was there - as I recall, I read the whole thing in the first few days - but I didn't realize that it was an INSTRUCTION book. I saw it more as a text or reference book than a "How To" guide or cookbook.

So I listened to folks in the meetings, and I sorta did things the best way that I could figure out - still trying to "wing it" to some extent, although darn willing to take any instructions that I could get.

As it happens, I worked Steps One and Two that I worked out of the Big Book which is interesting because those are the two Steps that don't have any instructions :)

I didn't do the Third Step prayer - I think that I thought that the Third Step was sort of an "attitude", in that "Okay, God, I'm willing now to turn my life over to You. Now what?" I didn't use the Big Book format for my first Fourth Step; I followed one of those "questionnaires" that was making its way around Texas in the mid 1980s.

My fifth Step - well, that was pretty much by the Book but only because there's not much speficity in the Book about that. Six and Seven also were pretty much out of the Book, but again that's not because I was reading the Book, but because the simplest implementation of those Steps (as read on the wall, not out of the text) is pretty darn close to the written instructions.

I think that Eight and Nine were where I started actually attempting to read the Book and do what it says, but I'm pretty hazy on that. And I'm sure that I got off track again when I got to Ten, Eleven and Twelve.

But near the end of that that first trip through the Twelve, I started to get the idea that there was actually a particular "path" that we are supposed to "thoroughly follow". And as time went on, I read the Big Book more and more, and looked to others in the Fellowship less and less for instructions.

I suspect that some of that had to do with the fact that - well, if you've been around any time at all, you've noticed that some folks simply do not stay sober. And the Book says that "rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path", so (except for corner cases) those who got drunk weren't following the path.

Dr. Silkworth said in his article on "Slips" that "The alcoholic "slip" is not a symptom of a psychotic condition. There is nothing "screwy" about it at all. The patient didn't follow directions. " Notice he didn't say that the patient didn't care about his recovery, or that he wasn't willing to do anything - he simply didn't follow the directions.

Darn hard to follow the directions if you don't know what they are.

And even harder to follow them if you have a definite apathy towards the book that contains them.

So I started paying more and more attention to that Book - not because I wanted to be a Big Book Thumper, but because I realized that a lot of folks in the meetings simply do not know what we are supposed to be doing, so following the dictum (that you hear at meetings) about "showing up at meetings and following the directions" is a pretty chancy way to stay sober.

I'm grateful that I was able to stay sober long enough - doing it that way - to allow me to find out that there is, indeed, a better way - a more exact way. A way that is guaranteed, if I attempt to "thoroughly follow" it.

Praying Only For Knowledge Of His Will

Fat Charlie the Archangel — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 21:32:00 GMT

Sam Shoemaker had something to say about prayer:

Many people will tell you they have given up faith: they prayed
for something they wanted, and it did not come--so either there
is no God, or else He is not interested in them. What childish
nonsense! ..... Prayer is not telling God what we want, it is
putting ourselves at His disposal so that He can tell us what
He wants. Prayer is not meant to try to change the will of God,
it is meant to find the will of God, to align or realign ourselves
with His purposes for His world and for us. That is why it is at
least as important for us to listen as to speak in prayer.

-- Samuel M. Shoemaker

If you're wondering who Sam Shoemaker is, that's not unusual. It's interesting that more folks in Twelve Step fellowships don't know who he is, or what he did for us.

Bill W. calls him a co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous; he was heavily involved with (some say the "leader" of) the Oxford Groups in the US while Bill and Bob were working inside of that fellowship, before the drunks went out on their own.

This quote from him, referencing what the very purpose of prayer is, contains the incredibly simple, subtle - and overlooked - essential idea: we don't pray to ask God to change HIS mind. We pray to ask God to change OUR mind.

"...asking only for knowledge of His will, and the power to carry that out".

We're not praying for a new car, or rain to end the drought, or world peace - we're not asking him to change our circumstances. We're praying in order to create a connection by which God can change our inner state.

In fact, this very idea kind of tosses the whole "pray for the people that you resent" idea out on its ear - while simultaneously validating the basic notion behind the intention of the prayer. In that story in the Big Book, the evangelist says that we are supposed to ask God to change another person's life - in the ways that we would want our own life changed - but the avowed purpose is to change our own internal state. (Of course, what seems to be the hoped-for goal to be achieved in this practice is that we will be able to get rid of the resentment without having to actually go through those awful inventory, confession and restitution Steps; for some reason, folks who like to talk about that prayer forget to mention that the women who wrote the story said that she had already been through those Steps without relief).

I find it interesting that none of the prayers listed in the Big Book (that I can think of, anyway) ever say anything about changing the outside world - not any part of it - not even our own state. There's not even any prayer mentioned to remove the compulsion or desire to drink or overeat; it's all about going through a process and arriving at the result - a spiritual awakening, one of the results of which being that the booze/food is no longer an issue.

Indeed, none of the Steps themselves ever talk about asking God to add anything to our spiritual selves - they are aimed, instead, at removing the blocks to the awareness of His presence:

"...deep down in every man, woman, and child, is the fundamental idea of God. It may be obscured by calamity, by pomp, by worship of other things, but in some form or other it is there."

We don't have to have anything added - we're already complete. "The gift of God was made at the foundation of the Earth". He's already inside of each of us. His Will already lives here - all we have to do is get the garbage out of the way, so that we can then ask - not for His Will - but for knowledge of His will.

And the power to carry that out - hmmm....Sounds like a good subject for another post : )

The Steps Are In Order - At Least, Most Of 'Em

Fat Charlie the Archangel — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 22:00:00 GMT

Most of the 12 Steps tend to engage my attention.

For the first nine Steps, it's a lather-rinse-repeat process; having reached the level of desperation necessary to pick up such a "drastic course of action", I'm pretty willing to move along with the "next...then..." motivation from Step to Step.

The last three Steps, however, aren't - by that I mean, they really aren't "Steps in the Program", from the way that I read my book. The first nine are definitely part of a program - i.e "a sequence of events or instructions" - in that we are told to execute them in a specific order; but the last three don't fit that pattern. I don't have to do a Tenth Step before I do an Eleventh Step before I do a Twelfth Step - the last three Steps are very plainly given as a design for daily living.

Step 10 includes a continuing awareness - a lookout for "selfishness, dishonesty, resentment and fear" - and the Step includes a prescription of four actions to be taken "when these crop up".

Step 11 has the most ubiquitous set of instructions - it's hard to find a time of the day when I'm not supposed to be doing Step 11. There's the nighttime inventory (my apologies to anyone who thought that the nighttime inventory was part of Step 10 - if you can find justification for such a view in our Big Book, I'd really love to hear it) and the morning session of meditation and directed thought in which we receive our plan for the day.

In addition, there are two other bits of instructions that get carried throughout the day - "we constantly remind ourselves that we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day 'Thy Will, not mine, be done'", and "when agitated or doubtful, we ask for the right thought or action".

Twelve is the only Step of the last three that is reactive, rather than proactive - in other words, Ten and Eleven are Steps that I take of my own volition, whereas Twelve is one that I take in response to somebody else's actions. There is a school of thought that says that just showing up at meetings or working on H&I committees is doing Step Twelve, but the Book says that this Step involves " intensive work with other alcoholics" - it's sitting down with another alcoholic and following a prescribed method of passing on our message.

When I say that it's reactive, I mean that one can't really do Step Twelve (as per the instructions in the Big Book) until one is asked to do it. Making oneself available is most definitely necessary, but it's not Step Twelve, any more than buying a pencil and a notebook is Step Four.

This reinforces one of the things I've learned (primarily in Al-Anon) -

Q: how do I know when I'm supposed to help somebody?
A: when they ask me to.

This keeps things really simple, and also cuts down on my opportunities to play God.

It's a good thing that I didn't write the Big Book, or I might (in my literal-minded way) have decided to wind up with Ten Steps, lumping these last three together as "Keep taking inventory, praying and meditating while attempting to carry the message to other alcoholics".

There's another interesting thing about these last Steps - the last two of them give us credit just for trying. The other Steps (One through Ten) all say that we DID this or that - but Eleven and Twelve actually say that we SOUGHT and TRIED, rather than FOUND and DID.

Of course, that last bit of the last Step really turns the whole thing into a "Lather, Rinse, Repeat" cycle; since it says that we "practice these principles in all of our affairs", and since the Principles are the Twelve Steps (not the last three :) this bit of verbiage says (to me) that I'm supposed to keep doing ALL of them - the first Nine over and over again whenever necessary, and the last Three on an ongoing basis.

No, It's Not Okay To Not Like Folks

Fat Charlie the Archangel — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:29:00 GMT

One of my favorites is the old "You don't have to like everybody" line - there's always a little tag on the end about how we're supposed to love everybody, but we don't have to like them.

That's a fun one. Like the "pray for the SOB even if you don't mean it" business, it implies that it's okay for us to keep looking down on other folks so long as we wish them well.

I used it, for a while. Eventually, enough inventory work allowed me to see that I actually really do like everybody.

I noticed that the only time that I didn't like someone - i.e. felt uncomfortable when I saw them, or didn't want to share space or time with them - was when I had begun to suspect that they didn't like me, and so I had to avoid them and invalidate their (supposed) negative opinion of me.

(N.B. - when I say that I like everybody, I don't mean that I want to spend a lot of time with all of them - because I only have so much time, and I usually spend my spare time in various activities, and so mostly wind up enjoying the company of other folks who like those activities. When I say that I like everybody, I mean that I would pretty much enjoy sitting down and talking with them anytime).

Of course, I still would enjoy the privilege of "not liking somebody". When you're an alcoholic and a compulsive overeater, it's nice to be able to look down on somebody now and then.

However, there are two interesting passages in our literature that lead me to the conclusion that it's just not OK to say to myself that "it's allright not to like so-and-so". The first one is the Spiritual Axiom, from page 90 in the 12 & 12 -

"It is a spiritual axiom that every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause,
there is something wrong with us." -- pg 90, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

You won't often find me quoting the 12&12, since there isn't much in the way of instructions that I can find in that book - there are wonderful essays and things to think about, and a really good prayer (the prayer of St. Francis) but there doesn't seem to be much in the way of "clear cut directions".

However, the Spiritual Axiom is a wonderful example of cautionary directions - where it's saying, like a spiritual Crocodile Hunter - "Crikey! Never, ever ever do this!" And it fits in very well with my understanding of the "actor who wants to run the whole show" and the injunction that we can't "harbor such feelings" from page 64. The Spiritual Axiom is from the essay about Step 10, which is the Step in which (upon finding out that we are selfish, dishonest, resentful or afraid) we are supposed to:

Ask God at once to remove it
Discuss it with somebody immediately
Make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone, and
Resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help.

So if I find somebody else's presence or attention disturbing, then there's something wrong with me - and I'd best get busy finding out what it is and straightening it out with the above methodology.

But there's another place where the idea of not liking people is addressed, and it's in the Big Book, in the Clear Cut Directions, where it talks in Step Nine about people that we have hated -

          "Nevertheless, with a person we dislike, we take the bit in our teeth. It is harder to go to an
            enemy than to a friend, but we find it much more beneficial to us. We go to him in a helpful
            and forgiving spirit, confessing our former ill feeling and expressing our regret. "

The idea that I must "confess [my] former ill feeling and express my regret" seems to me to be saying that an "ill feeling" is something that must be confessed - not only that, but that it is done so formally, in the Ninth Step, which means that I am making amends for harms done others.

It's helpful for me to remember that "love and tolerance of others is our code" - but I need to use the engineering definition of "tolerance", meaning "able to interact without friction", rather than my old self-righteous idea of "tolerance" meaning "I'm much smarter/moral/spiritual than he is, but I'll put up with his faults to show that I'm a good guy".

How Many Meetings Should I Go To?

Fat Charlie the Archangel — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 20:41:00 GMT

I only made four meetings last week.

Now, I know that there are folks who don't make that many meetings per week. I also know that there are a lot of folks who go to a lot more meetings than that. I aim at a long-running average of "more than five" meetings per week, and I actually track that on a spreadsheet (hey - it's my running log. I enter something into it at least six days a week anyway, so I just added a column which allows me to say how many meetings I went to that day. It's not a big deal :)

When Ethel and I were young (yes, it happened) we went to a LOT of meetings - I probably averaged close to two a day, right up until we got pregnant with Silas (around year five, for me).

When Ethel started to swell up with a baby inside her, I noticed that I got less interested in nighttime meetings; some ancient instinct rose up inside of me that told me that I was supposed to be at home at night; that I was supposed to come inside the cave, and put up barriers to keep the wolves and other predators away from my pregnant wife.

This bothered me a bit, for a while, until I saw that bit in The Family Afterward where it said that, for an ordinary man such as myself, a spiritual life which did not include my family obligations might not be so perfect after all. After that, Silas was born, and I fell into this habit of making at least five meetings per week.

After a while, I pulled out this habit and looked at it, consciously.

Was I going to enough meetings?

That's a good question. How to determine how many is enough? What are the criteria?

After a while, a couple of things struck me.

One of them is this - I'm not going to meetings to stay sober.

"Lemme 'splain - no, is too much. Lemme sum up." -- Inigo Montoya, from The Princess Bride

....I'm not going to meetings because I'm about to take a drink.

Ethel talks about how AAs are depicted on TV and in films; when somebody is identified in the script as being in Alcoholics Anonymous, then that person seems to always be on the verge of getting drunk; he's white-knuckling, calling his sponsor in a panic, and just barely getting to meetings before Ron Bacardi or Jack Daniels catches up to him.

That's not AA life, at all - once we get past Step Ten, it just ain't like that. At our local meetings, we sometimes read the Tenth Step promises, saying (in part):

"For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid."

The idea of living moment-to-moment with a craving to drink is terrifying; that is NOT what we have here. It's not what we've been given, and it seems to me to be missing the point; the miracle that we've recieved is so complete and perfect that it seems just plain disrespectful to even pretend that it's like that.

I don't go to meetings because of any immediate issue of sobriety; I go to meetings to carry the message of Alcoholics Anonymous, and as long as I'm doing that, my sobriety is insured - I am immune from the first drink (if that sounds arrogant to you, then you might want to reread the first paragraph of Chapter Seven) - as I've heard it said, as long as I'm carrying the message with both hands, I won't have a hand to pick up a drink with.

So that simple distinction forces me to rephrase the question - not "how many meetings to I need to attend to keep away from a drink", but "how many meetings does God want me at to carry the message to others?" In other words, going to a meeting isn't a selfish act; it's not something that I'm doing because "I need a meeting", but instead it's something that I'm doing for the others there; it's what the folks at my first group were doing for me.

The second thing that occurred to me is this - it's none of my business how many meetings I need to be at.

I'm no longer running my own life; I'm not supposed to be figuring out what I need. My Big Book says that as long as I'm sticking close to Him and performing His work well, I'll be given what I need. I don't even have to figure it out.

I'm given instructions on how to get instructions for my daily life; I'm supposed to wake up in the morning and ask God to direct my thinking as I make my plans for the day. At that time, I find out if I'm supposed to go to a meeting today. That's allowing Him to run my life, and allowing Him to tell me what to do - on a daily basis, which is (to my understanding) the biggest block of time for which I'm going to get instructions.

Okay, then - why do I track how many meetings that I'm going to? Doesn't that sort of contradict what I just said?

Absolutely!

However, I'm aware of my own inadequacies - no, wait. That's not true. I'm sure that I have many inadequacies of which I am completely unaware : ) - let's say, instead, that I am aware that I have those inadequacies. The Big Book says that I'm not going to do this Step perfectly, so I'm going to make mistakes.

So I track my daily meetings for the same reason that, once a week, I weigh in - not to generate any immediate alert, but just to see if I'm falling into some kind of long-term trend. If I find that I've suddenly started going to fewer and fewer meetings, then it might be time for a talk with my sponsor to determine if that is, indeed, something that God is leading me to do.

(I fully expect to start going to MORE meetings once Silas has moved out, but who knows? That may not be His plan; that just might be what I suspect is going to happen. If it doesn't, then that might be a good subject to bring up with Sponse, as well).

Liabilities and/or Assets?

Fat Charlie the Archangel — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:48:00 GMT

Yet more AA Folklore:

"In the fourth step, we are supposed to write down our assets as well as our liabilities - it's not just all of the bad stuff. It's the good stuff, too."

Gotta love this one. It sounds good, and it even fits the definition of "inventory" that one will find in any dictionary.

And I would absolutely have to go along with it, were it not for those pesky first 164 pages; they keep telling me that they are going to provide "clear cut directions" for how I am supposed to work these Steps.

I remember trying to do this, BTW - listing assets as well as liabilities. I think I even did so - but in order to do so, I had to add stuff to the inventory process that wasn't outlined in the Book. See, there's no column for "assets"; and there's no instruction for writing them down. In fact, it's a very definite omission.

I love the way that this part of the Book is written; Bill does some stuff with words that is almost misleading. Here's on example:

"Taking commercial inventory is a fact-finding and a fact-facing process. It is an effort to discover the truth about the stock-in-trade. One object is to disclose damaged or unsalable goods, to get rid of them promptly and without regret."

...Bill says "One object is to disclose damaged or unsalable goods..." - if you are like me, and you read that passage, then you're going to expect him to come along soon and say "Another object is to find the valuable goods..", but he never comes around and says "Another object..." - he never closes that loop.

Later on on that page, he says

"First, we searched out the flaws in our make-up which caused our failure. "

Again, if you're like me, you're going to expect him to come along after saying "First,.." and say "Secondly..." - but he doesn't do that. He never says "Secondly, we searched out the assets in our character".

It ain't there. You'd think that it ought to be there, you might even expect it to be there - it does look like he set it up to be there - but it ain't there.

If you can find the part in the Big Book where it says that we're supposed to list our assets, please share it with the rest of us. I tried listing my "assets" but they mostly turned out to be lies - in a few cases, character attributes which were looking good at the time, but later on turned out to be things that were, indeed, causing me troubles.

SETTING UP A STRAW MAN: In the 12 & 12, it does say that, if a member is of a depressive nature, that his sponsor might point out some assets in his character. I'm still waiting for my sponsor to do so :)

Forget that inventory stuff - just PRAY for 'em!

Fat Charlie the Archangel — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 16:06:00 GMT

Continuing our discussion of AA Folklore (well, actually, since I haven't seen any comments, I reckon it's just MY discussion. But you folks feel free to jump in at any time :) I present one of my favorites: The Resentment Prayer.

It's the notion that we're supposed to get rid of resentments by praying for the person at whom we are resentful.

Now, let's be completely honest (the Big Book thinks that that's a good idea :) - this idea is, actually, expressed in SOME Big Books¹. That is, it's brought up in one of the stories - I believe that it's "Freedom from Bondage" - and the entry looks like this:

"If you have a resentment you want to be free of, if you will pray for the person or the thing that you resent, you will be free. If you will ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them, you will be free. Ask for their health, their prosperity, their happiness, and you will be free. Even when you don't really want it for them, and your prayers are only words and you don't mean it, go ahead and do it anyway. Do it every day for two weeks and you will find you have come to mean it and to want it for them, and you will realize that where you used to feel bitterness and resentment and hatred, you now feel compassionate understanding and love."

Just like a lot of AA folklore, this sounds wonderful. It even makes a sort of sense, and fits in with my understanding of some of the spiritual laws that I think that I have come to learn about.

But it ain't AA.

Again - it seems to me that the whole premise of the text of the Big Book (rather than the personal stories) is that they are telling us exactly/precisely what to do, giving us clear cut directions - in other words, a FORMULA. A COOKBOOK approach to sobriety. A way to mass produce the miracle, to create the spiritual awakening. They say that if we're desperate enough, we'll be glad to follow their path. As it says in Chapter Two,

'If you are an alcoholic who wants to get over it, you may already be asking What do I have to do?"'

Not "how little do I have to do?" or "what things might I try, if I feel like it?" or even "Gee, can I come up with my own stuff?" but "What do I have to do?" (italics mine).

The Basic Text of Alcoholics Anonymous contains several pages of information regarding resentments - what they are, the inherent dangers, and explicit instructions in how to deal with them. And none of those instructions say a darn thing about "praying for the person for two weeks".

But you have to admit - it's a darn seductive alternative :)

I mean, which would you prefer -

EITHER:

List the person, the incident, what I find threatening and scary about the situation
Follow that list with a discussion of my part in the situation - my wrongs, my mistakes, where I was at fault, completely setting aside any part that they might have played.
Admit all of my faults and wrongs and mistakes to another, and to God, and to myself.
Ask God to remove this from me.
Make amends to the person that I was resentful at, never discussing their behavior - only talking about my own mistakes.

OR:

Pray for them for two weeks.

Ya gotta admit, that second option sounds really attractive :)

STRAWMAN: Having said that "..the Big Book doesn't tell us to pray for people at whom we have a resentment", folks have responded to me that the prayer on Page 67 of the Big is, indeed, just that - a prayer for those against whom we are resentful. And I used to think so - although I thought of that prayer as being part of the process, not a substitute for it.

But then I went back and looked at that prayer, and I realized that it never asks God to do ANYTHING for that other person - instead, the prayer is quite specific in asking that I be changed - that I be saved from my anger, and I am asking for a way in which I can be helpful to that person.

And then I went back and looked at it yet again, and realized that - as far as I can tell from the wording - this prayer isn't part of the Fourth Step process at all. Instead, this is a prayer that I'm supposed to use when I detect behavior in somebody else that is offensive - it's what I'm supposed to do to prevent myself from ever getting the resentments in the first place.

The book doesn't say "When we are resentful at a person..." but "When a person offended..." and suggests some ways to think about the situation in order to avoid getting resentful.

At least, that's the way that I'm reading it today. That may change tomorrow - obviously, as the last few paragraphs show, it's changed before :)

¹..in other words, the personal story containing this prayer is in two editions of the Big Book - the third and fourth. I don't know if it's in the first or second, and I'm not even going to bother looking it up : )

No Relathionships For The First WHAT?

Fat Charlie the Archangel — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 19:55:00 GMT

Once upon a time, in the little town in Texas where I got sober, I walked up to one of the sober ladies that I really respected and asked about what I had been hearing in the meetings.

I said, "Cindy, I'm hearing folks in the meeting say that we're supposed to stay out of relationships for the first year."

She said, "That's right - you are hearing that."

And I said "But I can't find that in the Big Book or the Twelve and Twelve".

She said, "That's right - it's not in there."

So I said, "So, what do I DO?"

She said, "Well, first off, when somebody tells you that, don't ask them what they think; ask them what they did." Oh, cool. Okay, I could do that.

Then she said something that I've never forgotten - "It's 'work the Steps, or die'. That other stuff doesn't mean anything, really. If you get into a relationship, and you work the Steps, then you'll stay sober. If you don't get into a relationship, but you don't work the Steps, then you'll get drunk. It's 'work the Steps, or die'".

I think that this was about the first time that I realized that there was a difference - a real difference - between the folks at the meeting house. Up until this time, the world was composed of three groups - all of those Earth People out there, the sober drunks at the meeting house, and me. And I was trying to become one of the sober drunks, by doing what they did.

But once I really started "doing what they did", I found out that they didn't all do the same thing; moreover, that there were two distinct groups of sober folks: one group, who sort of tried this and tried that and didn't really have a concrete, established program of action, and the other group, who couldn't open their mouths without mentioning the Big Book and the Steps.

And I sorta decided that I wanted to be part of that latter group - one of the ones who actually had a set of principles to follow, regardless of what the circumstances were, and regardless of what I might think about it.

So, the next time that somebody said something about "not getting into a relationship for the first year", I just flat out asked them "well, okay - what did YOU do?"

What I found out was that, with one exception, every sone of them either got into relationships in their first year - or that they had actually come into the program married.

The one exception had been sober for three years, and was still managing to avoid relationships - and I decided that I didn't want what he had, and I was willing to go to any lengths to avoid it : )

Then, of course, I kept studying the Big Book, and I found out some interesting stuff about all of this sexual relationship advice that was going around the rooms: not only were there no instructions in the Big Book about "staying out of relationships for the first year" - the Big Book explicitly said that we are not to give each other such advice.

"One set of voices cry that sex is a lust of our lower nature, a base necessity of procreation.

Then we have the voices who cry for sex and more sex; who bewail the institution of marriage; who think that most of the troubles of the race are traceable to sex causes. ...One school would allow man no flavor for his fare and the other would have us all on a straight pepper diet. We want to stay out of this controversy. We do not want to be the arbiter of anyone's sex conduct...

"We asked God to mold our ideals and help us to live up to them...

"...we treat sex as we would any other problem. In meditation, we ask God what we should do about each specific matter. The right answer will come, if we want it.

God alone can judge our sex situation. Counsel with persons is often desirable, but we let God be the final judge. We realize that some people are as fanatical about sex as others are loose. We avoid hysterical thinking or advice." -- (boldface added by me)

The way I read this passage, the Big Book says that we're supposed to ask God to shape our ideal, AND we're supposed to ask Him about each specific situation. And we're not supposed to give each other advice that is "hysterical" - the two examples given being the group that says "have all the sex you can" and the other group being the ones who say "don't have any at all".

And I've been at entire meetings where the subject was "relationships" and heard folks quote the Big Book as saying that "...we're supposed to stay out of relationships for the first year".

It's more folklore - it's something that we heard from somebody that we respected, and so we incorporated it into our lives (although, actually, it doesn't sound like very many of us ever actually DO this particular one, but at least we get to feel guilty about it, and advise others to do so :) And, since most of us have some vague idea that the AA program is in the Big Book, we figure that - since this is one more thing that "everybody knows" that we're supposed to do, we figure it must be in there, somewhere.

Once again, I think that we're missing the point. The point is that we've been given the instructions - CLEAR CUT DIRECTIONS, as it says - but we keep forgetting where they are.

"If you want to keep something secret from an alcoholic, just put it in the Big Book" - anonymous

So, after my conversation with Cindy, I went right ahead and tried to follow the directions that were written down - the directions that weren't subject to anybody's bad memory or re-interpretation, the directions that were provided for me, in hardback copy, for the price of a mixed drink.

And guess what? I got into relationships in my first year.

Not only that - I got married at ten months.

We got divorced 364 days later (a good thing, too, or I'd have had to buy a card and gift).

If that sounds like a bad thing - nope, not at all. Some heartache, on both of our parts, but not a bad thing.

See, I was working the Steps. And I was learning about me, and about how I am in relationships, and about my attitudes regarding sex and romantic love. And I was getting free of stuff that had been hanging around in the back of my brain for way too long.

The end result of that work, and that short marriage (and the brief chaos that ensued) was that I met Ethel, and we married - and last year we celebrated twenty years of marriage. And I still can't get used to the idea that we're together; twenty years later, when she walks across a room, I have to watch her.

I asked God to mold my ideals - and He did so. But first He did so by counter-example, saying "Okay - see this? That ain't it...see this?...that ain't it..." - and then, when the work was done, He presented me with the relationship that has lasted; the love of my life.

Cindy had pointed that out to me, years before - we don't learn and grow by sitting in meetings and hiding from life. We have to go out there and get in the middle of things, and live with the consequences, and stay sober by working these Steps, and we'll see our lives change.

If I'd been sitting in the meeting house, keeping away from any possible contact with girls - HOW WOULD I HAVE DONE THE WORK?

I can't learn how to be in relationships by staying out of them - I live, and work the Steps, and I learn what works and I unlearn what didn't work, and I am changed. -- IN OTHER WORDS, just like the book says, I "...treat sex like any other problem".

Playmates and Playgrounds

Fat Charlie the Archangel — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 16:06:00 GMT

One more example of "AA Folklore" (i.e. the things that aren't in the Big Book - or blatantly contradict the Big Book - that I hear folks in meetings tell newcomers) is this one - "You have to give up your old playmates and playgrounds".

Once again - this is something that sounds like good advice. And it would make plenty of sense, if Alcoholics Anonymous were a support group, or if we were group therapy. But we're not. Alcoholics Anonymous is a Fellowship of the Spirit, and what we have to offer is miracles, not gimmicks or motivational tricks.

This is one more time where the folks giving the advice have either

a) not read the Big Book, or
b) have interpreted the words differently, or
c) have simply chosen to disregard what it says.

I like choice b), "interpreted it differently", because that would mean that we all agree that the solution is in the Big Book, and that we're simply reading it from different perspectives, but in discussion with these folks (to the extent that they will discuss it) I find that it's usually a) or c).

(I have to admit here that it often seems that it is, indeed, usually the case of b) AND c) - they have, indeed, read the Big Book, but never noticed the passages dealing with these subjects, because the passages didn't agree with what they had heard from their group/therapist/treatment center/sponsor, and so when you point the passages out to the folks in question, they get mad and say that they don't care what those words are; it comes out something like "Yeah, I know that that's what it says, but that's just stupid. Anybody knows that newcomers need to keep away from their old playmates and playgrounds" and they walk away mad).

There is a passage in the book that come to mind - one dealing directly with this issue of playmates and playgrounds. (I'm operating under the assumption here that "playmates" means friends with whom one used to drink, and that "playgrounds" is referring to places where drinking takes place - specifically those places where one might have spent time).

With regards to "playmates" - the Big Book never says that we should ignore our drinking friends. In fact, the book says, specifically, this:

"Let your friends know they are not to change their habits on your account. At a proper time and place explain to all your friends why alcohol disagrees with you. If you do this thoroughly, few people will ask you to drink. While you were drinking, you were withdrawing from life little by little. Now you are getting back into the social life of this world. Don't start to withdraw again just because your friends drink liquor."

Now, it may just be the way that I'm reading this, but to my way of thinking, telling our friends that they are not to change their habits on our account, AND not withdrawing from my friends, sort of flies in the face of the advice to "keep away from my old playmates".

This is on the same page (101) as the "playgrounds" advice, which has to do with a lot more than just "playgrounds" -

"Assuming we are spiritually fit, we can do all sorts of things alcoholics are not supposed to do. People have said we must not go where liquor is served; we must not have it in our homes; we must shun friends who drink; we must avoid moving pictures which show drinking scenes; we must not go into bars; our friends must hide their bottles if we go to their houses; we mustn't think or be reminded about alcohol at all.
"We meet these conditions every day. An alcoholic who cannot meet them, still has an alcoholic mind; there is something the matter with his spiritual status. His only chance for sobriety would be some place like the Greenland Ice Cap, and even there an Eskimo might turn up with a bottle of scotch and ruin everything! Ask any woman who has sent her husband to distant places on the theory he would escape the alcohol problem.

To my way of thinking, this definitely references the idea of "keeping away from old playgrounds" - and the Big Book sets up that straw man just to tear it down - it's telling us that it simply will not work. And the book references what the real trouble is - "there is something the matter with his spiritual status".

That's sort of interesting, to me - the Big Book reminds us, over and over again, that what we are implementing here is a spiritual solution to a physical and mental problem. Attempting to keep away from booze is a mental gimmick with a physical implementation, and it's not going to work.

The Big Book gets just plain nasty about the whole thing - much nastier than I could ever get :)

"In our belief any scheme of combating alcoholism which proposes to shield the sick man from temptation is doomed to failure. If the alcoholic tries to shield himself he may succeed for a time, but usually winds up with a bigger explosion than ever. We have tried these methods. These attempts to do the impossible have always failed."

It says "ANY scheme". It says "DOOMED to failure". It says that we've tried them, and they are "attempts to do the impossible."

We've been given something so far beyond white-knuckle sobriety that I find myself disliking the "keep away from playmates and playgrounds" advice not just because it doesn't work, but because (to my mind) it cheapens what we really have, and what we have to offer.

Speaking of "setting up a straw man", I'll do that now - those who are proponents of the "keep away from temptation" plan are always quick to point out that this passage comes from Chapter Seven, which is all about Step Twelve - they point out that this advice is for the newcomer, who's not on Step Twelve yet.

I have only one question - why? Why are we giving the newcomer advice about what to do while he's waiting around and deciding whether or not to work the Steps - or, perhaps even worse, why are we giving him advice that allows him to think that the doesn't have to work the Steps?

Why are we telling people to do what the Big Book says will always be impossible to do (i.e. schemes of combating alcoholism which propose shielding the sick man from temptation) instead of telling them to do what the Big Book
tells them to do - i.e., work the steenkin' Steps? How long are we supposed to tell the newcomer to do ANYTHING else except work the Steps?

Why do we soft-pedal the Steps - which work, and work immediately, and always work - in favor of giving advice that forces the newcomer to lean on his own power and resources?

I think that it's because that we - the corporate "we" here - don't really believe Steps One and Two.

We really think that the newcomer is supposed to figure out a better way to keep away from alcohol; that God won't really solve the alcohol problem; that what we get from AA is a better life, so that the temptation to drink is reduced, rather than a spiritual awakening, which removes the very issue of drinking.

The Big Book says that this program will work, when it is grasped with all the desperation with which a drowning man grabs a life preserver; we soft-pedal the Steps because maybe the newcomer isn't hungry enough; not hurting enough; not desperate enough to go ahead and work them right now.

Our book - the same book that tells us that attempts to avoid temptation are doomed to failure - says that, if the newcomer isn't ready to do whatever it takes, then we're supposed to leave him alone.

So I think what's really going on is that we've given up miracles for marketing, and we're trading devices for desperation. Instead of requiring of a newcomer the only thing that he really has to give - his awareness of his own dire need - we tell them that it's hanging around their playmates and playgrounds that's the problem. We tell them that their problem is their circumstances.

Heck - they've believed that all along.

But the truth is that we've got something better.

This AA oldtimer walks into a meeting room early, and sees a newcomer sitting at the table. The oldtimer says "Hey, how are you doing?"

The newcomer says "Oh, I'm doing okay, under the circumstances."

The oldtimer says "What are you doing under there?"

When You Have To Get To Wendover

Fat Charlie the Archangel — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 16:27:00 GMT

I had a young fellow come up to me one day after a meeting and ask me why I was such a stickler for doing things by the Big Book.

Here's what I told him:

There's a highway that heads west out of Salt Lake City called "Interstate 80". It is the ONLY highway that goes all the way across the state to Wendover. There are a few other roads that lead west out of Salt Lake, but they quickly merge with I-80, or they wander away to the north and south.

If you are in Salt Lake, and you want to go to Wendover, then there are an infinite number of paths that you can take. You can, if you wish, take your car and drive off to the north, all the way up into Idaho, and then work your way west into Nevada and then come south.

Or you can wander off to the south, and come across lower Utah into the area around Great Basin Nat'l Park, and then head north to Wendover. Eventually you'll get there.

If you are feeling adventurous, then you can - if you load up on water and supplies (and water) - head off into the trackless wastes north or south of I-80, and make your way through the Great Salt Lake Desert. You'll spend a lot of time, and you may not make it at all (there are a lot of folks that never made it across that desert) but at least you won't be following in anybody else's footsteps - you'll be blazing your own trail.

However - if you absolutely must get from Salt Lake to Wendover, and if death for you and disgrace for your loved ones are the alternatives, and if they are following close behind you - then you're just an idiot if you don't take I-80.

It's a paved route that is well travelled. There are a lot of folks travelling on it, they all know the way because they've gone that way many times. If by chance you do find yourself stranded alongside the road, they are more than happy to help you get going again.

There's cell service all along the route so that you're never out of touch, and roadsigns appear ever so often to remind you that you are, indeed, on the proper path, and they tell you how far you have to go.

Once you get past those first few roads, there aren't any exits or detours; once you get well into this journey, you have to finish it along the marked route in order to get where you are going.

That's how I see the Big Book. It's a well-marked path that was laid out a long time ago for folks who HAVE to get sober, and who are willing to go to any length. If there's any rebellion in them, then there's no reason for them to follow this route; maybe booze'll knock the rebellion out of 'em, or maybe it'll kill 'em first.

But those who demand their own individuality - who rebel against being told what to do - don't see why they should have to follow somebody else's directions. And the writers of the Big Book understood this; they told us that so long as the newcomer thought that he could try his own way, we are to wish him well.

But we don't have to walk out into the Great Salt Lake Desert with him; we can stay on the well-worn path and wave bye-bye. That, to me, is the real sense of the word "suggestions" in the Big Book. We've got a path that we suggest, but we're not going to ENFORCE it. We're not going to make them follow these suggestions; at the same time, we're not going to alter our program to accomodate their demands.

They can, if they wish, join us on the Broad Highway (just like the Big Book says) - and they are welcome, so long as they mean business (just like the Big Book says).

I'm aware that there are folks who don't like the idea that there is actually a set of instructions; that there are folks who've decided that they know which parts of the Big Book need to be "changed" or "updated". That's their balliwick; once again, there's no reason to accomodate them. They are certainly free to go start their own recovery programs.

Sometimes they do. MM and RR are some recent examples of recovery programs started by folks who quite openly did not like the structure and strictures in the Big Book. I haven't heard much about them lately, though.

However, usually these folks don't go start their own programs. They don't go build their own highways across the desert; instead, they come onto I-80 and set up roadblocks. They put up exit signs, telling the folks who've never travelled this route before that they don't have to stay on the road, that they can head off anytime and that they'll be just fine.

I'm just an old Big Book Thumper. I haven't figured out where the Big Book is wrong (well, sometimes I find passages that bother me - but I let them bother me, and keep my focus on the fact that the error is in ME and in my understanding, and not in the Big Book itself). I don't want to give anybody my ideas or my opinions; I fired my own brain something close to 8447 days ago, and said out loud that, for the rest of my life, if the Big Book said one thing, and my brain said another, then my brain was wrong.

The pundits standing beside the freeway, yelling loudly that there are other ways to get to Wendover, say that "Big Book Thumping" is arrogance. And I'll admit that I'm arrogant, but that's a cheap shot - there's not a single flaw that you can name that I don't have in abundance :) However, my attempts to follow the Big Book (and to carry its message to others) are not INITIATED by my arrogance, even though my arrogance is certainly capable of jumping along for the ride.

I cranked up this blogspace as a rest stop on I-80; a place where fellow travellers can stop for a bit and get reassurance that the road really does lead to Wendover. If you want what we have, and are willing to go to the same length that we went to to get it - or, congruently, if you have what we have, and you want to keep it along with us - then feel free to hang around. Post comments, generate discussion, invite others of like mind.

I need to surround myself with folks who are on the same road - because I have an illness in my head that still whispers to me that I don't really, really still have to follow all of those rules after 23 years. So if you want to help me stay sober using the means that we were given by those who came before us, please - please! - hang out with me and tell me that this is the right road.

But if you want to wander off onto the Salt Flats, then I'll just wave goodbye. And I'll remind you to take plenty of water.