Author Archives: De W

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