Category Archives: 2018 Meeting Topics

Becoming More Efficient

This stood out to me last week in my home group Big Book Study:

“We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day “Thy will be done.” We are then in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity, or foolish decisions. We become much more efficient. We do not tire so easily, for we are not burning up energy foolishly as we did when we were trying to arrange life to suit ourselves.” pg 87-88 Big Book

What I really identified with was in much less danger of excitement…part.

When I was still drinking and thinking about a life of not drinking, I always thought “How boring! What do those people do?!? What do they look forward to??” I needed that “excited” feeling I got when I thought about having my first drink and what ever else was to follow.

When God got me sober in 2014, I was finally able to comprehend that I could actually live without drinking….that there were other things to do and get “excited” about. But, that isn’t a necessarily a good thing for me. I basically transferred my excitement about drinking into other equally unhealthy actions and behaviors. If there was nothing going on I could conjurer up ‘excitement” that my relentless mind fed me through thoughts. This new sober addiction to excitement, or I guess it was always there, would always result in havoc, drama and chaos in my life and in my home.

Did I know that at the time…no. Did I know that I was still in bondage to the drug of dopamine, adrenaline and cortisol that my body produces through drama and fear-no. Did I know that if I am obsessing over someone, trying to control them, fix them (which is playing God); that this creates strife, nervous energy, unrest, discomfort and dis-ease that is infectious and destructive for others-no.

When I went through the work again, I saw that AGAIN, I was the problem-UGH! I was a controlling, frighten, chaos junkie…even though I couldn’t see it because it’s easier to blame them instead. Excitement is dangerous for me. Either the thing that I am getting excited about will not meet my expectations and I will be disappointed, or I would create a resentment toward the person who got me excited and did not meet my huge expectations.

I clearly see when and how this started. When I was a young girl my perceptions and conceptions were just starting to form. My mom (not blaming her-at all, I just needed to understand why and where this started so that I wouldn’t repeat it) would say stuff like “Honey are you excited about this or that” and she would get excited….

I don’t think its natural to get excited over food or whatever my mom wanted me to get excited over. I just think she wanted to see me happy but instead what she was doing was feeding my dis-ease. When her excitement didn’t live up to my expectations I was disappointed and honestly pissed at her for building it up! LOL Then she would get pissed at me a say “why are you never satisfied!!” My brain wasn’t developed enough or equip to handle such “excitement”. Not to mention not being grounded in God or reality.

I know I have told this story to sponsees, or perhaps shared it in the group, but it sums up my life into my mid 20’s….

It was the night before my 7th or 8th birthday and I was about to take a shower and mom said…”when you get out I have a surprise for you!!!!” She would do a little dance and sing a bit just getting me all that more excited ( I now do this with my dogs, which makes them overly excited..which then makes me anxious even though I started it…lol.. I am working on not doing) So while I am in the shower my 7 year old mind is building this “surprise” into a huge event! I truly thought that I would get out of the shower and Chucky Cheese would be in the living room with all his friends to greet me and wish me a happy birthday! I had convinced myself of this reality.

SO, when I got out of the shower and saw the new Strawberry Shortcake pj’s laying there, that THAT was my surprise…I was livid!!! LOLOLOLOL! I wasn’t the type to hold back my disappointment and fury! I let her KNOW how disappointed I was and through a fit!! She then would say that I was crazy just like my dad and a spoiled brat…and so it goes. I wasn’t spoiled (just alcoholic) and she wasn’t necessarily doing anything wrong.

Most children don’t build stuff up in their heads the way I did… but I have a alcoholic brain so excitement is dangerous for me and my family. I know she picked up on my constant state of sadness as a child and that she was just trying to make me happy-instead it just helped to create a unsatisfied monster and more strife between us because of her reaction to my outbursts. I wasn’t a happy go lucky child-I was intense and worried, sad and nervous, irritable, restless and discontent….so excitement was just an accelerator.

Being disconnected from God in a unstable environment is when I created my maladjusted coping mechanisms to “get through” life. The same child like mind and defects that resulted from these maladjusted skills and thought forms, followed me into my teens and early adulthood. It took longer to grow out of I think because of my drinking and still being disconnected from God.

Now that I am reconnected to my Creator, not drinking, and aware of my defects, I don’t need “excitement” because I am content…on most days. It still ignites when I am in some sort of obsession, usually on Brian, setting him up to fail me because I am in some sort of fear…

So I call my sponsor, reach out to sponsees or newcomer, do some inventory, make some prayer, and I get grounded back into reality.

I am less likely to be drained and to drain others with my excitement when I am spiritually fit. When I am and grounded in my Faith and AA, I am way more efficient in my relationships, in sponsoring and my daily life.

Questions to group, pick one or all:

Where have you seen the dangerous and self destructive side effects of excitement in or out of sobriety? Do you tend to build things up, just to be disappointed? What patterns have you noticed that lead to self sabotaging? Please also share on how you stay spiritually fit and efficient and what measures you take when you see yourself slipping into excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity, or a foolish decision….

Thank you for the opportunity to Chair today!

Hilarie

Opportunity to be of Service

The timing of this opportunity to be of service couldn’t come at a better time because it’s also a very challenging one in my recovery. Funny how things can work out that way.

I have to be very honest with you all. I have been experiencing the pitfalls of longer term sobriety and have felt like a hypocrite. Intellectually, I know what the right things are to do; meetings, sponsorship, working with a sponsor and others, service, prayer, meditation and more.

Over time I have become lost and distant from f2f meetings. The tools of the program have been neglected including my connection with my Higher Power.

I have felt as though I have been in trouble and not understanding what’s going on.

Finally, in a counseling session, I realized all of the changes and losses that there’s been for me in my AA community. A number of key people who were a big part of my recovery here in VT have moved away including my sponsor. There have been others who’ve left for other reasons, and then there have been deaths of a couple of old timers whose absence is keenly felt.

I am fortunate in that my husband is also in recovery. He has his program and I have mine. He doesn’t nag me or try to tell me what to do but, he’s always there if I need him. I asked him where to start humbly realizing I needed help. He is a huge example of someone who talks the talk and walks the walk.

He suggested I go back to the basics. So, to start I have been getting on my knees in the am. I have been reading “How It Works” in the Big Book, and meditating for short periods of time. More action is needed.

I am so grateful because this is our sober weekend getaway. Every Christmas for the last few years we are fortunate to be able to go to E. Dorset, VT to Bill Wilson’s Inn. There we are submerged in AA. Just the surroundings alone bring me comfort and a feeling of serenity and peace.

There are meetings from tonight, into tomorrow and then Sun am that we attend. It’ like a shot of AA in the heart to help me move forward. I can’t afford to keep sliding back or to stay stuck in place.

I know that I can’t stay sober alone and isolated. I have to take responsibility and do whatever it takes to rebuild a community of women in f2f meetings, find a new sponsor locally, continually stay in contact with my Higher Power and remember the tools.

I don’t want to drink today but, I truly understand that our disease is insidious and always there if we neglect our program of recovery.

I feel as though I have rambled on but hope that there are those of you who can relate to what I have shared in some way. If you have any ESH that you would like to share with me privately please send to serenity9918@gmail.com. I would love to hear from you. Otherwise, as always, I look forward to your shares.

Merry X-mas and Happy New Year.

Love, Ruth F. DOS: 2/14/99

Christmas, and gratitude versus expectations/rights

I rarely drank over Christmas when I was a drinking alcoholic. Only once and that was a horrible time, needless to say. I made myself and my family miserable. I was a binge drinker so staying away from alcohol over the holidays wasn’t difficult for me, as I had grown up with fabulous memories of Christmas as a child, and then into my adult drinking life. It was a magical time of year– I’d whizz through the house until it was sparkling clean, every corner, don’t you know.. presents wrapped, visits made, and all very much centred around our son. It seemed like Christmas was the magical oasis in a year where the other 360 or so days were full of pain and chaos as a result of my alcoholism. Even when my husband and I split up {I got sober a year or so after we split up), it was still good, as my son would spend Christmas Day with his dad and Boxing Day became another Christmas Day for him with me. The spiritual significance of Christmas I felt to some extent too.

I celebrated 36 years of sobriety just last Tuesday. I’m so very grateful for that. I got sober upon turning 30 years of age, two weeks before Christmas… And I look forward to the season and celebrations every year since. That’s apart from the Christmas many years ago now when my young nephew was killed in a car crash. Christmas didn’t happen. But ever after, he became part of what made Christmas special. His memory very much is part of it in a good way.

The past two Christmases have not been so good– one involved an early stage breast cancer diagnosis the week before Christmas (cancer-free now and healthy). And last year, I spent Christmas alone (mostly by choice). Now, I normally live quite a social and busy life but I deeply value my time spent alone so I thought being alone at Christmas would be okay for me– it wasn’t! Maybe another year it might have been but there’d been a death in Oct (my ex) and then an ex-in law took her own life as well just three weeks later. Both my sons were affected deeply by all of this.. and for various reasons we couldn’t spend Christmas together (one lives in Peru, the other had to work).

Being alone over the holidays can be the most peaceful for some of you– you have shared that with me. And I thought that I would handle it well and actually enjoy relaxing and not having to be running around looking after others. But I drifted into self pity, resentment and, yes, sadness. I found out that me alone at Christmas didn’t work — not that year anyway–so this year I’d thought about helping out at a homeless shelter or somewhere like that but as it turns out I won’t be.

This year my son will be coming over again and we’re both very much looking forward to that. On Monday my grandson will be coming up for a few days. I’m excited about seeing both of them (haven’t since August). But I also know that as an alcoholic I can build pictures in my mind of how it should be . . .! Yes, expectations. And when I expect things to be a certain way, I often get a rude awakening!

If I stay grateful each 24-hr period I am given, living in the day and doing the next right thing, doing what I can to prepare but handing over the results to my Higher Power, then I’m on a winner! I can remain serene, and know that God is in charge of the whole caboodle. A few lines from Acceptance is the Answer in our Big Book tell me about expectations, and also ‘rights’. How many times did this scenario run through my head…. ‘but I deserve better than this… surely at my time in sobriety I should not be experiencing them not doing as I would like them to…’ LOL … :

My serenity is inversely proportional to my expectations. The higher my expectations of[ …. ] other people, the lower is my serenity. I can watch my serenity level rise when I discard my expectations. But then my “rights” try to move in, and they too can force my serenity level down. I have to discard my “rights,” as well as my expectations, by asking myself, How important is it, really? How important is it compared to my serenity, my emotional sobriety? And when I place more value on my serenity and sobriety than on anything else, I can maintain them at a higher level–at least for the time being. Acceptance is the key to my relationship with God today. I never just sit and do nothing while waiting for Him to tell me what to do. Rather, I do whatever is in front of me to be done, and I leave the results up to Him; however it turns out, that’s God’s will for me. I must keep my magic magnifying mind on my acceptance and off my expectations, for my serenity is directly proportional to my level of acceptance.

I realise that some of you reading this may not celebrate Christmas. Please share on expectations / gratitude about any day, holiday season or not. Do you have another holiday / season which figures big for you? And does the season impact on you whether you celebrate it or not?

Do you spend Christmas alone or with others? What are your suggestions, things that work for you, that you might pass on to others?

When I live in gratitude, I experience a peace that passes all understanding… no matter what is going on in my life. Share your gratitude list if you like!

Love and hugs, Louise

Decisions in Sobriety

When I was drinking and well into my early sobriety I was terrible with making decisions. I would generally either make impulsive decisions that would turn out to be disasters (i.e marriages, relationships, geographics, spending impulsively, quitting jobs I really needed) or I would be so indecisive to where I could not make a decision. I had neither wisdom, God, or sobriety to help me. I was running on self-will run riot. I did not pause or take time to think.

Our Big Book says to pause when agitated. (Page 87, concerning morning meditation).

I was a very immature 47 year old when I got sober and kids/immature people do not make the best decisions.

What changed? The program and steps of course.

I ask God for help with my life and for his will for my life. I have more confidence in myself and think I am a capable person now. Sometimes my decision is just to do the next right thing.

I try to have lots of gratitude for basic things like my home, my job, food. I try to “play the tape all the way through” so I can see future consequences of a possible bad decision. I try to think of others instead of just myself, tall order for this selfish alcoholic. I pray for extra help through the bad situations. I use “restraint of pen and tongue.”I don’t always have to chime in or say something. Life is still progress and not perfection but I feel like a lady now as opposed to the drunk I used to be.

I just love page 86-87 “On awakening…”in the Big Book which tells us how to handle our daily decisions with God. It even says God gave us brains to use.

Thanks so much for letting me share.

Suggestions

Hi! I’m Julie and a grateful alcoholic. Happy to be of service at the last minute this week.

For a topic I would like to suggest the suggestions!

“Make no requests in prayer for yourself only.

Never pray for your own selfish ends.

Select and memorize a few set prayers that emphasize the principles of the Steps.

Ask a priest, minister or rabbi about helpful books and prayers that emphasize the principles of the Steps.

Be quick to see where religious people are right.

Make use of what religious people have to offer. (p. 87)”

I thought when I came in that I had a relationship with God and I prayed for others.

What I realized is that I was praying more so for my own selfish needs.

I learned that praying, really praying, meant I had to learn how to. Listen to others. Follow suggestions on how to connect with the God of my understanding. Finally I had to put others before myself. Trust and have faith. I had to learn about God and aligning my will with Gods. Not the other way around.

Please share on this topic or anything that may be on your mind.

Julie K, 5/17/12

Tried & Tested Prayers

When I was first attending AA and beginning to put sober days together I was surprised when it was suggested that I try praying.

I had no reference point for prayer other than in the church of my childhood.

I quickly learned the Serenity Prayer to say at the end of meetings but only because I wanted to fit in. I was saying it by rote but with no meaning.

Then someone suggested I say thank you at the end of each day. Thank you for the roof over my head, the food in my belly, the clothes on my back. And to say it to whatever I thought may or may not be there. I began following this suggestion and found I was slept better! I didn’t think of this as a prayer back then but I do now.

Then I met the lady who would become my sponsor for the next 5 years of my sobriety. She talked about waking up in the morning and talking to god. She told me how she would sit at the edge of her bed and open her arms. I had no idea! I thought prayer was on one’s knees with hands together.

Today I’m open to learning from anyone and anywhere, ideas on ways to pray and words to say, ways to develop my conscious contact with the god of my understanding.

P.104-105 Step 11 from Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (https://www.aa.org/assets/en_US/en_step11.pdf) says…

“In AA we have found that the actual good results of prayer are beyond question…

All those who have persisted have found strength not ordinarily their own.

They have found wisdom beyond their usual capability.

And they have increasingly found a peace of mind which can stand firm in the face of difficult circumstances.”

Are there results you’ve had from praying? Do any of these experiences of wisdom or peace or strength resonate?

Are there any prayers or words that have been particularly helpful? Have you struggled with willingness to pray? Have you doubted prayer could work for you?

I went through one of the toughest things in my life and in my sobriety this year. I was given a suggestion to repeatedly pray just 3 lines of the St Francis / Step 11 Prayer.

It changed my experience of what was happening, it gave me a peace that could only have come from something beyond human, it enabled me to put others first but still look after myself, it opened my eyes and heart to the humanity in someone I’d had a difficult relationship with and gave me the strength to be of use to them.

The lines were these…

God, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted;
to understand, than to be understood;
to love, than to be loved.

At another incredibly tough time, a few years ago, I was shown how to pray by slowing down the words to say a single word at a time, with a big pause between each word, giving my mind time to feel the word.

I used to use this as a meditation, standing at my garden door, rocking my poorly baby, sometimes an hour at a time until he slept. I felt so alone and so helpless but praying in this way connected me at such a deep level with god, I felt safe and held and that I was being given the strength to get well myself and to be there for my baby.

It gave me such comfort in such a dark time that I knew no matter what came, god would be there for me.

At times of unwillingness to pray I find writing to god really helpful, just getting all my thoughts out.

I am so grateful to AA for showing me how to find a power greater than myself and for continuing to show me how to connect and hear the guidance I need to live a sober, useful, content life. At times it’s not necessarily easy, but it’s easier than drinking!

Thank you for letting me be of service.

The meeting is open for sharing, on the topic of Tried & Tested Prayers or for anything recovery related that you need or want to share.

In love and fellowship, Sophie.

Procrastination

My name is Christy and I am an alcoholic. Thanks for attending today’s meeting of GROW. My topic this week is Procrastination. I have certainly struggled, and still do, with procrastination in about all areas of my life. When I was drinking I would come up with grandiose plans of things to get done, crafts I could do, and places to see. But, I never got around to doing those things, because I was so tired and hungover the next day. Worse, was that I would make promises that I would never keep. Promises to my husband and my kids. I would tell them later we will do it or maybe. I thought that I needed that drink to let myself be free and be creative. When all I was doing was procrastinating and putting off being with my loved ones for a drink. My disease told me I was more fun and engaged when I was under the influence, when in actuality I was more removed from my family. My husband would tell me how removed I was from them, I isolated and was all about me.

I certainly don’t miss those days! AA has made me self aware and helped me find the true Christy again. I am very thankful I found AA and the fellowship. I am a new person, free to be me, more involved with my husband and kids. I am a crafty gal and I have so many new hobbies! I love my life, without alcohol. Thank you ladies for listening and fellowship!

The List and The Solution

This week I would like to share about the list of resentments and the solution to mastering them.

From the BB page…

We turned back to the list, for it held the key to the future. We were prepared to look for it from an entirely different angle. We began to see that the world and its people really dominated us. In that state, the wrong-doing of others, fancied or real, had power to actually kill. How could we escape? We saw that these resentments must be mastered, but how? We could not wish them away any more than alcohol. This was our course: We realized that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick. Though we did not like their symptoms and the way these disturbed us, they, like ourselves, were sick too. We asked God to help us show them the same tolerance, pity, and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend. When a person offended we said to ourselves, “This is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him? God save me from being angry. Thy will be done.”

When I first did a fourth step, I made a list. And when I did the fifth step my sponsor, at the time, helped me see my character defects. (I can see them a lot clearer today. Ha.) Today when I get my panties in a wad, my sponsor will send me to do a fourth step and then call her back. It’s easy for me to state my resentments. BUT it’s not so easy to look at it from a different angle.

I have to realize the people who wronged me are spiritually sick.

And to pray for them??!!

Seriously??

The holidays are approaching, and to be honest with you, many of the people on my list happen to be in my family (or my husbands family). Sometimes (ALOT) it feels impossible to see that they are spiritually sick and to pray for them. Especially my dad. It’s so hard for me not to blame him for things in my life. In the program, I have learned to set boundaries and to take care of myself. But sometimes in a single word or look that he gives—-a flame of anger can engulf me. So right now I am preparing myself. I am praying for him and my father in law (who I can’t stand). It’s really hard to pray for them –I don’t know what to say. I am setting time limits on family gatherings. I’m focusing on my husband and children and myself and what works best for our family.

I guess the last thing I want to say is that this stuff isn’t easy. But when I practice what is suggested, things tend to work out and I have peace instead of anger and anxiety.

Anonymity

I’ve been thinking about anonymity and all the different meanings it has had for me over the years in AA. At first, all it meant was that no one would know I was in AA, therefore an alcoholic. I was fearful about judgment and the stigma I attached, thinking it meant I was weak and/or defective.

After making amends and telling people I was in AA, I lost most of that fear. I have never has anything negative happen because someone knew I was a sober alcoholic.

In meetings and with sponsors I began to see anonymity in a different way. It had more to do with humility and my growing love for AA. I wanted to adhere to the traditions and respect the idea of being anonymous at any public level. I am not much of a social media person, but I think it is an area where many people question the bounds of being an anonymous member of AA.

Today anonymity means that I don’t disclose my membership in AA in any public way. I was on a vacation in Italy last month and the wine flowed. I was careful about alcohol (it was in desserts) and some people noticed that I didn’t drink. I’m careful in those situations because I’m never sure if it makes people uncomfortable. When I do disclose it, it’s always fine, but I hesitate to be totally transparent.

I wonder how others understand anonymity and how/when to share being in AA with strangers, in social media, in various groups, etc.

Practicing These Principles in All Our Affairs

I am so grateful to be alive and sober today. I have gone through a lot of things in sobriety which I have learned is part of life. I have learned that I am not “special” that every human being is connected and we are more alike than we think. Learning how to practice the principals in all my affairs and to do the right thing when no one is looking has been huge for me. The growth that has come from doing what I know in my gut has been “right” has been one of the greatest gifts of recovery. Recently I have peeled off another layer of the onion. For the past 2 years I have struggled with an issue almost non-stop and I just could not let it go, and it ended up coming out sideways in a lot of areas in my life. I knew the entire time that the answer would come and that eventually I would grow though this and I feel like I finally reached a new level of acceptance. The answers are always in the steps and just because we are doing everything right doesn’t mean life “works out” sometimes.

“God is everything or nothing what is our choice to be?”

I am so grateful to be able to practice honesty dependability and transparency in my everyday life, thanks for letting me share.

On Awakening

On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives. Under these conditions we can employ our mental faculties with assurance, for after all God gave us brains to use. Our thought-life will be placed on a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives.

In thinking about our day we may face indecision. We may not be able to determine which course to take. Here we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or a decision. we relax and take it easy. We don’t struggle. We are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while.

What used to be the hunch or the occasional inspiration gradually becomes a working part of the mind. Being still inexperienced and having just made conscious contact with God, it is not probable that we are going to be inspired at all times. We might pay for this presumption in all sorts of absurd actions and ideas. Nevertheless, we find that our thinking will, as time passes, be more and more on the plane of inspiration. We come to rely upon it.

We usually conclude the period of meditation with a prayer that we be shown all through the day what our next step is to be, that we be given whatever we need to take care of such problems. We ask especially for freedom from self-will, and are careful to make no request for ourselves only. We may ask for ourselves, however, if others will be helped. We are careful never to pray for our own selfish ends. Many of us have wasted a lot of time doing that and it doesn’t work. You can easily see why.

If circumstances warrant, we ask our wives or friends to join us in morning meditation. If we belong to a religious denomination which requires a definite morning devotion, we attend to that also. If not members of religious bodies, we sometimes select and memorize a few set prayers which emphasize the principles we have been discussing. There are many helpful books also. Suggestions about these may be obtained from one’s priest, minister, or rabbi. Be quick to see where religious people are right. Make use of what they offer.

As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action. We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day “Thy will be done.” We are then in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity, or foolish decisions. We become much more efficient. We do not tire so easily, for we are not burning up energy foolishly as we did when we were trying to arrange life to suit ourselves.

It works – it really does.

We alcoholics are undisciplined. So we let God discipline us in the simple way we have just outlined. But this is not all. There is action and more action. “Faith without works is dead.” (from “Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 86-88)

I have always enjoyed this passage. For me, it encapsulates our AA morning ritual.

When I read it, it reminds me that my answers and solutions are right there, with my higher power. I surrender my will and my life to him each morning. I ask him to guide me and show me my next right action.

The time I spend in prayer and meditation are always time well spent.

How does this AA passage aid you in your sobriety?

Have a blessed day!

Sharing

Hello, my dear sisters in sobriety! Thank you for this opportunity to chair a meeting. As I was fishing for a topic, this is what came up for me:

It seems to me that secrets are about the only things (besides mushrooms) that grow in the dark. Secrets, wrapped up in shame, hiding under denial, festering in isolation, begging for a drink to keep them under wraps…What are my secrets today? Apparently I still have a few (!) — I’ve been going through a pretty difficult time, but have I shared about it? I have been going to f2f meetings, but I haven’t been opening my mouth. And I have been absent from GROW for quite some time. I get into that vicious cycle of not sharing regularly, and a week turns into two weeks, which turns into a month of not even checking in. Meanwhile, my secret shame is doing push-ups (just like my alcoholism) and starting to tell me things like, “You might as well drop out of GROW,” and other, worse things, which, experience has taught me, sooner or later will lead me to the alcohol watering hole.

Luckily (coincidence? I think not) I had signed up to chair this week — Something is keeping me connected to GROW…and committed to growing. The higher power, I believe, is doing this for me, in spite of my vicious mind. I have been shown my primary purpose — to stay sober and help another alcoholic. How to do that? HOW, the first one being Honesty, which takes courage, and courage takes faith, and faith takes letting go and turning it over, which gives me the strength to be Open and Willing to connect to other alcoholics by sharing whatever is going on with me. I know a drink is waiting for me to close up again and dive back into the depths of old thinking.

You know what hit me as I was reading back over this? I said, “I’ve been going through a pretty difficult time,” and it finally dawned on me — why is it difficult? I’ve been trying to control everything again! D’oh! So that’s what has been going on with me! All I had to do was put my problem into words (and the particulars really don’t matter) and share it, whether in writing or at a meeting, and the miracle of being restored to sanity can happen. And I didn’t have to drink over it!

Thank you all for letting me (and encouraging me to) share.

Gratitude for GROW and A.A.

For this week’s meeting, I wanted to express my gratitude for AA and this meeting in particular.When I first got sober, I joined three women’s groups online. I had heard meeting makers “make it” and since I wouldn’t be able to make a meeting every day, I wanted to find online meetings.

After some time, I dropped one that didn’t really seem to be focusing on the solution and good quality sobriety. That’s ok. Hopefully it works for other women.

And now, I’m ready to drop another for lack of participation. It’s a bummer but it is what it is. Maybe it’s time for me to find a new online group.

I just read somewhere that “Gratitude is nothing more than a decision to look at problems with a fresh perspective.”

AA has been the best thing that’s happened in my life. Aside from my husband and two girls. I don’t attend the same meetings face to face as I did when I first got sober. Some I have outgrow and then when I moved I wanted to find new ones more convenient to my home and my new schedule.

The problem or challenge I’m facing is lack of participation. But I didn’t want to focus too long on that. Instead I realized just how grateful I am to Grow.

I share that I can’t stay sober on my own. I don’t want to try. But as a working married mother of two, I rely on online A.A. to supplement my face to face meetings.

I’m grateful that this group here at grow is so solid. Such great sobriety. So many women truly living in the solution and willing to share their esh with the group. I’m also grateful to those that share off topic when they need to do so. I know I have. And in doing so, someone has always reached out personally sharing their own experience, strength and hope.

I hope we all continue to do so. My life is so good as a result of working this program of recovery.

Gratitude is an action and I want to share it with you and everyone I come into contact with.

My sponsor has me saved in her phone as grateful Julie. I don’t ever want to go back to how it was being so flipping ungrateful.

AA in Two Words

As Bill Sees It
September 30
A.A. In Two Words, p.271

“All A.A. progress can be reckoned in terms of just two words: humility and responsibility. Our whole spiritual development can be accurately measured by our degree of adherence to these magnificent standards.

“Ever deepening humility, accompanied by an ever greater willingness to accept and to act upon clear-cut obligations-these are truly our touchstones for all growth in the life of the spirit. They hold up to us the very essence of right being and right doing. It is by them that we are enabled to find and to do God’s will.”
Talk, 1965 (Printed In Grapevine, January 1966)

Wow. I love this short and powerful message. Wouldn’t the world be a better place if everyone showed humility and responsibility in their life? It starts with us. Today. Almost all our problems can be fixed with a little humble pie and taking responsibility for our part. I know I need a dose of each every day so I am reminded I am no one else’s life manager but mine. God willing, I continue to do the right thing today and tomorrow. Making the world around me a better place, one day at a time. It starts with me. It starts with you. AA in two words: humility and responsibility.