Author Archives: De W

Topic for the week: New Beginnings

Sophie here, still an alcoholic.

Grateful to be part of GROW and part of AA.

Yesterday I celebrated a sober-versary. So happy to be sober and active in my sobriety.

I reflect back to coming into AA and what helped me then as a newcomer. I had no idea getting into that first meeting and finding the 12 steps would turn out to be a new beginning. All I could see and feel was what I had lost and what I would miss. Today when I get those feelings when I’m facing a change or a challenge I can remind myself that my Higher Power had something better for me then and that is true today.

So what helped you in your new beginning? Or are you at the beginning of your new beginning and still feeling like it’s an ending?

The Big Book describes being at a “turning point” and at the “jumping off place”.

What I know is that it was first the fellowship, being surrounded by unconditional love for the first time by fellow alcoholics who understood me despite being almost total strangers, that helped me stay with AA.

Next it was beginning to learn some of the program ideas and language. Things like “Just for Today” and finding out that it’s the first drink that kicks off my craving and itch for another and another.

And opening myself up to new ways of being and seeing and doing. Like picking up a daily reader and reading something inspirational each morning, first the AA Daily Reflections, and then discovering other daily reading meditation books.

After that it was connecting with a Higher Power, consciously recognising that AA was a Higher Power, and connecting with women who I could call or meet between meetings.

I found a temporary sponsor who began my on my journey with the 12 Steps. 

Then I found my long term sponsor who in earnest showed me the Big Book and living the principles of each Step and each Tradition. 

Learning the words to the Serenity Prayer and saying it regularly through the day was a new beginning too. 

Being accepted as the replacement tea person at my Friday meeting was a new beginning too. Being trusted to organise the tea! And the biscuits! And turn up every week or make arrangements for someone to cover if I was sick or away. 

These are the things I learned early on and helped build me a strong connection with AA, with the meetings I went to and with my local fellowship.

These are the things that have been my mainstay for my sobriety.

So what I learned in the beginning helps me stay balanced today.

Today I ask myself where am I in the Circle & Triangle of AA.

Where am I in my unity?

Where am I in my service?

Where am I in my 12 steps (program)?

I was taught about the 3 legged stool and how it won’t balance on two out of three or one out of three legs. So the triangle of AA is my 3 legged stool.

Any day I’m sober can be a new beginning of some sort. I’m learning and growing as a human being, as a sober woman, as lots of other roles in my life.

Remembering to restart my day with a prayer and some quiet time is always a new beginning. Being inspired to look up and see the butterflies or the flowers or the blossom in the trees, always a new beginning for me, helping me stay connected.

Please come in and share whatever is on your heart or mind for your sobriety today.

Or check in on the Circle & Triangle or

Thank you for being in the meeting and for having me be of service.

I can’t do this alone.

Fear is an evil, corroding thread; the fabric of our lives is shot through with it.”

Fear has always been a part of my life and the root of so many of my character defects.  Lately my life has been ruled by so much fear. It seems as I have gotten older, it has increased. Sometimes it gets so bad, it limits what I can do.

“We have drunk to drown feelings of fear, frustration, and depression.”

I had no foundation or support in my family of origin. I soon followed the way my parents dealt with fear, I drank. Alcohol quieted these fears for a few hours but they returned when I sobered up, often worse. Then I had the original fear and additional worries about what I did while I was black out drunk. This cycle ran on fear, 24/7.

Step four enabled me to begin dealing with my fear and anxiety. This program gave me tools to cope when fear crept in. Even in sobriety I am still diagnosed as having chronic depression and anxiety. I still try to maintain my program to the best of my ability but I am puzzled as to why so much fear has come up again. Life on life’s terms was never going to be easy but my fear is a huge stumbling block sometimes. It could be the culmination of aging, health or the impending loss of family members. I know it is time for another step four, handing things over to my HP and daily prayer about fear in my life.

How have you dealt with fear in sobriety?

Thanks for letting me lead this week.

Lynn H.

“My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding. Amen.” – Big Book page 76

For me, this was a new relationship with my Creator. Prior to AA, I was very ashamed to take my “bad” to God. I felt ashamed and not good enough to take these things before my Creator. I also felt this way in my home growing up. This led to a lot of emotional dysregulation and confusion and also many spiritual blocks that prevented me from spiritual growth.

By the time I got to AA, I also had a very difficult time believing anything good was even in me. So, again, this approach that I am composed of both good and bad was a new thing for me. Gradually, through inventory, through living the program one day at a time, I was able to see that when I aligned my will with the divine will of my Higher Power, there was plenty of good not only in me but all around me.

On a daily basis, the seventh step prayer really helps set the tone for my mornings. I am able to take everything before my Higher Power and hand it over, freeing me to put all my energy toward seeking my Higher Power and seeing my Higher Power’s will for me. Which boils down to being of maximum service to HP and others, which AA makes really straightforward and simple in the approach of Trust God, Clean House and Help Others.

All of this together on a one day at a time basis has brought inner peace into my life and helped guide me in the process of clearing away the wreckage of my past. And clearing that wreckage has brought about restoration and healing in so many places in my life that I had accepted were to be forever dark and bankrupt. My kids are in my life today, my parents are in my life today, God is in my life today, amazing sober women are in my life today, love is in my life today and that is all thanks to this program for showing me the way.

I would love to hear of your experience with the Seventh Step Prayer and any of the ways the Steps led you to repair and restore what had previously been broken.

A very happy Mother’s day to anyone celebrating and a big hug to any of us who struggle with our memories and emotions today. Sending you all love and hope from Ohio.

Topic for the week: Step 5 “Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.”
Hello dear ones from our GROW community. I am Teresa S., a grateful recovered alcoholic.

As I get my tools ready, the Big Book and then 12 & 12, I ask my HP/God to help me with my thoughts and words so that they may help others. If you are new or returning, decide to believe those of us who have gone before you, even for one day or one hour; learn from others how to move toward a full and meaningful sobriety!

When I first came to AA, I did not come to help others. I came out of desperation to live and to see if this program could relieve my fears, my anxiety, my depression, my remorse and my anger. I wanted relief and I did not want to use alcohol anymore as the solution because it was not working and I was destroying my life and those around me. No other step provides the same kind of relief as Step 5.
Note: “If we skip this vital step, we may not overcome drinking.” Pg.72 BB

This was me: “the alcoholic leads a double life. He is very much the actor. To the outer world he presents his state character. This is the one he likes his fellows to see. He wants to enjoy a certain reputation, but KNOWS in his heart he doesn’t deserve it.”. Pg.73 BB

As suggested by my counselor, who was in recovery, I went to 90 meetings in 90 days. I found relief. I found a sponsor. Sober friends who understood my woes and sometimes laughed at them but never at me. I became willing to work the steps and when I got to Step five, I was taught how to admit to God, then to myself and then to another human the exact nature of my wrongs. I cried and cried and it all poured out from my written 4th step to the words coming from my mouth to the ears of another human being. I felt humiliated, ashamed and pitiful. Honestly, telling God and myself was easier because we already knew the truth.

The promises of Step 5 came true over time, over work, over being honest and willing. See them on page 75 of the Big Book! I found seven!

Others from the 12&12:
“We shall get rid of that terrible sense of isolation we’ve always had.” Pg. 57 12&12 I belonged! “It was the beginning of a true kinship with man and God.” Pg. 57 12&12

Then a BIG one for me: forgiveness. I could be forgiven and I could forgive. Just in the past six years of my sobriety while living here in Nicaragua I was given opportunities to help me truly understand, feel, know and live with forgiveness. “We’d be able to receive forgiveness and give it too.” Pg.58 12&12

Another promise of Step 5 is HUMILITY, “a clear recognition of what and who we really are, followed by a sincere attempt to become what we could be.” Pg. 58 12&12 I could no longer keep my past a secret. In Step 4 I looked. In Step 5 I admit the truth of who I was to another human so that I can change. “When we are honest with another person, it confirms that we have been honesT with ourselves and with God.” Pg. 60 12&12

Some have felt the presence of God for the first time during this step. I honestly cannot say I did. However, over time, and working the steps, and reflection and acceptance and attending meetings and being of service and being willing and honest, and trusting my HP/God, I clearly have become conscious of God as I never was before.That’s a lot of “ands”! It takes what it takes! 🙂

Finally, the last part of Step 5 that we cannot omit: “Returning home we find a place where we can be quiet for an hour, carefully reviewing what we have done. We thank God (of our understanding) from the bottom of our heart that we know Him better. Taking this book down from our shelf we turn to the page which contains the twelve steps….” Pg.75

Looking forward to reading your experience, strength and hope around Step 5 or anything else that is on your heart. Thank you for allowing me to share.

Wishing you blessings and promises of all kinds!

I kept asking myself “Why can’t the twelve steps work to release depression?” By the hour, I stared at the St. Francis Prayer … “it’s better to comfort than to be comforted.” Here was the formula, all right, but why didn’t it work?

Suddenly, I realized what the matter was. My basic flaw had always been dependence, almost absolute dependence, on people or circumstances to supply me with prestige, security, and the like. Failing to get these things according to my perfectionist dreams and specifications, I had fought for them. And when defeat came, so did my depression.

There wasn’t a chance of making the outgoing love of St. Francis a workable and joyous way of life until these fatal and almost absolute dependencies were cut away.

Because I had over the years undergone a little spiritual development, the absolute quality of these frightful dependencies had never before been so starkly revealed. Reinforced by what grace I could secure in prayer, I found I had to exert every ounce of will and action to cut off these faulty emotional dependencies upon people, upon AA, indeed upon any act of circumstance whatsoever.

Then only could I be free to love as Francis did. Emotional and instinctual satisfactions, I saw, were really the extra dividends of having love, offering love, and expressing love appropriate to each relation of life.

Plainly, I could not avail myself to God’s love until I was able to offer it back to Him by loving others as He would have me. And I couldn’t possibly do that so long as I was victimized by false dependencies.

For my dependence meant demand, a demand for the possession and control of the people and the conditions surrounding me.

While those words “absolute dependence” may look like a gimmick, they were the ones that helped to trigger my release into my present degree of stability and quietness of mind, qualities which I am now trying to consolidate by offering love to others regardless of the return to me.

This seems to be the primary healing circuit: an outgoing love of God’s creation and His people, by means of which we avail ourselves of His love for us. It is most clear that the real current cannot flow until our paralyzing dependencies are broken, and broken at depth. Only then can we possibly have a glimmer of what adult love really is.

If we examine every disturbance we have, great or small, we will find at the root of it some unhealthy dependence and its consequent demand. Let us, with God’s help, continually surrender these hobbling demands. Then we can be set free to live and love: we may then be able to gain emotional sobriety.

Of course, I haven’t offered you a really new idea — only a gimmick that has started to unhook several of my own hexes´ at depth. Nowadays, my brain no longer races compulsively in either elation, grandiosity or depression. I have been given a quiet place in bright sunshine.” -Bill Wison

I hit 11 years on April 8th, and I am going to be meditating/contemplating these words the rest of the month as to how I can proactively and effectively unhook from any and all unhealthy dependency so that I may fully experience what adult love is. If I am not growing, I am dying-no matter how much physical time I have.

Please share what Bill’s words invoke in your Spirit.

One of my favorite acronyms is one for faith: Finally Allowing It to Happen. For me, the dogged pursuit of faith was a driving force in my early recovery. My dogged pursuit of happiness had only resulted in my falling into alcoholism; once I was sober (or dry, shall we say), I was desperate to find something, anything, to replace alcohol. So began my quest for faith.

When I was young, I had a child’s faith, complete trust in my parents and in some invisible being I heard about in Sunday school that I was told I should believe in. As I experienced more of the world, as well as life in my family, that faith and trust began to erode. I went through the appropriate motions, getting confirmed in the church of my parents’ choice, doing everything I was told by my parents and teachers, but there was a disconnect between my beliefs and what I experienced. I held on to the notion that everyone knew better than I did, and if I just obeyed well enough, I’d be fine. But the harder I tried, the worse I felt. And the more I saw in the behavior of those I trusted, the more confused I was about right and wrong. When alcohol came into my life, all the confusion and false beliefs were cemented in place. Unknowingly, I had developed a faith in the very thing that was destroying me.

I remember once talking with my husband about the difference between persistence and beating your head against a wall. He pointed out that it has to do with dogma. I had to look that up to get a deeper understanding, and sure enough, dogma was the inflexibility and rigidity that had imprisoned me for so long. I was still in pursuit of something that I couldn’t quite seem to grasp. I had been in AA for some time, going through all the appropriate motions (where have we heard that before?), but true faith in a higher power was just beyond my reach. No matter how hard I tried, there was some undefinable distance between me and God. I just didn’t get “it.”

There have been times in my life that felt like the end of the world as I knew it, but each time something pulled me through and gave me something better (not that I knew it was better at the time…). When my dad died, I stopped drinking. When 911 happened, I started going to AA. When my mom died and the pandemic hit, I went into a period of doing nothing – I wasn’t depressed, or experiencing what I had known as depression, but I just wasn’t forcing myself to do anything. I simply let myself be. Now I see the gift in that period of time. I finally was able to let it happen. I experienced faith in a whole new way, but it wasn’t until I let go of the pursuit that it came to me. Let go and let God…finally!

Thank you all for the opportunity to chair this meeting. Please feel free to share on this topic or anything else that might be burdening you.

Hello ladies, my name is —-, and I am a recovering alcoholic and thank you all for attending this week’s meeting. Welcome to the newcomers and those who are celebrating a sobriety birthday in the month of March.

The topic this week is step 4 which is:
“Made a searching and fearless moral inventory”
For me when I read and talk about step four and often say that it was not a fearless experience. I can recall my first fourth step I did. The main theme of this step was focusing on my parents and what they did and ever little about what I did, said and how I interacted with them and others. It was the best I could do at that point in my recovery.

What is great about the 12 steps, traditions and concept is we continuously work the steps. Now the second time I  did my fourth step was much different because it was an intense experience filled with many different emotions and often felt a push pull with steps going forward then back and moments of feeling frozen in place.

It took time and guidance from the person who guided me through this step to realize that our founders knew we, I needed to conduct a thorough and honest examination of one’s (mine) character flaws and past behaviors, aiming to identify the root of our drinking as well as our personal struggles.

Once I “completed” my fourth step I started to see and understand that I was taking the steps to understand myself and my little kid as well as my behavior patterns of the past as well as the present. This was the “oh shit moment” where I saw that I my part, I saw how I continued to live in dysfunctional ways and it was hard to see but at the same time it was the turning point to also see I was not the only one. That I was not unique as I thought I was. The silence I carried with me was starting to break open and secrets were open which reduced their power over me as time passed and I continued to work the step and HP guidance.

I continue to gain understanding of myself by trudging the road to recovery.

It was and still is important to remember that this step is not about punishing myself for the past but owning the past, which then allowed me to make amends and learn and use healthier coping skills moving forwards. The past events, experiences (good, bad and everything in between) have made me who I am today. It has been a process for me like peeling the onion one layer at a time. Furthermore, step four showed me the good traits I had and that I was not all bad which is still a work in progress.

Thank you for listening and having me lead this week’s meeting. Please about your experience and thoughts about step four or what is on your heart this week.

Have a great day and week