gahope88

Hey guys,

I helped/participated in this awesome Big Book comes alive conference last weekend at a half way house out in boonies in Georgia. My fiance and I went up there with my fiance's sponsor to help and to learn. We basically went through the first hundred or so pages of the Big Book of AA teaching the solution to Alcoholism to this community and to the half way house guys there. It was awesome for me to get to see the light bulb go off in a lot of those guys eyes and for me to learn a lot more about the big book in depth in what a basically a crash course. I know I haven't posted a lot on here, but I have been on both sides of the fence on the addiction issue and my fiance's sponsor had a lot of really good points that I thought would of been good for families/loved ones of alcoholics/addicts to hear. His speaking style is really direct and he had really good one liners that summed up a lot of recovery ideas for me that had always seemed kind of intangible and hard to explain before. I thought I'd share a few of them here.

Desperation versus Hopelessness
L (fiances sponsor) was talking about what finally gets people into the rooms for real. Like when you can usually predict if someone is going to want to make the jump from just attending meetings and acting like they are doing recovery to actually doing the work and working all the steps actually recovering. This difference comes when the person is hopeless, not desperate. Because when someone is desperate they have a door 3 option. They might get the job back, the wife back, the house back, or whatever they want to work out back without true recovery. The person knows that if they do the recovery song and dance long enough it will pacify the situation long enough to get whatever it is they want back and they honestly think that the next time they use it will be different. They don't do it to keep hurting loved ones, they legit think next time will be different. A hopeless person is coming in with no hopes of getting anything back OR they realize that if there is a hope of getting things back there is no hope of maintaining these things because next time won't be different if they use again. L told us that AA can work with hopeless but not desperate, because desperate people are most likely going to go back out there.

Hitting Rock Bottom is Breaking Your Own Heart
They talked about what brought us into the rooms. No one comes into AA on a winning streak. L told us that people hit a lot of bottoms in drug use, but that there is one way to tell if you have hit your own personal bottom, and that is where you break your own heart. Not your mothers, not your wife's, etc. It's that day where something happens within you that you realize that you are so far from the person that you thought you would be that the high from the drugs can no longer override the emotional trauma that you are trying the run from. You are so disgusted that you can no longer continue like this. This is why it is so important for the family/friends to step away and let consequences happen. Why would an addict stop if there is any room for denial to come in and tell the addict that everything isn't as bad as it really is? I know that my fiance just kept getting sicker and sicker as he stayed at home with me and it wasn't until we went no contact that he finally sought real recovery and recovered. He was hopeless.

Grace Period
The idea of a grace period was brought up too. This is where a true alcoholic/addict can somehow remain sober without having worked the steps. This grace period is the time where they have to work the steps and get it done and recover, but it does run out. If you don't get on it and recover you WILL relapse. Everyones period is different. That is why people who go right by the big book heavily suggest that people work the steps as quickly and thoroughly as possible.

Wreckage of your life that is between you and your higher power
L also talked in length explaining the purpose of the steps. A person that has not begun to recover has tons of wreckage that is in the way between and their higher power. Alcoholics/addicts have a problem of powerless, the answer is power (a higher power). To tap into that higher power, they must clear the wreckage away by working the steps. To get rid of the obsession and the cravings they must work the steps. The real spiritual gain comes from steps 4-9. These are also the most difficult ones and daunting ones. Once they do those steps and if they continue to stay in constant contact with their high power and keep with the fellowship of AA they will remain sober. We hit on how just don't drink and go to meetings was a pretty insensitive thing to say to new people who hadn't worked the steps. Step work is where the freedom is. 90 meetings in 90 days guarantees nothing. Getting a network and working the steps - all of the steps is the only thing that allows and guarantees freedom.

The Story of the Drunk Horse Thief
L also told a story of a drunk thief. He said that while there are bad people everywhere, don't confuse manipulation with evil. This goes along with the disease of alcoholism/addiction. He used the example of the drunk horse thief. If you sober up a drunk horse thief, he will still steal your horse. But if the sober horse thief works the steps and has a true spiritual awakening, then he would return your horse, amend you, and no longer be a horse thief. I think this illustrates the difference between sober and recovered. Often confused but being sober and being recovered are two totally different things. Sober implies no drinking/using, recovered implies a lifestyle with changed attitudes and perspectives.

Hurting the Family
L also went into the injury that we had done to our loved ones. This was actually a topic, because as most of these people were alcoholics/addicts that had not worked many steps/any steps they were still in a mindset of "me, me, me" and it had honestly not occurred to them the extent that they had hurt people in their lives, if it had even occurred to them that they had hurt anyone close to them at all. They were focused more so on what their problems had done to them, than on what their problems had done to others around them. I don't know if that's helpful to anyone or not, but I know that I always used to think that my fiance was doing this to ME, but I think it's important to remember that as addicts/alcoholics that we are so wrapped up in our own heads that others are hardly even an after thought even after sobering up for a period.

I don't know if this was helpful at all, but I just remember thinking the whole time that my parents could of really benefitted from hearing this info (both me and my little brother are alcoholics/addicts - him active still and me recovered). And I thought that I would share it here in hopes that it would put some perspective on the recovery process.

C

laurie6781

Sounds like your fiance has a pretty good sponsor, I hope you find as
good a one in Alanon!!

That way each of you will be able to work your own programs and
keep your own side of the street clean.

Please keep posting and let us know how you are doing, as we do
care so very much.

Love and hugs,

gahope88

I am in both AA and Al Anon, but am working AA hard right now so I haven't picked up an Al Anon sponsor yet. I just remember how it was on the other side of just being in Al Anon before I realized that I had a problem too. The whole recovery thing was so confusing to me and I was able to be manipulated by it and I was enabling because I didn't understand the disease (and even after I did get the disease). So I just thought that sharing some of this might help explain some of what everyones loved ones were going through. Give it a different perspective maybe. I don't know, I just would have like to have know some of this info a year ago.

lesliej

I have been thinking about enabling, denial and blame.

I came to this idea: the reason many people (addict or codependent!) don't hit bottom until they have lost everything, and everybody, is because only then do they have nothing, and nobody, to blame.

Ann

Thank you for sharing this. Addiction truly is a family disease and the more we all work on our own recovery, the better the family unit can be.

Hugs

Sunshine2

Thank you for that post. It was very, very helpful.

EnglishGarden

I really enjoyed reading this, gahope, and appreciate you taking the time to post such thorough information.

I re-read the "desperate vs hopeless" paragraph a few times so it could sink in. I have always used the word "desperate" when I refer to addicts reaching that turning-point bottom. So I wanted to understand why the difference in language would be so critical.

And I did finally understand, at least I think so. Because someone who is desperate is desperate to MANAGE a situation. "I'll try anything if it will bring back . . ." The job, the wife, the house, the health. Whatever has become unmanageable.

But the Big Book and the First Step are founded on the acceptance that the addict is POWERLESS to manage anything. It's over. He or she is done. The situation is hopeless. (And it was Carl Jung back in the 1930's who said the alcoholic must reach a state of complete hopelessness where no solution seems possible.)

So I appreciate the fine tuning of language there, because the words we use are potent.

I also agree about the futility of just sitting in meetings but not doing the Steps with a sponsor (or a counselor). Or at least with tremendous intensive solitary work in an ongoing journal of self- survey, with the recovery literature as the workbook. (Such as Al-Anon's "Blueprint for Progress").

I know because when I am in emotional dysfunction and I feel such despair about my situation or my life as a whole, the only way out for me is spiritual rebirth. And that just does not happen merely sitting one hour once a week in a meeting and listening to people share for three minutes. There has to be active work in connecting with a power greater than myself, because, honestly, if all I do are one-hour meetings and some time on SR, then my ego still thinks it is running the show. I turn into an encyclopedia of recovery-speak but deep inside myself I am not at peace. To be at peace means to be COMPLETELY in accordance with whatever is happening at this moment in time, to be at peace with everything that is happening--the pain, the loneliness, the confusion--because of a complete and unshakable trust in the will of God, as I understand God.

If this genuine experience of peace is found within, then no matter is happening in the outer world, I am able to turn palms up, leave the situation in God's hands, and actually believe that the events of today are necessary for reasons beyond my understanding. I release my will--what I want to happen, what I think should happen, what I think someone else should be or do to accommodate what I want--and I, peacefully, trust the will of the Divine Creator and turn over all outcomes to the Creator. But to be able to reach this point of surrender, I cannot just sit in meetings or read SR for 20 minutes. I have to go deep. The 12 Steps is the structure and the path.

My stumbling block in all of this is I have never known personally a recovering alcoholic or drug addict in my life who worked and lived a true program of recovery as a true way of life. What I have read in the Big Book I have not witnessed in my personal life.

But I have most definitely witnessed the transforming effects of the 12 Step program in Al-Anon members. Those who actually worked the Steps, taking them one by one, writing out their answers to the questions each Step evoked in their lives and finding their way to a reconnection to a Higher Power to whom they could, eventually and with serenity, turn over their whole lives and the lives of their loved ones. I have witnessed this. At times I have lived it. But it takes effort, it takes active participation in a structured framework to reach that spiritual place of peace.

So thank you for this very valuable information to us all, and the reminder of the treasure hidden within the 12 Step program. I wish you healthy recovery and a happy life.