My active drinking career, which I pray is over, come to a slow but sure nasty bottom. I went beyond just being brought to my knees with my last drunk. My last debacle found me splayed out on the bathroom floor and in dire medical straits. I was revived, brought to the hospital and spent a night in intensive care. I knew, this time, I was defeated. I was figuratively brought to my knees in realizing my powerless. I was different, at least in realizing it was simply was not possible for me to whip this drinking problem. I also knew – finally it was absolutely clear – my drinking was a big problem. I did not just have a bad night or was unlucky. I then did something strange. I sincerely asked for help.

Today I am brought to my knees by all kinds of situations. Asking God for help in my daily life, praying about how grateful I am to have the life I have today and many other reasons. All this is now a very good thing instead of the humiliation of what my drinking drove me to become.

One funny thing about all this is I did not believe in God before I was felled by my powerlessness. I felt people who had faith in God were weak and simple minded. It says in the Twelve and twelve (and as quoted in the daily reflections book): Some of us won’t believe in God, others can’t, and still others who do believe that God exists have no faith whatever He will perform this miracle.

I am glad I am on the other side of the fence on this issue today. I know and appreciate that God does exist. He can work miracles in my life. And I can be brought to my knees on a regular basis by my faith.

The philosophical argument about self-will versus determinism has been raging for much longer than our lifetimes. Modern ideas put new twists into this but the idea is the same. It is an argument that I am pretty sure will not be solved in my lifetime. So what to do, and what to say, when bad things happen? What was/is God’s role in such matters?

I have faced this in my own life and in trying to help others. Rape, murder, car accidents and the like are some of examples of bad things that happen. Is this all parts of “God’s plan?”

I want to believe this is not the direct doings of God. In my spiritual world these are things that happen, regardless of what God wants or is able to do for me, or for anyone else.

Self-determinism is what I believe in. I believe God wants the best for me but I am free to choose. I am a drunk. Good for me or not, if I am not vigilant and taking care of myself than I am capable of drinking. And drinking for me leads to very bad things for me and for others. On the other hand my life is pretty darn good when I am sober. This is more what I think God wants for me. So when bad things happen I don’t blame blame God. It is not necessarily his fault or his doing.

For all I know God is doing these things, perhaps for reasons I do not need to be privy to. Yet I am not God so I am not the person to understand everything. I can live with that too. I don’t need to think I know or understand everything anymore.  Drinking and getting sober beat that egotistical malarkey out of me.

Having been sober for a few decades I can deduce and live with philosophical and spiritual perspectives that support my life. I can now see things in a way that allows me to be happy (God is good) instead of bitter (why did God allow xxxx to happen?). In working with others I can share my perspectives and suggest them as useful ways to see and deal with things. I don’t pretend I am right, just that this does work. Yet sometimes there needs to be something more added to all this.

The other day one of my sponsees told me something that I thought was wonderful. It come to him via another AA member who had suffered a loss and was told this by someone else. Rather than wondering why or what God’s role in the thing that you lost was, imagine that God felt the same pain that you did or still do in relation to your loss.

An empathetic God explained in way that is personal and touching.

Happy New Year. 2010. It will be the best year ever.

One key element of my sobriety, my happiness and my ability to live in the right way is to have a strong faith. Yet it comes and goes. I came into AA not believing in God. My use and abuse of substances though did make me willing to try what Alcoholics Anonymous suggested. My willingness led me to develop a relationship with God and an ability to have faith.

Those days seem simple and quaint today. My humanness has returned as I have stayed sober and had my own little victories in life. All of these have been made possible by my sobriety – that is clear to me. I think that my faith has never been as strong as it was in my early years of sobriety. I do have some ideas why too. Part of it has been, simply that I have become somewhat normal. I am no longer so desperate. My life works today rather than it being a real mess that spills out toxicity in all areas and upon all that are around me. I could do better, sure, but I am not doing all that bad either.

So I have become comfortable and in some ways complacent.

The answer to this sometimes lacking strength in my faith is to redouble my efforts in doing what I have been taught works. Trust God, clean house and help others. I have been taking this action for months now and not surprisingly faith is beginning to spread. It is smothering the fear, getting into the nooks and crannies of my thought life and rooting out the crap. It feels good, its uplifting to have this change occur and to have it so palpable.

I am still a bit away from where I once was with my faith. I have also come to understand that what I had and thought was good can never be brought back. I am aiming to bring myself to a new place, not restore myself to an old state. That old state cannot be returned to because I will never be that person again. I have changed and today is today, it is never yesterday.

My old friend Bob used to say “the best is yet to come.” Things are pretty good but I can tell they are getting better. That is some faith I can bank on.

My sponser told me this little gem the other day.

You know what the three answers to your prayers can be?

Yes.

Yes but not now.

No because there is something better in store for you.

I am liking my new sponsor!

Stay sober, have fun and enjoy this day.

Following along the same vein as my last post I am still focusing and thinking about my spiritual condition today. I think part of the problem is my having been doing a few of the same things day after day, and perhaps thinking this is enough. Praying in the morning and praying at night does get supplemented by other things throughout the day but there is not much else that I do on a regular basis. Going to a meeting can help me focus more on God but not always. Finding myself in challenging or humbling situations can make me contemplate God, say a prayer, or feel grateful I do not have to bear the burden of everything on my own, but this doesn’t always happen. And so on.

I have been thinking that I perhaps need to do something to knock me out of my complacency. Many years ago I used to fast from time to time. I would drink nothing but water for a day. Then there was a year or two where I was attending a sweat lodge in Montana a few times a month. I would fast for the part of the day leading up to the sweat. The fast coupled with the sweat lodge was a powerful spiritual experience.

All in all, my fasting experiences were truly spiritual manna. I think I need to do a one day fast soon. If your curious, you can find out more about fasting here: how to fast.

Be well and be sober.

I had a big problem. My uncle has been dying of cancer for awhile. A few weeks ago he was told he could not be treated anymore as there was no use in doing so. My father talked to me the other day and told me I should call him. The unspoken part of the conversation, which I only recognized a few minutes after I got off the phone, was that my Uncle does not have long to live (this post is not about how no one in my family ever talks directly about things, as if it might keep something bad or sad from happening if it isn’t stated).

I feel fortunate I had seen this uncle about out a month ago even though he lives hundreds of miles from me.

The next day I agonized over picking up the phone. I can’t recall the last time I called this uncle on the phone so the whole thing was strange to begin with. I of course was mightily uncomfortable with the idea of what to say to someone who is not far from death. Goodbye? Sorry? I hope your Ok? I talked to my fiancee about my dilemma. I was fishing for someone or something to save me from something I was scared to do. It was this last thought that saved me and helped me to dip into my AA toolbox.

There is nothing I need to be ready to say, or can say, to deal with the real enormity of what is going on with him. I simply needed to ask God for help to have the courage to pick up the phone and to ask for guidance in saying whatever was appropriate.

I picked up the phone right away, dialed his number (my Uncle’s of course, I don’t have God’s number in my speed dial), and he answered the phone. We talked for about 5 minutes. During our conversation I was able to tell him that I had heard he was not doing well and that he was in my thoughts and prayers. It was a surprisingly light conversation. I of course felt much more comfortable than I would have thought. I got off the phone and cried. As I am doing in writing about this phone conservation.

I am grateful to have been graced with the courage to call. I felt better for having had this experience. My uncle was sincerely happy to hear from me and seemed touch that I called.

It still amazes me that I can so easily tap into a power that can have me go beyond my simple set of conceptions that set off fear, retreat, and shying away from doing the right thing. Left to my own devices I used to always miss my chances to act responsibly. I lacked the wisdom and self assurance to reach out to others with love. Such behavior, I have come to learn, is living in a way that is like trying to grow a plant without water.

The strangeness of feeling grateful for being able to handle dying, death, and sad events is something I have gotten used to over the years. There are many situations that come up as part of being responsible adult that leave me and plenty of others feeling like “what I am supposed to do here!” and “I don’t want this to be happening!” Getting through those situations – by facing up to them, feeling humbled by playing my part and role in whatever I am supposed to be doing, and even feeling grateful since I know I never would have been able to do such things before – is a much better way to live.

Wishing you the best in sobriety,

AA Blogger

At my meeting today the discussion was about having the obsession to drink lifted from us and how, once lifted, it can remain so provided we stay on a spiritual path. It filled me with gratitude to recognize that my life has been free of the desire to want to drink for so many years. Yet this program is a day at a time and my current state, not even being able to imagine a situation where I would want to take a drink, can be replaced by the insanity that was once surely killing me. I am fairly certain I will not revert back to who I was provided I keep doing what I have been taught – trust God, clean house, and help others.

One of the benefits of continuing to go to meetings on a regular basis is seeing, hearing, and watching others demonstrate for me how seemingly simply decisions that can lead me away from my sobriety are so easy to make. It seems there is no end to the number of people that want and need to stop yet return to drinking. One common thread in so many of these cases is an inability to keep sobriety as the number one priority. I have spent countless hours with people who have gone back out and heard them describe how life was just too difficult, how they felt so much pressure, and how they just couldn’t handle life on life’s terms. They are not able to see with any clarity how their perception of life’s problems allowed them to lose sight of remaining steadfast in doing whatever they could to stay sober.

I too can find my thinking going down this path from time to time. Up until this point though I have always somehow been brought to recognize that my thinking was misguided and wrong. Relationship woes, dealing with work, physical challenges regarding my health, unwanted changes, financial worries, or whatever are just not that big a deal. Staying on the path of guarding my sobriety, regardless of how life is, must always trump everything else. If it does not, the thought of a drink and the obsession could return. My change in perspective that knocks life’s “big deals” down to size is not brought about by the same consciousness that created it (the self-centered and defeatist part of my mind that just never seems to get totally squashed). The realization that whatever my current troubles are, whether they be real or imagined, are relatively unimportant in light of staying sober is brought about within me by what I have learned in AA and by my connection with God. It can come to me as a result of prayer, going to a meeting and hearing just what I need to hear, talking to another drunk, or reading the big book. Much of what I have learned has so permeated my life that it does not even need to be an AA thing per say that changes my attitude.

This morning for instance, riding my bike home from the meeting, I passed a few homeless fellows that were helping each other dig through a dumpster. I see these two guys just about every day and this morning I thought, there but by the grace of God go I. And with this thought I could put my life into a proper perspective. The obsession to drink, which had brought me to the very brink of death, is something I have not struggled with today. Every thing else really is gravy and knowing this is true, I can enjoy the many blessings I have rather than worrying, being fearful, or not appreciating this day.

Wishing you all the best in sobriety,
AA Blogger

Yesterday morning I went to see my doctor about a number of health problems. Individually my physical challenges generally do not ruin my day. Some of these problems are more serious than others though and I do have to be careful with how I deal with how my health influences my mental, physical, and spiritual state. One easy check against my getting into self-pity or fear about this stuff is to recognize that the only reason I am able to get older and face some of these physical problems is because God and AA were able to help me quit drinking. I could be dead and not be blessed with an opportunity to experience any part of my life, good or bad.

Anyway, in seeing my doctor I had to deal with all my big and small health issues all at once. Then I went to work and dealt with my responsibilities there. It was a little bit of a stressful day but nothing extraordinary. In the early evening I left work, riding my bicycle, and got on my way to my step study meeting. It is my longest ride of the week, about 45 minutes. I ride right through downtown Houston and through a lot of different neighborhoods. Run down, downtown, upscale, you name it. After riding for awhile I was able, without really thinking about it, to shed my more harried work state-of-mind and get more in tune with being in the moment. I was able to just observe the traffic, smell whatever odors were wafting through the air, and notice the trees that I was riding past.

Getting more in tune with the here and now, I became aware that I seemed to be feeling a bit glum. In thinking about why this might be I realized that seeing my doctor had made more worried, which in turn had led me to be fearful. I had also been diligently working hard on a project at work that had been keeping me very busy for days. This was becoming increasingly problematic because the project I was working on only had a small chance of bearing any useful fruit. The more time I was spending on that task, the more aggravated I was becoming.

Both of these insights into my mental and emotional life were somewhat surprising but I saw them in more of an abstract rather than emotional way. With this detached point of view I was able to see that my work problem was kind of like an extension of my spiritual life. I had been operating on faith that my work of the last few days was what I needed to be doing. I simply needed to finish it, let it be what it would, and not be attached to the outcome. I instantly felt much better about that situation.

The problems concerning my health were just as simple. It was clear to me that going to the doctor and talking about my health had stirred up my emotions. There are fears I can easily fall into when I am not careful about dealing with issues surrounding my mortality, well being, and everyday comfort. In the end I can either give into the fear and let it get the best of me or I can decide my sense of what I see as my suffering is something I can choose not to dwell on. Faith or fear, the choice is always mine to make. I choose to recognize and be grateful for: my doctor being very helpful, that I have health insurance, that there are actions I can take to try to improve my situation, and that right now my physical problems are relatively minor. They might be worse tomorrow, when my jobs end in June I may no longer have health insurance, etc. but I should deal with those things when they happen.

For now I think I am just glad to be sober.

Wishing you all the best in sobriety,
AA Blogger

I needed to learn a lot about discipline and courage when I was first getting sober. It was not that I did not know anything about these two things, I just had no notion of being virtuous. The same could be said about what I knew and acted on in regards to many other things like respect, responsibility, etc.

Learning to carry out my actions in accord with what I have come to understand as being moral, or good, or righteous is one of the most important lessons the steps have taught me. To put some of what I will be writing about in context I should
start by presenting an explanation of what virtue means to some:

1. What is virtue? A virtue is the habit of doing good.
2. Why do we say virtue is a habit? It is a firm attitude. It is a way of life. It governs our actions. It guides our conduct by thinking and by faith.
3. How does virtue help us? Virtue brings joy. It helps us govern ourselves. It brings comfort and peace.
4. How do I learn virtue? I pray for the virtue. I learn about virtue. I practice virtue. I follow through and I stick with it. I am not a moral quitter.

These ideas offer an interesting counter to how I practiced, say, courage and discipline in my life before I got sober.

First in regards to courage. It is said that courage is not an absence of fear but a willingness to walk through your fear. I would do a lot of things I was really afraid to do in order to get, or to make sure I would have the means to get, alcohol and drugs. I don’t need to go into a long drunkalogue about all that other than to say that my actions included doing some things that were obviously foolish and dangerous. At times I literally risked my life to get what I so strongly desired. My actions were at times courageous but they were not virtuous. Little of what I did was carried out with any intent to help others nor would it enable me to gain anything that was truly good. I got some relief but little else.

I also became increasingly craven in facing situations that were much more important than finding another drink. These other situations were no less scary to me than those “gotta-get-that-drink” actions I courageously walked through. I would do what it took to get another drink but would run as far and fast as I could from real life. For instance I found it increasingly difficult to have honest conversations with others, let alone be proactive and take simple steps like asking someone for help with something I did not know about. The proverbial “they” might think I was dumb, or weak, or not able to take care of myself. So I would drive through a snowstorm to get to the liquor store or walk through a bad part of the South Bronx but I was afraid to let someone I knew help me with even the most trivial thing.

I could also go on about how much discipline I could sometimes muster. This was of course usually directed towards my slavish desire to be able to drink and drug like I wanted to. I could wait for hours for a dealer, would be obstinate about getting my way if it meant I could drink like I wanted, and would do all kinds of things that only made sense to a deluded fool like myself.

Things changed when they absolutely had to for me. Self preservation was a big part of this, for sure, but I finally acted out of (my normally bad) character and did something good for a change. I did not want to get over on anyone, have someone take care of things for me, or any of that when I asked for help on that first day I started on this journey of sobriety.

I learned about being less self-centered and more virtuous out of necessity. This came to me through an experience called working the 12 steps. Not that I wanted to learn these lessons….as it says in Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions: Who wishes to be rigorously honest and tolerant? Who wants to confess his faults to another and make restitution for harm done? Who cares anything about a Higher Power, let alone meditation and prayer? Who wants to sacrifice time and energy in trying to carry A.A.’s message to the next sufferer? No, the average alcoholic, self-centered in the extreme, doesn’t care for this prospect – unless he has to do these things in order to stay alive himself.

I was told I should work the steps and by taking the actions they required I began to experience how my life could be different. Low and behold acting virtuously held rewards that my immoral, unrighteous mind would not have thought possible. I learned to apply some of the courage and discipline I had used to get another drink to other actions. Doing what the steps called no matter what, for instance, and instead of running from facing my life being courageous and walking through my fear.

I had no idea that I was learning to be virtous in those days but boy how things have changed. The clueless, spiritually-bereft person that I once was now only exists as a small withered part of me. That fool that I once was could become strong again if I start drinking again, I am sure, but today he is overshadowed by other parts of me that I have nurtured through practicing being virtuous.
Today I am guided by spiritual principles and understand that striving to live right can be both challenging and rewarding. I can read about virtue and want my life to be more infused with morality than to want to protect and staunchly defend some of my less noble motivations. Even so, I still have plenty of the latter, despite a lot of effort taken over the past nineteen years. Fortunately I can also see that I have come a long way in my life, in how I understand myself, in how I handle myself, in what motivates me, and in how I act. One day at a time I can work at being full of things such as hope, faith, and love, with an understanding of what these actually mean, and move closer to person I want to be.

Wishing you all the best in sobriety,
AA Blogger

I should mention the numbered bullets above that I used to define virtue are borrowed from “A Brief Catechism on Virtue.” While I do not belong to the Catholic church, I find the information on this page to be profoundly helpful in working the eleventh step.

One of my most persistent problems is a seeming reluctance to bring the spiritual principles I have learned to some areas of my work life. It has been frustrating because while I am well aware that this is a problem, my progress in this area has been slow and plodding. I know the twelfth step instructs me to apply the principles I have learned in all my affairs and it is clear my life would improve greatly if I could let God into this part of my life more.

I believe I bear the brunt of my problem the most when I am working on my own projects. Interactions with others at work are not the issue, just my perceptions of how some off these interactions may work out. Getting my work done and my fears associated with this process are the crux of the matter.

I feel like I made a big breakthrough the other day, getting some amazing insight into my fear. Here is the story of how this came about and my reactions.

Two people I used to work with are currently at odds. One is a boss and the other is a hired hand. I do not like the boss very much, considering he is self-centered and can be quite inconsiderate. It is sad because he has lots of “isms” but since he is not a drunk, he does not have an outlet for getting any relief from himself! When I did work with this man on a daily basis I had to do what I was taught; see him as a sick person, treat him as I would a sick friend, and pray that I could be of service to him in the best way possible. My interactions with him presented many opportunities for growth. This fellow is currently driving this other person to their wits end because as he falls into fearful, manic states – and he is apparently in the midst of a bad one now – he viciously takes things out on those around him.

My problem was I had a lot of anger come up when I heard about this situation. In inventorying about this anger it was not a surprise to find that part of the problem was I did not like what this jerk was doing to this other person, whom I happen to like. The interesting part came when I tried to understand not only my current anger but how this fellow had made me angry in the past, especially when we were around each other on a fairly regular basis.

I discovered that a type of fear I have noticed comes up from time to time for me plays a lot bigger role in my work life than I had ever imagined. It comes down to this: I am afraid that I will do something wrong in my work, that it will be readily apparent to someone else, and that I will be rejected because of my mistake. Low self-esteem and a fear I won’t be accepted. This man I was angry at is unreasonable, negative, and most importantly strongly tweaked my fear because he is capable of finding fault where there is none. This magnified my problem and made me react very negatively.

One character defects that arises when I get caught up in my work related fear is to work more. That will fix it! Me, me, me….what a horrible solution and yet I have done this many a time.

The answer to my problem is spelled out, quite concisely, in the part of the the big book where it explains how to take inventory. A paragraph that comes right after discussing how we examine our fears (we asked ourselves why we had them – wasn’t it because self-reliance failed us?):
“Perhaps there is a better way – we think so. For we are now on a different basis; the basis of trusting and relying upon God. We trust infinite God rather than our finite selves. We are in the world to play the role He assigns. Just to the extent that we do as we think He would have us, and humbly rely upon Him, does he enable us to match calamity with serenity.”

It goes on to talk about how we do not need to make any excuses for relying upon God. Then:
“We ask him to remove our fear and to direct our attention to what He would have us be. At once we begin to outgrow fear.”
I find it very interesting that the prayer is one of asking what we should “be” rather than what we should do.

In the end this issue for me comes down to a lack of faith. I know I have not be able to bring God into my work problems very much. After talking to someone about my inventory concerning these issues, I thankfully had it pointed out to me this leads right into sixth and seventh step work…..am I ready for give God all of my crap or are there things I am unwilling to let go of? Why I would want to keep this fear is not something I can put my finger on but clearly I have been holding onto it. My hope is that it is time for me to get rid of this idea that I am not, or perhaps will not be perceived as, good enough.

I am excited that this revelation may be the beginning of me getting on the other side of this weakening, self-centered delusion. I know from experience that when I am able to let go of something that causes me larger problems there are surprising and wonderful results that arise from completely letting go and letting God.

It works, it really does.

All the best in sobriety,
AA Blogger