Ceres

Ananda -

I don't know what it is about your avatar combined with your personality. But, I just want to pick you up and pet you. :-D

How goes the writing club. Tell me how it works -You guys critique eachothers work? What are you writing?

Ananda

lol I love my laughing hedgehog... but some tell me it is screaming

I have writers group tonight....I wrote some stuff about a childhood expereince with my dad...and something else i now can't remember.....

We will talk, then write for 20 mintes, then read and discuss...we are pretty light on critisim...at this point i think most of us need encouragement until we get a little writting under our belt...

I just got a temp job for till march 12th...8-2 M-SA...so it will be interesting to see how i manage to balance life with work back in the picture...I'll have to get up at 5:30 am to get my step work, meditation and dressing done in time to comute to another town for this job

how do other people handle meditation?....I'm thinking i may have to very limited 5 minites or so in the morning...then do my real sitting meditation in the afternoon when i get off...I'm thinking meditating in the car on the hyway might not be such a good idea....

keithj

It changes. Evolves even. I've gotten a ton of mileage out of sitting quietly, keeping my brain still and thoughts empty.

Whatever it's current manifestation, I place priority on it. I have some days where my brain is already off at work and 'managing' the things of the day within 5 seconds of waking up. I laugh and recognize it for what it is, then take some quiet time for the only thing that really matters for this alcoholic.

And I set my alarm a little earlier to make the time I don't always want to take, but know I need to take.

Ananda

yep..i'm gonna set the alarm for 5:30 and see if it works....that will allow me time if i don't turn it off..which i sometims do without ever waking up....then...maybe move it across the room...

To me meditation is sitting silently and letting go of the thoughts when they arise...other things people call mediatiation doesn't seem to me like it is IT

AFTER...i do my meditation i read from the bigbook...and THEN i make a general plan for the day.....

That has been working great for me the last 6 weeks....now it's just that getting out of bed thing....

Perhaps it won't be such a big deal to do as i have made it in my mind...I'll let you all know tomarrow night

Thanks Keith

Zencat

That's the quiet mind meditation I do a few minuets in the morning as I awake and before bed time. I see how learning to quiet my mind and learning to train my mind to be my ally vs my enemy, is beneficial. So I'm thinking if I am the cause of my problems, Buddhism teaches me I am also the solution. When I look outside of myself for solutions, I feel like I'm placing my peace of mind on people, places and things.

smiling jack

I went to a 20 minute mediatation AA meeting a month ago. I enjoyed it and would do it again.

cambridge

hi all,

I'm still in AA and sober but a bit pissed off recently and wondering if I should continue with the big book study/12 steps. I just can't seem to reconcile it in any way. The more I read, the more angry I become. Probably especially right now as I just finished chapter 4 (we agnostics) in the BB study. I really hate that chapter.

sorry to be negative on the thread but I'm finding this hard right now and didn't know where else to vent.

Ceres

Hey Cambridge,

It gets better. There's a lot that I had to get past in the big book in the beginning. Try to think of it has a historic document. It was written in 1939, by men, in a very large Christian following era.

Think also, how you will one day be instrumental to someone like yourself. If we all leave, if none of us bothered to get past the issues, why would a newcomer think they could?

The first year I was told to, and did, only to read AA approved literature. This was due to my nature of reading too many things at once and muddeling my mind. Anyway, if that's not you. Maybe some others here know of some material that could be of assistance in addition to the BB and 12 & 12.

Zencat

The chapter to agnostics used to tick me off too. I think I see what the authors were attempting to do and that was build a case for a God of their understanding. However a HP of my understanding is nothing like the Big Book authors...so I just consider the chapter in question n/a with regards to me having a personal understanding of what constitutes a HP/God.

keithj

Cambridge, have you taken Step 1? Not read about it or studied it, but really taken it? Do you know without a doubt that you are powerless over booze, that you are screwed beyond hope, and that you will never recover?

That's really Step 1.

So Step 2 becomes, there is hope for you. Since the dawn of time, people that were as hopeless as you have recovered by what are known as spiritual experiences or psychic changes, which Jung described as huge emotional upheavals and displacements.
Having one of those experiences is the only hope of the chronic alcoholic. That's what Step 2 is. Came to believe that some huge displacement and rearrangement could bring about recovery. The important question is, do you believe, or are you even willing to believe that there is a power which can bring about that psychic change?

You don't even have to anthropomorphize that power. Do you believe that such a pyschic rearrangement is possible and that such a rearrangement will bring about recovery? If your answer is yes, that's your power. That's all you have to know about that power at this point. 'It has been repeatedly proven among us that upon this simple conerstone of willingness to believe, a wonderfully effective spiritual structure can be built.'

I was pissed off also. I didn't want to believe that supernatural powers could fix me. But I really didn't want to keep drinking, and I had exhausted my other options. That's what a solid Step 1 experience did for me. Left me with no options. So, I believed that this psychic change could happen to me if I followed the directions laid out in that book. I had seen it work for many others. So I followed the directions, and that power flowed in.

I still have no flipping idea what to call that power, or what it looks like, or if it has a name. But I can not deny it's existence in my life. And it's kept me sober for many years.

cambridge

Thanks Ali, that's very helpful actually, the it about being a help to someone else one day. As far as literature, I haven't been told to only read AA lit, I read loads of things including some recovery related books. I'm mostly reading the BB right now because of the study though.

cambridge

Thanks Zen and keithj - I understand what you are saying and perhaps I should think of it more in terms of a psychic rearangement or personality change. That is basically the way that I perceive it already. Yes, I have accepted that I cannot drink, that drinking brings chaos into my life.

I feel empowered by quitting drinking and going to AA and already I think my way of looking at the world has shifted quite a bit. I am just questioning the value of some of the steps as they seem to place all power in the hands of a HP rather than in the person who is working to make the change. It seems to me that if you quit drinking and have recovery you should praise your HP and if you don't then you didn't do the steps well enough. Nice gig for a HP in my opinion.

Obviously I have issues but I love the feedback on this site so thanks very much. Just had a nice night bowling with AA friends.
I

smiling jack

The most important AA writing, to me, is the Preamble. Two parts in it..."The only requirement for membership is the desire to stop drinking...(and ) Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety."

For me, the meetings, the sponsor, the readings are to take what I want and disregard the rest.

cambridge

You all are so sensible And you sound like my therapist

I think the quitting smoking too is getting to me a bit. But onward to a sober non-addicted life!

keithj

I don't mean to pick on every little thing you say, cambridge. You are going to have the experience that you have. It's your path. But, since this is a 12 Step forum (and because I can't contain myself)...

Look a little deeper. This makes a logical argument why I shouldn't drink. Because I can't moderate or drink sensibly, drinking brings chaos in my life. Therefore, if I want to end the chaos, I should quit drinking. OK, then, just quit drinking. Step 1 goes deeper than that.

Look at Bill's Story. At this point, when he knew the answer was that he couldn't safely drink at all, he describes it as, "Gradually things got worse." This understatement gets to the heart of the mental obsession. It's at this point where Bill cannot quit drinking. It's where he learns about powerlessness. He tries willpower and ends up drunk. He tries self-knowledge and ends up drunk. He tries fear and ends up drunk.

This is the baffling nature of alcoholism. That, once we have crossed that line, the most powerful and sincere desire to quit is of no avail.

Step 1 really means that I am 100% **cked with a capital F. It meant, for me, walking out of a courtroom after being informed of what would happen to me if I got caught drinking before my sentencing, and knowing without any doubt that I was going to drink. Not because I wanted to, but because I was powerless not to.

It's only when I feel that powerlessness in my heart that I truly have taken Step 1. When I know I'm screwed. That's the feeling that drives me inescapably into Step 2.

If Step 1 has convinced me that I will never recover without casting aside those ideas, emotions, and attitudes and having them replaced with new driving forces of my life, how do I go about that? How do I cast aside my life-long beliefs?

The notion of higher power comes in almost in retrospect. After experiencing that change (conversion experience if you really want to get scared), I found it was so profound that it didn't seem like it was my doing at all. IT seemed beyond my comprehension and my own power.

And the IT scares me. I can only tell you that IT is what happens when this change occurs. If you have IT (which is necessary for recovery), you will know what IT is. And IT will seem pretty damn big and powerful. Some folks call IT God.

cambridge

It does not bother me if you pick apart what I say, no worries.

I understand what you are saying about step 1, and that what I said did not encompass the whole of its meaning. You say, if I see there is chaos and I want to stop it then to quit drinking.

Which is exactly what I did. I had a sincere desire to get control of my life, and I quit. I don't feel powerless, but rather I feel empowered. I do believe that I cannot drink, that it is not good for me. I also believe that I have the ability to not drink if I so choose. The place where there is lack of control in regards to alcohol is after the first drink. That is where MY powerlessness lies.


So I guess maybe the problem is that I don't know that I am screwed. And I don't really see any way to prove otherwise except for going out and drinking again. But I have no desire to do that, so I feel stuck in a no mans land. Not screwed enough to be a proper alcoholic, too screwed to be a normal drinker. Awesome.

Ananda

It often isn't necessary to drink again to fully understand this step...additionally, this forum includes many alchohlics that are recovering who are of the type that you are...apparently able to avoid the first drink, but loosing all power once they take that drink...

Their higher powers may be different, and they may utilize that power differently for different purposes, but they find value and understanding of the steps just as those of us who cannot stop taking the first drink.

Additionally if you are the type of alchoholic who has no defense against the first drink....just going out and drinking won't really show you that...the point of the first step for those who cannot avoid the first drink is that we have to try to avoid the first drink based on non-HP methods and see what happens. Thats how we find out...not by stepping over to the bar....that part is if you don't think you have cravings and can simply drink normally.

I don't know..I'm not saying that quite right...but thats part of it I think

Zencat

As a non-theist person in AA I periodically contemplate powerlessness. In active addiction I know the overwhelming push of addiction drove me into the ground, beaten battered and bruised. That left to my own addiction fulled thinking and whatever beliefs I formulated as an addict would have me maimed or dead. I now wonder if it was delusion that had me believe that I had any choice in the matter when it came to the overwhelming compulsion to use AOD.

When I first sought a solution to my alcoholic illness, I was looking for something outside myself for a fix. Much like in the same way I was using AOD addiction to bring a solution to my utter discontent with life. Always expecting something to come and rescue me. Little did I know at the time that expecting some person, place or thing to solve my problems was futile.

Like awaking from some bad dream where I was tossed and turned in directions that were not of my making, yet not having those directions I designed avail me, it has taken that kind of experience that awoke the Buddha within. Maybe I can call it the God or divine that has always resided within. Once obscured by my addiction, ignorance and delusion, only a complete upheaval (nothing like having an out of complete control life in addiction to provide that upheaval) could transform me, awaken me, to my true nature.

So having a external or internal God/HP bring forth a profound conversion experience that alters and rearranges ones deepest psychical formation will likely cause the same reaction:
So...like there was an old me...hopelessly lost in addiction/alcoholism as in life. Something greater than I was realized, was experienced, was transformational and is now a guiding principal illuminating from within...with progress not perfection...one day at a time...I trudge the road to happy destiny.

Ananda

thanks zencat..you hit the nail on the head for me...i'm putting it with my step work papers (grin)

e4r5t6

I have 14 months sobriety and seem to have lost the desire to drink. It's something I wonder and worry about constantly, but so far, so good.
I rejected most of the Big Book as a quaint not so subtle stealth conversion document with a rather condescending half hearted acknowledgment that not everyone believes there is a god.
I used to get so resentful reading BB I realized it was counter productive and stopped.
The Serenity Prayer pretty much sums it up for me and I use it as a god-free mantra because it makes good sense.
I work the steps without any god or higher power because there's obviously something there that works for many people.
Reading between the lines I see a process of assisted analysis that helps me look inside and honestly assess who I am and what I can be and decide what I want to be, an honest responsible sober person.
It is not some spirit who makes decisions; it is I.
I have to give up my former way of thinking, drinking and acting and adopt and adapt something new. Nothing happens except as I decide it.
AA folk often condemn ego and speak of ego deflation as a first step toward recovery.
Ego to me means self confidence and accepting who I am and what I've been and that allows me - me - to create a new person, the one I want to be, very deliberately.
I distinguish between "ego" - a strong understanding of self and self love - from "egotism" - being self absorbed, selfish and self centered.
The first is a strength, the second a weakness that needs to be changed.
The steps did that for me. Sort of like a boot camp that shaves your head and strips away your personality in order to rebuild a new and better one that is in control and managing life in reality.
Having gone through the steps believing there is no god and absorbing a lot of wisdom and technique from alcoholics who succeeded I am sober and managing my life and relationships and money and work far better.
When some wiser, more sober person explains that god told them to ... I just look at their behavior and imitate that secure in the knowledge that the person changed and improved their life by making smarter decisions and I can do the same thing and I am not afraid to accept responsibility for making those decisions because I have a process called 12 steps that helps me make decisions and create a new me and new life.
It puzzles me when people are unwilling to credit themselves for recreating a new person with a new way of behaving.
I see nothing but humans helping humans and that is grander than god.