THE PROMISES

When I first came into program and heard these words I couldn't grasp their meaning. Life baffled me. I had no idea who I was or what I was doing. I was completely in the grip of this disease. I felt like I was the disease. Why would God do anything for me?

Initially I thought these people were crazy and even worse off than I was. My opinion soon changed when I noticed wonderful differences between them and myself. They seemed calmer, verbalized their feelings more clearly, appeared to have their act together, and seemed to enjoy life. I was hooked! I wanted what they had. I finally wanted to want to live. I was drawn to those who demonstrated traits I wanted to have. I talked to them and listened when they shared. I asked them how to work the program and how to find my Higher Power. I started working the Steps. I began my search for a God I could relate to. I found online recovery loops and people who shared how they worked their program.

From Isolation To Connection

Addiction is an isolating disease, closing us off from society, family, and self. We hid. We lied. We scorned the lives we saw others living, surely beyond our grasp. Worst of all, we told ourselves there was nothing wrong with us, even though we knew we were desperately ill. Our connection with the world, and with reality itself, was severed. Our lives lost meaning, and we withdrew further and further from reality.

The NA program is designed especially for people like us. It helps reconnect us to the life we were meant to live, drawing us out of our isolation. We stop lying to ourselves about our condition; we admit our powerlessness and the unmanageability of our lives.

Chronic Slipper

In Alcoholics Anonymous, I knew I had found a protective haven. But during the ensuing 4-1/2 years I fell into the category known, in AA parlance, as a "chronic slipper." I might get a good six months of sobriety under my belt, but then I would get a bottle to celebrate.

I did all the things that were suggested for me not to do. Within my first year around AA, I made some major decisions, like getting married, renting the most expensive apartment I could find, not using my sponsor, avoiding the steps, hanging around old haunts with my old drinking pals, and talking more than listening during meetings.
 

The Committee

I remember the first time I heard about the committee. Someone shared that when she went to sleep, the committee in her head got together and started going over all the things that were wrong and why her life was never going to work out. They collected evidence, put solid cases together, and then reached their decisions. When she woke up in the morning, they handed her their verdict - guilty and sentenced to a miserable life!

Boy could I relate. I have my own committee of voices that constantly tell me things aren't going to work out, that my past mistakes are insurmountable, and that no matter how hard I try I will never be happy. When I'm alone, the committee is especially active and after a few days of listening to their decrees, I'm easily overwhelmed and defeated.

FAITH

The Big Book states that if we are rigorously honest we will receive release from our addictive compulsions. Working the Steps is what keeps us honest. I didn’t believe this with my whole heart and I lived within my disease. My sponsor told me to just “do it” and see what happened; to “act as if it were true.”

What is faith? It is the belief that if we stay close to our Higher Power we will be where we need to be. It is the guarantee that we do not walk through this world or this disease alone. Faith requires commitment to a belief that is greater than what we can see, hear, taste or smell.

STEP 1 …foundation

It meant destruction of self-centeredness. (14: 1) STEP 1 …foundation… (12: 4)

Like Bill, we are alcoholics, and we have to hit bottom. The problem is our mental that leads us to take a drink, and our resulting physical compulsion to drink to excess. Our minds and lives are unmanageable; we must surrender. Working Step 1 begins when we become abstinent. We have to stop our personal addictive alcoholic behaviors so that our continued acting out does not hinder our surrender. If we are not drinking today, then we must abstain from that particular addictive thought or behavior that robs us of peace of mind.

This is a disease of isolation and loneliness. We are prisoners of our self-sufficiency, isolated inside. We admit we need to grow and that we are not free. We are people who appear to be sure of themselves but are actually eaten alive with fear inside. (193: 2) If anxiety is the existential basis of our addiction, then we must alter our fear, remorse, shame and guilt in order to find happiness so that we do not have to go back to drinking.

Our Greatest Need

When we first arrived in NA, we had all kinds of ideas of what we needed. Some of us set our sights on amassing personal possessions. We thought recovery equaled outward success. But recovery does not equal success. Today, we believe that our greatest need is for spiritual guidance and strength.

The greatest damage done to us by our addiction was the damage done to our spirituality. Our primary motivation was dictated by our disease: to get, to use, and to find ways and means to get more. Enslaved by our overwhelming need for drugs, our lives lacked purpose and connection. We were spiritually bankrupt.

LAUGHTER

"We are all here for a spell, get
all the good laughs you can."
-- Will Rogers

When I first heard recovering alcoholics laughing, I thought I was
in the wrong place. I was angry that they treated the disease so lightly.
Then slowly I began to see that laughter is part of joy --- a deep joy that
comes from personal healing. Laughter is spiritual because it is a
positive response to life. It is the noise of optimism.

Timing is important

Thought for the Day

We must know the nature of our weakness before we can determine how to deal with it. When we are honest about its presence, we may discover that it is imaginary and can be overcome by a change of thinking. We admit that we are alcoholics and we would be foolish if we refused to accept our handicap and do something about it. So by honestly facing our weakness and keeping ever present the knowledge that, for us, alcoholism is a disease with which we are afflicted, we can take the necessary steps to arrest it. Have I fully accepted my handicap?

Meditation for the Day

Thoughts

A man is what he thinks about all day long.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

This is true for women too. We sure learned that about our disease as well. It kept us thinking about alcohol or drugs all day every day until we could think of little else. Finally we became addicts, gobbled up by our all-consuming thoughts and cravings.

Now in recovery, we can be something else. We are becoming free of our addiction, and our minds can think about other things. What do we want to think about? What do we want to be?

It's easy to let the noise around us tell us what to think about. At the end of the day, we can end up feeling out of touch with who we are.

The Missing Piece: The Spiritual Malady

by Mike L., West Orange, NJ
"Carry THIS Message" Group, West Orange, NJ

From "The Doctor's Opinion" to the end of "More About Alcoholism" the Big Book discusses the first part of Step 1, which states, "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol". We've discussed, studied, and internalized material from the "Doctor's Opinion" to page 23 to see how we're powerless over alcohol bodily. We've used pages 23 - 43 to help us experience how we've been powerless mentally. Now I'd like to talk about a part of our "disease" which is seldom discussed in meetings nowadays: the "spiritual malady."


We often hear people say something like, "I have a three-fold disease: body, mind, and spirit."

Hello, I am your disease and I am your Friend

Hello, I am your disease

I Hate meetings...I Hate higher powers...I Hate anyone who has a program. To all who come in contact with me, I wish you death and I wish you suffering. Allow me to introduce myself, I am the disease of addiction. I Am cunning, baffling, and powerful. That's Me. I have killed millions and I am pleased.

I love to catch you with the element of surprise. I love pretending I am your friend and lover. I have given you comfort, haven't I? Wasn't I there when you were lonely? When you wanted to die, didn't you call on me? I was there, I love to make you hurt. I love to make you cry. Better yet, I Love to make you so numb you can neither hurt nor cry. When you can't feel anything at all. This is true gratification. And all that I ask from you is long term suffering. I've been there for you always.

Abstinence or Sobriety?

The program that is used to create and sustain sobriety involves a number of concepts. Let’s look at then in the order they are presented:


Admittance (Step One) - We start to recover or heal when we are willing to admit that there’s something wrong. If a person is unwilling to face their particular issue it is next to impossible to help them.

Discover a God...as we understand him (Steps Two and Three) It is amazing to think that A.A. proclaimed, over sixty years ago, such a freeing and open concept. Our God, Higher Power or Source need not be religious. The Twelve Step program does not belong to any one religion or denomination, it is absent of any dogma or creed, and in this powerful sense it is seen to be a spiritual program.

Requiem For An Alkie

We don't have to drink to die of alcoholism. We buried him yesterday. The County Coroner had published the required notices for next of kin and nobody had claimed the body. It was just myself, and his sponsor, not even a preacher - the county doesn't pay for those.

Not much of send-off, and not the one David had asked for. A cheap coffin, a backhoe digging a hole, and that was it - another old AA gone.

He had been sober over 20 years and in and around AA over 30, a stern and rigid man who tried to soften his edges and never could. He was a loner, an isolated man at the edge of life's good things. He hung in there ... and in the end hung himself.

I don't know why; I can't know. I know there had been a diagnosis of senile dementia, and I know that the doctor had added cancer to the list. But, I've seen AAs deal with such things before ... I don't know why David decided he couldn't.

It isn't the first time I've been through this in Alcoholics Anonymous. I've known several over the years who just up and walked out life's door one day. Sober, but not happy. Sober, but not at peace. Sober, but they died of alcoholism. Our disease doesn't need us to drink in order to kill us. I wish more folks knew that, and appreciated it. Alcoholism is the only disease that is entirely capable of fighting back, of taking care of itself, and of emerging in new places and new forms when it isn't properly treated. That's because of the spiritual malady.

Most people think that has something to do with prayer or with God. It doesn't. It has to do with 'our spirit' ... that force which animates, motivates and propels us.

As an alcoholic, my spirit is ill. It is flawed. My character, or basic nature, doesn't work right. At its root, it is a fundamental and irresolvable insecurity ... a hole that can't ever be filled. It is an instinct run rampant, a desperate need for acceptance and love that cannot be met. It hurts. It fills one with fear. The selfishness and self-centeredness of the alcoholic lies here ... we are totally preoccupied with what is going on with ourselves on the inside. The slings and arrows of experience warped by this need drive us to the fringe, and the voices of the committee in our head keep us there.

We are obsessed with ourselves, and from this condition of mind ... the insanity of feelings gone haywire, we become self-medicators eventually. We discover alcohol or something else ... and the stuff quiets the voices, provides the relief we've never been able to find in any other way.

It isn't any wonder we drink, or drug, the way we do. And some of us don't develop an addiction ... in attempting to meet these crying demands of our spirit become ill, we develop other malformations of behavior, and suffer in a hundred different ways.

God broke David's obsession to drink. But, I don't think David ever truly understood his disease. I say that because I watched him struggle with those old unresolved issues of his heart for years. His rigidity, coldness, aloofness, isolation and difficulty with other people were a reflection of the pain in his heart ... of the disease of alcoholism gone deep inside, and still active.

Alcoholism didn't need David to drink in order to continue trying to kill him, and in the end ... it succeeded. In the end, instead of self abandoned ... David abandoned hope ... and discovered a bitter end.

Our recovery from alcoholism through the Steps must be a three-fold process. It is not one-dimensional. When we say, in AA, that we have a triangle ... recovery, unity, service ... we mean it. In working the Steps, I clear a pathway for two purposes ... first, to come into a group of human people and away from the fringe of society where I have spent most of my emotional life. Secondly, discovering 'belonging', through service to the people within that group. It is only this entire, threefold process that heals.

It is especially true for those of us who suffer from the spiritual malady to a great degree. Perhaps the 12th Step says it best: "Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps (recovery), we tried to carry this message to other alcoholics (service) and practice these principles in all our affairs (unity).

You see ... I cannot hold back. I must not continue to suffer that shyness, aloneness, that overwhelming sense of self ... in my affairs. I must get involved in a group of people to practice these principles in all my affairs. Only the total approach is healing. Anything less is little more than driving my disease deep ... and if I do that ... it will continue to eat away, trying to destroy me. It destroyed David.

This is a memorial to an old AA who gave his best shot ... and I think David ended up on the plus side. It wasn't his fault; he seemed to have been born that way. There were a lot of old ideas about self that David could never muster the willingness to let go of.

He is at rest now. But it says somewhere that "no matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others." David cannot speak to his experience any longer. I am speaking in his memory. And I think that if David could talk to us today, he'd say "Understand your disease thoroughly, and work the complete program of recovery!"

I am your disease

Hello,

Just in case you forgot me, I am your disease:

I Hate meetings...I Hate higher powers...I Hate anyone who has a program. To all who come in contact with me, I wish you death and I wish you suffering.

Allow me to introduce myself, I am the disease of addiction. I Am cunning, baffling, and powerful. That's Me. I have killed millions and I am pleased.

We don't have to drink to die.

 We buried him yesterday. The County Coroner had published the required notices for next of kin and nobody had claimed the body. It was just myself and his sponsor, no preacher even, the county doesn't pay for those. 

Not much of a send-off, and not the one David had asked for. A cheap coffin, backhoe dug a hole, and that was it - another old AA gone. 

He had been sober over 20 years and in AA over 30, a stern and rigid man who tried to soften his edges and never could. 

He was a loner, a fringe-er, an isolated man at the edge of life's good things. He hung in there... and in the end hung himself. I don't know why; I can't know. 

I know there had been a diagnosis of senile dementia, and I know that the doctor had added cancer to the list. But, I've seen AA’s deal with such things before... I don't know why David decided he couldn't.