FrothyJay

Wow. Where'd that list come from? I've never seen it.

Lost3000

HUH? How did I miss this simple list? Now THIS is something I can work with. What is the telephone one?

Service = helping others? Generally or with regard to alcohol?

YES. This helps me immensely.

4thekidz

Lost,

Your situation is very similar to mine. Professional world (although thank God not law), a daily high-functioning alcoholic, good family and home life, who wonders if he hit bottom. Currently day #12 away from vodka. Yesterday I rocked with energy and clarity at work, today I am off and can barely hold my head up off a sofa. No AA for me, because nobody in my familymor community CAN know of my affliction.

These mood and energy fluctuations, as you say, suck. SR is great for looking to see how others are feeling and dealing with their patterns and recoveries, whether it's hour one or 25 years.

Hope to see ya 'round the boards.

Lost3000

haha, law for me, in my field, is verrrry rewarding.

I fled my first AA mtg. after seeing my colleague. Now I see how dumb that was. It is anonymous after all. That person won't say anything as I haven't. I actually find it comforting now.

Thanks for your post. Good luck to you too.

FrothyJay

When I discovered that there was no magical combination of preparedness, diet, sleep or mental willpower that would keep me from drinking, I became ready to recover.

Think about the effort we put into preventing drinking, and how it fails with stunning regularity. We wake up, hung over, and analyze what happened. Maybe it was what I ate, or that I was tired, or my wife yelled at me, or countless other things. I believe the disease of alcoholism feeds off this sort of thinking. It wants us to believe we can figure it out on our own.

For the chronic alcoholic, the only thing that varies is the amount of time we spend pursuing the madness of preventing drinking. Eventually we wind up in jail, dead, or recovered.

I had to stop trying not to drink and start trying to find a solution that was beyond my power.

Lost3000

FrothyJay: And your solution? Just AA? No other tactics?

Zube

Tools of recovery links:

The Tools of Recovery

-or-

http://www.justloveaudio.com/resourc...f_Recovery.pdf


My AA home group reads the Tools of Recovery before every meeting, along with The Twelve Steps, Twelve Traditions, and The Promises. Some groups choose not to read the Tools due to the fact the the Tools are not officially endorsed AA literature...yet.

Hope this helps...
Zube

FrothyJay

Thanks, and that's my point. They aren't conference-approved literature, so I don't believe you should call them "AA tools of recovery." I think it's important that people new to recovery know what is AA literature and what is not.

Part of the reason I ask is because I don't think those tools properly represent the program of AA.

FrothyJay

Tactics never worked for me. I don't mean to be abstract about this, but I came to understand that I was completely powerless over alcohol. It was not about fighting a battle, but about changing, so that I could live free from the obsession to drink.

The AA program is about a spiritual awakening that connects us with a power greater than ourselves of our own conception. Most of us had serious problems with the God thing, but found ourselves beaten into a state of willingness by our drinking. I don't really believe in a conventional God of any sort, but I believe that when I take the steps of AA, I am subtracting my will and ego from the equation, and change occurs. Whether that is a heavenly diety with a white beard or simply the goodness present in all of us, I don't particularly care. I just know it's true.

Lost3000

Point taken. Although for me, and coming from a newbie, I could care less what is actual AA literature and what is not. I'm looking for tools, any tools, to make this process easier.

Zube

Not sure I agree with you on this one Frothy Jay. Example: "24 Hours A Day" is a Hazelden book that starts off every day with the "AA though for the day"...there are even MANY groups in AA that call themselves "The 24 Hour A Day Group", and start each meeting with the thought, meditaion, and prayer from Hazelden's "24 Hour A Day". The book itself actually used to be AA approved until a group conscience voted on eliminating its approval due to some members feeling that it mentioned God too much, and this vote spiraled upward. "Daily Reflections" replaced "24 Hours A Day" in the official eyes of "AA Approval". Nevertheless, recovering alcoholics in AA, individually or as groups, dedicate themselves the book "24 Hours A Day". I begin each morning with January 6th "Keeping sober is the most important thing in my life..."

I'm currently reading "The Book That Started it All", it's the original working manuscript of "Alcoholics Anonymous" with notes and changes between lines and in the margins from Bill Wilson and fellow founding AA'ers, before going to press in 1939. Truly amazing, the ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT, however, not AA approved. Published by Hazelden last year.

The Tools of Recovery. Not AA approved? Sure. Read in meetings? All the time. Do they work? Everyday.

As a newcomer, The AA Tools of recovery made much more sense to me than hearing the 12 steps, and certainly more than the 12 traditions - although I dedicate my recovery to both the 12 and 12 now.

"Take what you want, and leave the rest"
Zube

Lost 3000...please don't get caught up in what is AA appoved or not. The important thing is just getting to a meeting.

Zube

Lost3000

Zube: I'm not caught up into that whatsoever. I was looking for something that made sense to me and you provided it. That helps me and helps you.

FrothyJay

Completely understand. If someone had told me to stand on my head in the corner to stay sober, I might have.

My issue is not with the tactics per se, it's just implying that AA endorses those specific ideas as the tools of recovery. Alcoholics Anonymous suffers from massive misunderstanding as to what it is and what it is not-- some believe it's whatever they want it to be. And that's simply not true.

Lost3000

Sooo... if I stand on my head in the corner....?

FrothyJay

AA has about 3-5% success rate today, as compared with 50-75% in the 1940s.

Spreading non-AA literature, encouraging people to work their own program, creative sloganeering and self-absorbed carnival barking is to blame.

In our efforts to make AA appealing to everyone, we've turned AA into a failure. So now it's filled with people who say "it works for me!" (YAY!) while for each one of them, 20 walk out the door scratching their heads wondering how they're supposed to "not drink and go to meetings."

"Take what you want and leave the rest?" If I took only what I wanted, I'd be dead. Chronic alcoholics are dying in droves while the easier, softer AA whistles past the graveyard.

FrothyJay

It is hard to drink while standing on your head, I will tell you that.

Zube

[QUOTE=FrothyJay;2950128]AA has about 3-5% success rate today, as compared with 50-75% in the 1940s.QUOTE]

I do agree with you on this point, Frothy-Jay. Staggering statistics. And those #'s were mostly low bottom cases. In my humble opinion, it is a matter of action, or lack there of nowadays. Original A.A.'s went from sanitariums to underneath bridges to seek out the most desperate of Alcoholics to work with. Traveled hours, sometimes full days, to make a weekly meeting closest to their home town. The steps were worked entirely within the first few weeks to months of sobriety (some A.A.'s nowadays, be it few, simply work 1 step a year) and sponsorship came much earlier (I'm aghast at the modern A.A. workshop suggestions for sponsorship requirements being a minimum of 5 years sobriety- even though A.A. approved literature points out a minimum of 1 year).

I would have liked to have known some of those old-timers, and hear thier opinions on that of which A.A. has evolved.

Zube