Monday Meeting

Hi All!

 

I am exploring what interest there may be for a new mixed book/step meeting on Monday nights. Somewhere close to where Interstate 15 and Highway 78 meet.

 

I would appreciate any comments anyone has.

 

Thanks,

 

Brett

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FW: When Pumpkins Drink

One is too much and 1,000 is never enough.

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No one can make you feel inferior without your consent - Eleanor Roosevelt

If only they would see what I mean and understand what is going on; my life would be perfect and I would not feel this way. The Big Book tells us that all of life is but a stage and we are but actors upon it. Where we get frustrated is when we attempt to direct the other actors instead of simply focusing on our own recovery and health. Our lives had become so unmanageable that we had to cry out to our Higher Power for help. How is it possible for us to think we could manage someone else’s life? The root of this perceived power lies in our own feelings of inferiority. The people we try to manage are the very people we so desperately need approval from. Those who can make us feel the worst about ourselves can only do so if we give them the power to. Others around us are going to do and say what they feel they must do and say no matter how hard we wish they would not. To overcome this character flaw and take responsibility for ourselves, we must stop trying to please people who simply do not care. There are people in our lives who will do, say and think whatever they want to without regard to our own wishes. Let these poisonous people go. Nothing we say and nothing we do will change them. So stop it.

 

I am going to take a deep breath and choose to not feel inferior and not seek approval from those who wouldn’t give it to me anyway.

Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again more intelligently - Henry Ford

 Slipping is so demoralizing to us if we have embraced the program. Nothing ruins a binge like the knowledge we have gained by even the slightest exposure to SAA. It was easy for us to put the most disgusting, demoralizing and degrading behavior into our inner circle. It was much harder to move those other behaviors, those behaviors that to some are not addicting, into our inner circle. Perhaps it took us months of deluding ourselves that this action, the one we turn to when we are sad, anxious, angry or lonely into our inner circle. Perhaps we knew all along that this was inner circle behavior but we held onto our “public” sobriety too tightly to admit it to ourselves and to another person. It is how we feel after we act out that tells us the truth whether an activity belongs in our inner circle or not. And then far too quickly we slip. “It is such a simple act!” and it may very well be simpler or less demoralizing than other acts in our inner circle, but we feel no less a failure for the slip.

 

Today let me understand and know the meaning and feeling of these powerful words, Progress – not Perfection, and then let me begin my sobriety again.

A liar will not be believed, even when he speaks the truth - Aesop

We spent so much of our life lying. Part of the unmanageability of our lives was the challenge of remembering which lie we told to whom. But the biggest lies we told were the lies we told to ourselves. No matter what each of our stories was, we all told the same lies to ourselves. “I deserved this.” “This is the last time.” “No one will know.” “This doesn’t hurt any one.” “Everybody does it.” And the really big one: “I am not an addict.” The Steps we work are not the only steps we take. First we stop lying to ourselves and admit we have a problem although self-delusion still haunts us occasionally. Then we stop lying to other addicts. You can’t fool someone who has been there and done that. And then we stop lying to everyone else. Finally we begin to feel good about our recovery only to become angry at those we love when they question us. Can’t they see that we are finally honest? Can’t they see we are finally sober? The answer is they hope so. We may have found truth and are now committed to not lie but it is difficult for those in our lives who were hurt by years and years of lying. A few months of sobriety does not erase years of acting out no matter how much we wish it were true.

Grant me the strength to remain true – especially when all around me think I am still lying

Any idiot can face a crisis - its day to day living that wears you out. - Anton Chekhov

Each of us has a different definition of what is “right” and what is “wrong” and that is OK. The brothers and sisters in our program do not judge us. Though “normal” people can and generally do judge us – at least we want to believe that they do, we are truly only answerable to our Higher Power and to ourselves. We may not always know what is “right”, but we definitely know when we are wrong. That terrible sick feeling we get in the pit of our stomach screams a warning to us. And then we find we already knew the outcome when we are faced with cleaning up whatever the mess we made is. We clearly seem to know when we are about to do something wrong. The challenge, the day to day choices we make are the ones that are the hardest to make. Is the choice I am about to make based on self-will or is it G-d’s will? Am I hoping that my choice will lead to the end result I want? Or will I accept whatever the consequences my choice will bring, knowing that the answer may be a lesson, a gift or another challenge from our Higher Power? Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood God. Perhaps this is not a one time choice. Perhaps the peace we seek and the energy we need to get through each day comes from this simple but powerful piece of wisdom.

Let me wake up each day and not doubt the direction my Higher Power sends me.

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The journey is the reward. - Chinese Proverb

As a group of addicts, we strive for sobriety. As individual addicts, we define sobriety uniquely. An act that may be a slip into the inner circle for some could be completely acceptable behavior for another. Similarly, each of us looks at sobriety in a different way. Some of us see sobriety as a goal, a destination to be reached where all things in our lives finally fall correctly into place, a place that upon arrival, we become “normal”. We vigorously count the days of sobriety we have achieved. Each chip we earn becomes the most important piece of our recovery. We do not focus on what the will of our Higher Power may be for us, we choose instead to focus on self will. And then we are amazed at the collection of 30 and 60 chips we accumulate. We celebrate the birthdays and the many years of sobriety that “old-timers” bring to our group, and we wonder what it is that they have and how do we get it? In 1952, a co-founder of AA added a short sentence to the Serenity Prayer: G-d, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Thy will, not mine, be done. (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions – Step Three). The celebration of days of sobriety is a very important piece of an addict’s program. It just is not the most important piece. If we live our life in a manner of our Higher Power’s choosing, following his will, anniversary dates will become milestones on our journey in a life of sobriety, not the destination point.

The first step on my journey included the realization that sobriety was not the destination. It is the path.

Never look down on anybody unless you're helping him up. -Jesse Jackson

Oh how we looked down our noses at others when we were in the depths of our addiction. Feeling superior was a way for us to live with ourselves, with the destructive and hurtful things we did. We were able to accept and tolerate our behavior when we criticized and condemned others for their actions. It gave us another excuse to not take responsibility for our own actions. We became experts at finding the character defects of those around us. AA has a saying, "there but for the grace of G-d go I". We are no better and no worse than any other addict. We all share the same illness; we all have found that we were powerless and could not control our compulsive sexual acting out. It is the group's commitment to not judge fellow addicts among us who are striving for sobriety that encourages that first step a newcomer takes to bring him to our rooms. No matter what our choice of acting out behavior was, we all felt degraded and completely demoralized. A brother with great wisdom compares our addiction to a highway where the final destination is our complete and utter destruction. We have all gotten on or off the highway at one time or another. The only difference between each of us is what exit we took. Let us never forget that we all were a newcomer at one time and we have all experienced the terror that we were the sickest one in the room.

Let us not judge each other but embrace each other and accept the strength fellowship brings each of us - whether we are "up" or we are "down".

If nothing changes, nothing changes - Ernie Larson

With shame and embarrassment after each relapse we promise ourselves that this time it will be different. And then we find out that we have not really changed. The relapses become more frequent, more demoralizing, more degrading and more dangerous. As long as we think we can fix our problem by ourselves, we cannot stop the insanity that is our addiction. We make claims to our work, family and friends that this time it will be different. We thought we found the error in our last resolution to quit and we now know what went wrong - this time we will succeed. If thinking about change is enough for us to lose our addictive behavior, we would have fixed ourselves a long time ago. How selfish are we to believe that we can simply “think” change. Clearly, thinking alone has not been enough. At each meeting we read “If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps”. The deciding part of that sentence is only the first half of change. Taking action on that decision is what will actually send us down the path of change. We’ve proven just thinking about it got us nowhere. So this time, after we make a decision, we actually have to take a step in the direction of change.

Please let me remember what the time proven definition of insanity is – doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result

Through prayer, I can sense my inner strength, my inner purpose, my inner joy, my capacity to love - Ruth Brin

 

SAA suggests a bubble as an appropriate, poetic metaphor that expresses the radical nature of the addict’s isolation. We thought we were strong, happy, loved and loving when we were in the bubble acting out. Unfortunately the secret world of our own creation where we sought thrills and pleasure was also a world of shame and guilt when the bubble burst and we reentered the real world. There is an alternative to the bubble. It is a simple option really. But like most things for addicts, it is the simple things that are the hardest for us to do. How many times were we told “Just don’t do it.” In recovery we have been given a tool to help us find peace. If we pray daily to our Higher Power, not to fix our lives or to create a different life for us, but to pray just for insight and knowledge of the life our Higher Power has planned for us, we will discover true strength, joy and happiness. As long as we remember that our Higher Power will show us this life when He wants us to see it and not when we demand to see it, can our dreams come true. And that will be much more rewarding and satisfying than any acting out behavior ever was or could ever be.

 

G-d, for today grant me the patience to hear your voice and see your path as you want me to, and not how I want it to be.

How are miracles possible? We make them possible. - Rabbi Menachem Mendel Morgensztern

G-d as I understand him does not direct us in our daily endeavors or manages our lives for us. The powerlessness we have over our addiction is unmanageable. So I asked, if G-d will not control my addiction for me, how can I find sobriety? The answer for me is that sobriety is a miracle. As I work the 12 steps of SAA, I remember that many opportunities to gain sobriety and stop the ever increasing downward spiral of depravity were presented to me, the majority of which I am ashamed to admit I ignored. My addiction had blinded me to them. The sheer number of them along with their timing created the question in my mind: How do I reconcile my belief that G-d does not specifically intervene in my life with the knowledge that coincidence alone cannot explain how I have been graced with help and support and have benefited from opportunities that seem to present themselves just when I needed them the most? The answer for me became clear when I stopped trying to control my addiction. As soon as I admitted I was powerless, I could finally see the miracles that were there all along. G-d and his miracles for me have always been there. As long as I keep putting one foot in front of the other, and I work my program, the important things seem to get resolved.

Just for today I will keep my eyes open for any miracles my Higher Power sends my way.

Whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, you're right. - Henry Ford

"What an order, I can't go through with it".

To many of us, this simple statement sounds all too familiar. We have spent most of our lives making a commitment to our family, our friends, and ourselves to not act out after we are caught or the bubble bursts and we have to face reality. We are sincere in our promise. For a few days or even a few years, we do not act out. We think we can stay sober without the Program and we do--for awhile. But the addict in each of us continually reminds us that we have failed before and we will fail again. We go back to our old way of thinking. We rationalize. We cajole. We often simply delude ourselves. Many of us have a hole in our souls where our strength and resolve is pulled away. The simple concept of staying sober gets overwhelmed. We doubt our resolve. And as soon as that happens, our addict gets a foot into the door of our minds and we inevitably fail. There is one option available to us to keep the thoughts of failure at bay: work the Program. The Program is elegant in its simplicity. It places no unwieldy demands upon us. There is no religion, politics or topics that could lead to dissention. As simple as the Program is, the addict in us can make it the hardest thing we have ever had to do. Keep it simple and you can succeed.

A simple thought is inevitably made complex when an addict gets a hold of it.