Does any meetings share ESH anymore?

[Boleo]

Originally Posted by jimhere

You know, the preamble that states the our primary purpose is to stay sober and to help others "[B]achieve sobriety[B], which is in total contradiction with our Fifth Tradition that states that our primary purpose is to carry our message to the alcoholic that still suffers. Not stay sober. Besides that sobriety isn't an achievement, it is a gift, or at least a by-product.

I agree with Jimthere;

So long as I tried to "ACHIEVE SOBRIETY" it Eluded me. I still have a resentment for those old-timers who told me:

"I had to keep the painful memories of my last drunk fresh in my mind or I would drink again"

When I finally gave up trying to fix myself with psychological tricks & tips (like nurturing painful memories) I was given the GIFT of sobriety.

My new message is:

"The promises are real. You don't have to suffer one-day-at-time."

[McGowdog]

Originally Posted by Boleo

... I still have a resentment for those old-timers who told me:

"I had to keep the painful memories of my last drunk fresh in my mind or I would drink again"...

I wouldn't go pinning that on the old-timers necessarily. I know a treatment center who uses the slogan, "Relapse starts when we forget the pain.", and the chair person is often heard saying, "If you can't remember your last drink, you haven't had it yet."

Big Frank in Denver (RIP) said if you have to remember your last drunk to stay sober, then he's in trouble because he couldn't remember his last months of drinking. He said he was in such rough shape when he came in that he doesn't even remember his own sobriety date. Someone who had been going to York Street around that time gave him his sobriety date of March 12, 1966 because that's when he noticed Frank and had remembered him sober since that time. Frank died with 39 years sobriety and helped a lot of drunks. He was what I would call an "old-timer."

[sugErspun]

I need to remember that last drunk, all those last drunks.

Not to keep me sober in any other way than it's use in connecting with another who has yet to be offered a solution ~ or feels alone in their drinking.

I know what it was like, that empathy serves a purpose...but it isn't a way of keeping me afraid of drinking again (I am not afraid of that anyhow).

[Music]

Originally Posted by Boleo

I still have a resentment for those old-timers who told me:
"I had to keep the painful memories of my last drunk fresh in my mind or I would drink again"

Good!! Enjoy. If we don't remember the pain of the past, we're doomed to repeat it.

[jimhere]

Remembering my last drunk never kept me from having another one. Watching what happens to you when you drink doesn't keep me sober. I don't go to meetings to see what happens to people who don't go to meetings. A pretty sick reason to go to a meeting, IMO, and that kind of stuff is just more of the self-serving bullshit perpetuated in AA meetings. Kind of like when most AA's see a drunk and say "But for the Grace of God there go I." They really mean, "Glad I'm not him!"

My drinking experience never did me a damn bit of good. It has no value to me personally.

My experience isn't for me, it's for the still suffering alcoholic. I think one of those "promises" we dangle in front of people like carrots says something like "No matter who far down the scale we have gone, we can see how our experience can benefit OTHERS," not ourselves. The painful past may be of infinite value because with it, we hold the key to life and happiness for OTHERS, not ourselves.

My sobriety is a gift and it's not for me.
Jim

Big Book references from Alcoholics Anonymous, First Edition

[IO Storm]

I see it in a different light, Jim. Not such a hard edge.

Seeing what what happens when a person goes out does help me. The swollen face,

circles under the eyes, the smell, the shaking, all of it...reminds me of when I threw up

pieces of my liver for weeks and my eyes turned yellow.

I have compassion for these...I never think "I'm glad I'm not him..or her."

I cry with them..because I remember. I relapsed so often, never thought I could

stop. Stay stopped. Remembering my last drunk helps me, and seeing them help me.

May I never forget!

[emmanuel2012]

Originally Posted by jimhere

It isn't about experience, strength, & hope anyway. That phrase comes from the Forward to The Third Edition. Actually it originally came from The GrapeVine, which judging by its content truly is our meeting in print. The preamble that most groups use comes from The GrapeVine as well. You know, the preamble that states the our primary purpose is to stay sober and to help others "achieve" sobriety, which is in total contradiction with our Fifth Tradition that states that our primary purpose is to carry our message to the alcoholic that still suffers. Not stay sober. Besides that sobriety isn't an achievement, it is a gift, or at least a by-product.

So, it is not ES&H, but "What I was like" (Drinking and before the steps), "What happened" (My experience with God through the steps), and "What I am like now (What's my current experience?). The only topic there should ever be in an AA meeting.
Jim

Big Book references from Alcoholics Anonymous, First Edition

Staying sober, achieving sobriety, is *part* of this program.
We sort of think, by empirical evidence, that someone who
Follows the AA path naturally stays sober, for the desire to
Get drunk is lifted. ..but there is much more work to do..

"Sometime we hear an alcoholic say that the only thing he needs
to do is keep sober. Certainly he must keep sober, for there will be
no home if he doesn't. But he is yet a long way from making good
to the wife or parents whom for years he has so shockingly treated.
The alcohlic is like a tornado roaring his way through the lives of others.
Hearts are broken. Sweet relationships are dead. Affections have been
uprooted. Selfish and inconsiderate habits have kept the home in turmoil.
We feel a man is unthinking when he says that sobriety is enough.
He is like a farmer who came up out of his cyclone cellar to find his
home ruined. To his wife, he remarked, 'Don't see anything the matter
here, Ma. Ain't it grand the wind stopped blowin'?" P. 82 (A.A. Big Book)

So,

"The spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it."-p.83


While A.A. is a program of sobriety, it is so much more than that also,
So if there are any at all contradictions in the literature about staying
Sober, which may make some of us confused... that is,
If you have any doubt that staying sober is an essential part of this
Program, i'll be glad to meet you at the bar to discuss your
Resentments! Isn't that what we used to tell all our fellows at the bar
Anyway? Many of us our confused why you would come to an AA
Meeting to share your experience, weaknessness and sorrows,
When it would be a lot easier to handle with some liquor.. hehe
This may sound funny, and I'm somewhat chuckling, but "Working with Others" has some things to say.

"Sometimes it is wise to wait until he goes on a binge.." p. 90.

"Many of us keep liquor iin our homes. We often need it to
carry green recruits through a severe hangover. Some of us
still serve it to our friends provided they are not alcoholic...
.. we are careful never to show intolerance or hatred of
drinking as an institution. Experience shows that such an
attitude is not helpful to anyone. Every new alcohlic looks
for this spirit among us and is immensely relieved when he
finds we are not witchburners. A spirit of intolerance might
repel alcohlics whose lives could have been saved, had it
not been for such stupidity".. pp 102-103.



Big Book quotes are from all 4 editions,

Again, thanks for letting me share..

[emmanuel2012]

Originally Posted by Boleo

When I finally gave up trying to fix myself with psychological tricks & tips (like nurturing painful memories) I was given the GIFT of sobriety.

My new message is:

"The promises are real. You don't have to suffer one-day-at-time."

I like that...great message.

Whether it is a gift or whether we achieve it,
Is moot, to me. If it is helpful for some I can help
To think I achieved it, ill let them believe that,
And I'm not going to argue with him.

"Hey, emmanuel2012 congratulations on your nth year of sobriety!
How did you do it??"

"I didn't do it, it was a gift from god"..
Is NOT something I'm gonna say, even though it might be
Say, MORE true than
"I just made sure I was at as many AA meetings as possible"

What I think I should say, to be exact, is something like
"I don't have a desire to drink today, thanks to the 12 steps
Of alcohlics anonymous"

The gift, is the desire being TAKEN from me..

I didn't have a problem with alcohol, as much as I did with my desire for it

So, this gift, or achievement, however you look at it,
Was the relief and absence of my DESIRE to drink.


"After all, our problems were of our own making,
Bottles were only a symbol. Besides, we have stopped
fighting anybody or anything. We have to!"
pp. 103 (Big Book of A.A., all 4 editions)

[jimhere]

Originally Posted by emmanuel2012

Staying sober, achieving sobriety, is *part* of this program.
We sort of think, by empirical evidence, that someone who
Follows the AA path naturally stays sober, for the desire to
Get drunk is lifted. ..but there is much more work to do..

"Sometime we hear an alcoholic say that the only thing he needs
to do is keep sober. Certainly he must keep sober, for there will be
no home if he doesn't. But he is yet a long way from making good
to the wife or parents whom for years he has so shockingly treated.
The alcohlic is like a tornado roaring his way through the lives of others.
Hearts are broken. Sweet relationships are dead. Affections have been
uprooted. Selfish and inconsiderate habits have kept the home in turmoil.
We feel a man is unthinking when he says that sobriety is enough.
He is like a farmer who came up out of his cyclone cellar to find his
home ruined. To his wife, he remarked, 'Don't see anything the matter
here, Ma. Ain't it grand the wind stopped blowin'?" P. 82 (A.A. Big Book)

So,

"The spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it."-p.83


While A.A. is a program of sobriety, it is so much more than that also,
So if there are any at all contradictions in the literature about staying
Sober, which may make some of us confused... that is,
If you have any doubt that staying sober is an essential part of this
Program, i'll be glad to meet you at the bar to discuss your
Resentments! Isn't that what we used to tell all our fellows at the bar
Anyway? Many of us our confused why you would come to an AA
Meeting to share your experience, weaknessness and sorrows,
When it would be a lot easier to handle with some liquor.. hehe
This may sound funny, and I'm somewhat chuckling, but "Working with Others" has some things to say.

"Sometimes it is wise to wait until he goes on a binge.." p. 90.

"Many of us keep liquor iin our homes. We often need it to
carry green recruits through a severe hangover. Some of us
still serve it to our friends provided they are not alcoholic...
.. we are careful never to show intolerance or hatred of
drinking as an institution. Experience shows that such an
attitude is not helpful to anyone. Every new alcohlic looks
for this spirit among us and is immensely relieved when he
finds we are not witchburners. A spirit of intolerance might
repel alcohlics whose lives could have been saved, had it
not been for such stupidity".. pp 102-103.



Big Book quotes are from all 4 editions,

Again, thanks for letting me share..

And your point is...?

You don't get what I'm saying at all. And I have to admit that I'm a bit confused, as the above quotes don't appear to me to have anything to do with my post that you quoted. Maybe I'm just dense.

I should know better than to bring the point about how staying sober is the driving motive anymore, or I should at least for me it isn't. It is always misunderstood.

If I stick to my primary spiritual aim, staying sober is something I don't have to worry about. In fact I don't work with other alcoholics to stay sober. I do it because I am sober. I do it because I love them and I love doing it.

If you don't understand what I've just said it is because you haven't experienced it.

[jimhere]

Originally Posted by IO Storm

I see it in a different light, Jim. Not such a hard edge.

Seeing what what happens when a person goes out does help me. The swollen face,

circles under the eyes, the smell, the shaking, all of it...reminds me of when I threw up

pieces of my liver for weeks and my eyes turned yellow.

I have compassion for these...I never think "I'm glad I'm not him..or her."

I cry with them..because I remember. I relapsed so often, never thought I could

stop. Stay stopped. Remembering my last drunk helps me, and seeing them help me.

May I never forget!

I hear you IO.

It does help me in that respect. I doubt that even the ones that do have the attitude of "better him than me" can't help but feel at least a twinge of compassion.

Yesterday afternoon I was a little into myself, a bit stirred up about a work situation. As I was leaving the facility, there was a group of clients waiting for their group session to start. One of them was a woman who was sober when I got sober. She had twenty-two years and went out drinking last fall. I first saw her in detox. There and every time since, whenever I see her, see acts ashamed to see me. I don't know if she is sober since then, but I do know that she is very depressed and very obsessed with the sobriety she had before.

Yesterday she looked pretty rough. I always say hello to the clients and I said hello to her and asked her how she was doing. She said not too good, but that I must be doing good because I have x years and she used to have twenty-two years. And she began to cry. I was moved, right there in the lobby full of people to hug her. And then my heart was broken and I cried with her.


I was angry and into myself and I think my heart needed to be broken.
Jim

[emmanuel2012]

Originally Posted by jimhere

And your point is...?

You don't get what I'm saying at all. And I have to admit that I'm a bit confused, as the above quotes don't appear to me to have anything to do with my post that you quoted. Maybe I'm just dense.

I should know better than to bring the point about how staying sober is the driving motive anymore, or I should at least for me it isn't. It is always misunderstood.

If I stick to my primary spiritual aim, staying sober is something I don't have to worry about. In fact I don't work with other alcoholics to stay sober. I do it because I am sober. I do it because I love them and I love doing it.

If you don't understand what I've just said it is because you haven't experienced it.

I might not have been in your shoes,
But my point..sinced you missed it:


the apparent contradictions
About sobriety being a cornerstone
Of the AA program ..should make you wonder and learn that
This is so much more than a program of sobriety!!!
If fact, some of us will encourage you
To go have another drink , if it is neccessary for you
To understand this!!!!!

I appreciate a good debate,
Especially when we are all on the same page!!
Hahahaha. If we aren't, on the same page,
I must have missed something.
For didn't you just say what I said,
In a different way...?

Let me guess ; "ummm...no"

And then,

Who is fighting?

Not I.

I am avoiding this controversy entirely. :=P

[jimhere]

Originally Posted by emmanuel2012

I might not have been in your shoes,
But my point..sinced you missed it:


the apparent contradictions
About sobriety being a cornerstone
Of the AA program ..should make you wonder and learn that
This is so much more than a program of sobriety!!!
If fact, some of us will encourage you
To go have another drink , if it is neccessary for you
To understand this!!!!!

Like I said, maybe I am just really dense, but I still don't get your point. I'll take your word for it that we are on the same page, saying the same thing, but I still don't get what encouraging anyone to have a drink has to do with the conversation. And make no mistake, I'll be the first one to encourage anyone that is on the fence about alcoholism to find out for themselves, and that may mean drinking again.

So who are you encouraging to have another drink anyway? That is the point I'm missing. If it is me you're trying to encourage away. There is nothing that could bring me to that point that you or anyone else could say. What brings me to the point of having to drink is a conscious separation from God.


I don't go to meetings to stay sober. And I sure as hell don't go to meetings to see alkies who are worse off than me so that I'll feel better or work with them because they remind me of how bad it is "out there." What do I know is that I am them and they are me, they are God's children, only that don't know it and I live in that awareness.

In fact I don't do any of this stuff to stay sober. I do it because it brings me into a greater awareness of what is already keeping me sober and what has been keeping me sober for the last eighteen and a half years. You know that line about working with others to perfect and enlarge my spiritual life?


Time to go to work, have a great day, unless you have other plans.
Jim

[McGowdog]

I think that would be one of the two circumstances to do such a thing, both of which are not supported here on SR by the way.

I think it's just a missunderstanding here.

If you're blocked from God and perhaps suicidal, I've heard of instances where picking up a drink and going on a bender has saved someone from death... and brought them back to recovery.

The other instance is one of two alternatives to finding out if you're alky or not, the other one being perhaps a bit safer... try to quit for a year on your own.

Have a good day everybody, despite yourselves! =)

[IO Storm]

Thanks for your response to my post, Jim.

The fresh ones do take us back eh..and remind me to grateful.

I passed 3 years on June 8...the longest sober and clean time since I began my drinking career

in 1992. A true miracle.

[IO Storm]

McGow...

Why not say what the other alternative is? I have seen it suggested before on other

threads. Try some controlled drinking....and come back when and if you are ready.

I don't see a problem with saying it.

If the person is not sure they are alcoholic.

And Jim...you must know this is not for solid members armed with knowledge of

their true condition. I didn't see emmanuel encouraging anyone here to drink.

But I think we are way off topic at this point....oh, well...

[jimhere]

IO,

Happy three years! You do do convey a sense gratitude, along with humility and compassion here and I thank you for that.

As for your other post, I'll be the first to say that I'm the one that's not getting the point about the posts about drinking again to find out, but I'm not going to lose any sleep about it. You're right about getting off the topic, but hey, these threads take a life of their own and it's always interesting to me to watch how they unfold.
Jim

[trucker]

"I've heard of instances where picking up a drink and going on a bender has saved someone from death... and brought them back to recovery."

interesting statement mcgowdog.

A therapist a few years ago said ....i think alcohol "may" have saved your life.

i thought about that statement for years.....its kinda stuck in my head.

Until i stopped drinking and rather than "light up"...i wanted to bow out..

[IO Storm]

.....And then, they (the doctors) told me the next drink would kill me.

I drank again ..in 2005, after 8 years of abstinence...yes, probably the drink saved me

from doing myself in, but my belief is my HP was at work even then...looking forward to

the day of my last drink and drug.

However; why play Russian Roulette with the disease?

I believe the "next one" might very well kill me now. Nothing is worth it...no grief,

no man (sheeesh) no regret. Nothing.

I used to hear people say.."I don't have any more recoveries in me."

I would pooh pooh that idea..and think.."there is always another one."

Now, I know what they meant...what they were talking about.

Today, I share the same sentiment.

[IO Storm]

Oh, pardon my horrible manners!

Thanks for the congrats and kind words, Jim.

[Ago]

/edges the thread back on topic and maybe introduces some new controversy

My ESH is I find this following passage helpful frequently, it was written quite some time ago

Then, one day in A.A., I was told that I had the lenses in my glasses backwards; “the courage to change” in the Serenity Prayer meant not that I should change my marriage, but rather that I should change myself (sic)

I can do the same thing with an A.A. meeting. The more I focus my mind on its defects—late start, long drunkalogs, cigarette smoke—the worse the meeting becomes. But when I try to see what I can add to the meeting, rather than what I can get out of it, and when I focus my mind on what’s good about it, rather than what’s wrong with it, the meeting keeps getting better and better. When I focus on what’s good today, I have a good day, and when I focus on what’s bad, I have a bad day. If I focus on a problem, the problem increases; if I focus on the answer, the answer increases.

This was actually written back near them "good old days" I hear discussed here, that no one here was around to see.

I find the lead in helpful as well, I'm aware it's not in the "sacred" first 164 pages but what the hell, he had more sobriety time when he wrote that then the guys that wrote the first 164 pages.

/looks around, ducks and runs away cackling madly having done his part for the day to "comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable"

[hope3]

Thanks Ago, I thought I was reading the wrong thread, then I went back to the beginning, and yes it was about ESH...Thank-you...
Hope3

[geothinkah]

Originally Posted by kelsh

... "Big Book Thumpers" that felt their way was the only way to get sober and stay sober.
kelsh

opps, I'm hiding... It worked for me; however, I don't believe that it is the only way. It's 'a' way not 'the' way!

[DaveBB164]

Originally Posted by geothinkah

opps, I'm hiding... It worked for me; however, I don't believe that it is the only way. It's 'a' way not 'the' way!

Kelsh, I have never met a Big Book Thumper that will tell you their way is the only way, I have however met plenty of AA's who will tell you they think or feel that Big Book Thumpers think or feel their way is the only way, there is some dishonesty in there somewhere!!!!, all I know is a Big Book guy gave me a message of depth and weight and offered me a solution that worked for me, I had spent the previous 12 months sitting in meetings with my alcoholism killing me one miserable day at a time, the fellowship "here is the way I did it guys" told there war stories and advised I go to more meetings, that advice nearly killed me.

[trucker]

im not convinced i know what a bb thumper is anyhow..
some know my story....round the rooms drunk...and drunk some more..

the big book was mentioned rarely......more of a group therapy thing.
dont get me wrong that worked for alot of people...

its just i kept getting drunk......it didnt work for me.....it wasnt working for me.....if fact it was worse in some respect because i saw it working for some.
And by that i mean...group therapy...group moaning..and 1000 meetings in a 1000 days.

i didnt know any better.....i thought i was the only one in the room that got sober did all the "stuff"........and still wanted to end it all.

Only when i guy said to me...."there is a solution for drinkers like you and me.
And you aint gonna find it here".

i spent the next 2/3 months realizing that this was the program of recovery.
As he guided me through some parts of the big book.
Id missed the elephant in the room.......if it was there...i think not.

here is a program of recovery set out in a book designed for drinkers like me.

this guy was not a thumper..........im not a thumper i was just doing what was suggested in the book.

very quickly i began to feel better.........maybe it is possible.

i dont buy a manual for my car.....throw it in the bin and do what i think is the right way........because i know nothing about that car.

i suffer from chronic alcoholism....i need a manual and i need to be around people that talk...and walk that manual otherwise im lost.

whether that makes a thumper......i dont know.

i know one thing.........that book was written for and by drinkers like me.

[FightingIrish]

When I think of the term "Big Book Thumper", I think of a person I probably wouldn't have enjoyed drinking with. Someone who always has to be right, who constantly points out the lapses in other people, who sneers at people who don't talk exactly the way he or she does, who uses the book as a weapon, who casts recovery in a shadow of negativity.

I also think of a person who doesn't seem to have any fresh experience to share but who simply hammers you with quotes from the Big Book while not seeming to live up to the principles.

My sponsor is all about the Big Book and talks about his current experience with steps in meetings. No one I know considers him a Big Book thumper.