Basic Text

When I start analyzing and interpreting the simple instructions in our basic text, then I am really just back to trusting my brain instead of God's power.  That didn't work out to well for me.  Our text book is a set of written instructions on how to live and act.  I don't need to analyze it and I don’t need to interpret it, I just need to do it.  I can read the book everyday till I die, I can engage in great debates, I can sit around with the older members and we can intellectualize.  That will not make me happy, joyous and free. And it won’t treat my alcoholism.

 

Taking the actions, working the steps, helping others to work the steps and get connected to God, that is what I am supposed to do.  That is where God wants me. This is what treats the selfishness and self-centeredness of my disease. Around me hundreds of people are dying from alcoholism, and I have the absolute arrogance to sit on my butt and debate what Bill meant by this or that.  How selfish and self-centered can I be.  I used to think I could use my knowledge to find God. I used to think I had to go off by myself and be on the river to find God.  In other words I searched for spiritual experiences. Not anymore.  Do I still like to get by myself on the river absolutely.  Is God there? Absolutely.

 

But the fact of the matter is my next spiritual experience, the next big one will probably come when I am with someone, that I think won’t ever get this deal, going through the steps, when I don’t feel good.  When I would rather be anyplace else.  And then something will come flying out of my mouth that I didn’t even know and then I will see it.  That little spark in his eyes.  And I will end up experiencing the Power of God that day.

 

People are dying all around me from this disease.  Do I sit and watch them and judge them while they slip away?  Or do I reach out of my comfort zone, do I take them by the hand and look them in the eye and tell them the truth.  Do I carry the mess or the clear message of Hope.  Do I worry about how that may make me look to others around me or do I trust the 6^th sense that I have been promised that is being developed inside of me.  Do I pat them on the butt and say keep coming back?  Or do I take the time to qualify them, to show them what it means to be a diagnosed alcoholic.  Do I proclaim truth or do I offer opinions?

 

Back in my sponsorship lineage there was a man named Dr. Bob. He said keep it simple.  He helped over 5000 alcoholics in 15 years.  Someone told me tonight my goal should be to die sober.  SCREW THAT… My goal is to live happy joyous and free everyday… How do I do that? By doing my best to take the actions described in our book.  By trying to help others for free and for fun. I didn’t get a personal relationship with the Creator by studying about Him, or even by trying to discover Him.  I learned what little I know by working a spiritual program of action…  And I learn more everytime I open my heart to one of His children, especially when I don’t want to.

The River

God’s Will has always been taking me somewhere.   When I make a conscious decision and take the appropriate action to flow with the current, things always work better. 

When I get sucked into the whirlpools of selfishness and self-centeredness, I end up bashed against the rocks of anger and fear.  I harm myself and others with my violent struggles. This causes myself and the people around me a great deal of pain and interrupts my journey.

I see thorny vines of emotional, financial, and physical comfort.  I struggle to reach them mightily with all of my effort, using all of my self will, only to grasp them and watch them slip away.  For they are not the Solution, they are fleeting and temporary at best.  Even if I manage to cling to one, it simply comes un-rooted and slips away.

Yet, still I struggle, still I fight, the tension is mounting, the fear grows exponentially! I try to stand on the shifting pebbles on the bottom of the river.  I try to desperately to gain a purchase on the slippery rocks. I try to stand on the backs of my fellows, I try to raise myself, at their expense.  They retaliate, and yet again I am wounded, battered, bloodied by my relentless urge to propel myself against the current of God’s Will.

I shake my fist in defiance.  I make one more feeble attempt to fight. Again I fail, the result, more pain.

The only way to get out of that vortex of destruction is to let go.  I have to let go of the old ideas to which I have always clung.  I have to cease fighting anything or anyone.  I have to float…  And when I do the loving, caring, hand of my Creator, usually in the form of a sponsor or a dear friend, simply plucks me from the whirlpool, and sets me back in the gentle current of His Grace.  

The water is warmer here.  My wounds are healed, my strength is renewed, and my serenity is restored.  Then and only then can I be of service, God can then use me to help rescue the next drowning man, and he in turn helps another.  And so we journey.

To stay on that course takes some action.  A turn here, a kick there.  Some prayer, some meditation, and always being there when someone reaches out for help.

The rewards are immense, the life is joy filled.  Staying on course isn’t always easy, there will be more rapids and whirlpools ahead I am sure.  But there are more of us now, it is harder to get swept away, when one is surrounded by the Power of God.  When it is manifested in so many ways, and it’s evidence is overwhelming.

I thank God for the River of his Grace and my fellow travelers…

 

Jerry

Amazing...

Got hit with some pretty devastating stuff this week, personally and professionally.  Naturally I chose to do what we always do which is to retreat into resentment, fear, self-pity, and all the rest.

Fortunately, I have some people very close to me who are not a bit afraid of calling me on that crap.  So I broke out the old pencil and paper, did the inventory, did the prayers, read it to another recovered person, listened to their input.  Turned it over to God and moved on to doing the next right thing.

I am amazed at the Power and the Grace of God when I even make a small effort to take the right actions.  My mind is renewed, and the things that were blocking me from the Sunlight of the Spirit, no longer are.

God is everything or else He is nothing!!!  Today I choose everything...  I am happy, joyous and free once again...

Awareness...

God has given me a gift through this program. 

I have witnessed terrible, tragic things in just my short time working with alcoholics and addicts. 

I know what it is like to watch people you love die.

I have experienced the heartbreak of watching someone turn away from the gift offered to them by sobriety.

I have seen others lives changed completely, by the Power of God.

But the one thing, the most important thing, the only thing of value I have today is the consciousness of the presence of God.

He has opened my eyes, He has given me the ability to see His Power displayed in a thousand different ways, by a thousand different people. 

The age of miracles is still with us. We see them and experience them everyday.

The brief periods of time when I get to experience His vision without the scales of pride, prejudice, and judgment, are so illuminating, so precious, that I stand amazed.

To keep experiencing this, I must take action, I must turn away from self and outward toward my fellow travelers, and I must do this in all areas of my life.

I wish for you my friend, whoever you are, these little glimpses of peace and joy.

And for my friends that are no longer here...

I promise your memory will not die, your stories will be used to help the next person.  You did not die in vain.  God is everything, and nothing, absolutely nothing happens in this world by mistake.  But I suppose you realize that already....


BB pg 16  "An alcoholic in his cups is an unlovely creature.  Our struggles with them are variously strenuous, comic, and tragic......   Faith has to work 24 hour a day in and through us, or we perish....
Each day my friend's simple talk in our kitchen multiplies itself in a widening circle of peace on earth and good will towards men....

Join us, take your rightful place in the trench, we need you...

Passion

"Practical experience shows that nothing will insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. It works when other activities fail."  BB pg 89

Can someone please explain to me how we got from that to "you shouldn't sponsor anybody till you have been sober at least a year, you can't chair a meeting till you have been sober for at least 6 months.

OK, nobody did so I will.  It has been passed along by a bunch of people in our fellowship that were taught in some treatment center that they will always be recovering, that they should stay away from their triggers, and that if they get too hungry, angry, lonely or tired they might drink.  Just try your best to not drink today.  It will be OK just keep coming back. 

I would bet that a good percentage of these people aren't even real alcoholics.  Yet, they rise to power in our groups and make these rules because the real alcoholics are either out in the trenches doing the deal, or trying to practice "love and tolerance." Right???  Nope.... The answer is self-centeredness and fear.

We alcoholics are a sensitive lot.  We let this stuff grow and fester in our fellowship because it might be uncomfortable to call people on their BS and tell them the truth.  People might not like us.  Love and tolerance, absolutely!  I need to love people enough to tell them the truth.  And tolerance for me is talking to the guy on the phone, one more time that just can't get it.  Tolerance is loving someone out when you oppose their entire lifestyle. 

My God does not ask me to tolerate evil, He does not expect me to sit idly by, while someone goes on a rant about some BS in a meeting, while the newcomer is dying because he can't hear the truth.

All I hear in AA is how tough everybody used to be back in the day.  What a bunch of bad asses we all were.  Yet we let some one hijack the meeting because we want to sit back and timidly sip our coffee.

I know confrontation is scary.  I get it.  But we are walking hand in hand with the Creator.  Where is the passion, where is the willingness, the desperation of a drowning man?  So let me get this straight; when we are dying of this disease and trying to get sober we don't let anything stop us.  But when it is the other guys life that hangs in the balance, we just sit by and let him hear a bunch of error.

Stand up guys and gals.  Stand up, learn the book. Speak it, live it, get passionate about it.  If you hear error, correct it! It is our job, if we won't do it who will?  Who cares what people think.  What does God think?  That quote from the big book says "intensive work".  Sometimes things just get intense in this deal.

I don't know about ya'll but with the passion for this way of life comes the Happiness.  With the zeal of passing it on comes Joy, and with the boldness to proclaim the Truth comes Freedom.

God Showed Up....

Do you remember in the Forrest Gump movie when he says "and just then God showed up".  Then the storm hit.   That is how it is sometimes there is no doubt God is here right now in this meeting, or in this moment, no doubt...

But then again sometimes it is in more subtle ways, the stillness of a calm lake, or the gentle breeze of a summer morning, or the gift of a sunset.  Sometimes it is in the glory of a million stars, and other times in the joy on a grandchild's face..  I can see God in my wife's smile, or in the glimmer of hope in an alcoholic's eyes.

The whole point in all of this is;  God just doesn't show up.  He is with me all the time, yet my awareness of this great fact comes and goes.  The more I take action, the more I do what I am supposed to do even when I don't want to, the more I try to help another one of God's kids for free and for fun, then the more aware of God I become.

Sometimes I feel Him, sometimes I am aware of Him, and sometimes I am not.  Doing the maintenance that my spiritual program of action requires, no matter how I am feeling is the only faith I know today.  I have experienced the spiritual truth that if I do the next right thing then it will all turn out the way it is supposed to.

Those wonderful feelings I get, those glimpses of God I perceive are the reward for faith.  They just happen as long as I stay close to Him and perform His work well. 

Luckily my God rewards persistence and perseverance, not perfection.  If I could define God I wouldn't, I wouldn't change one thing about Him.  He may just be perfect...

Action

And action is the answer to all my problems today.  When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place or thing - some fact of my life -unacceptable to me and I can find no serenity until I take the actions required to help someone else and deflate my ego, one more time. Nothing absolutely nothing happens in God's world by mistake.  Until I took the actions required to connect with God and let Him treat my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I continue to take the actions required to fit myself to be of maximum service, I cannot be happy.  I need to concentrate not so much on what other people are doing, as on what I am doing.  When I straighten out spiritually the mental and physical will follow. Then and only then will I be capable of living life on God's terms.