Sense of Urgency...

There has been in our fellowship a misconception for years.  This has to do with the working of the steps.  We have been told you it took you years to get sick, it will take you years to get well.

This is not true.  It is documented over and over in the big book and in our other literature how the first people did this deal.

The man that started our fellowship in Chicago worked the steps with Dr. Bob in an afternoon.  Bill Wilson worked the steps in a matter of days.  This is repeated over and over in our early history.

The main reason people stop doing the steps is because we let them "stew" in their own juices. They turn inward and the ego starts to rebuild. This has been my experience from actually taking people through the steps.

The people that go through the steps quickly and start working with others as soon as possible get sober and stay sober.  The ones that don't, don't.

We have become so arrogant and so self important that we think if we take our time and dot every I, and cross every T, that we can earn a spiritual awakening. 

A spiritual awakening is a gift from God, period.  We don't earn it, we don't get it because we were more thorough than the other guy.  We get it by having the humility to follow the simple directions laid out in the book.

Our program is not about believing the steps will work. It is not about desiring to do the steps. It is about taking the action required of us, to clear out the things that block us from God.

Recovering from this hideous disease is about doing what we don't want to do, when we don't want to do it, and reaping the blessings from it.

What is that blessing?  We get to go out and help God's kids for free and for fun.  We get to be of service to God and the people about us and somehow in the midst of all of that our lives change for the better and forever, as long as we continue to seek and do His will on a daily basis.

So if you hear someone telling you it takes years or even months to be happy, joyous and free, don't do what they did...  Find that guy with a few weeks, months, or years that is happy joyous and free, and do what he did.

My God is not on a timer today.  I don't have to spend years doing penance.  I simply have to seek Him and He will reveal Himself to me, and I will be rocketed into a dimension of existence far better than I have ever known...

Power...

I was recently at a meeting.   I heard an old timer (30 years plus) share about still recovering from this disease.  I listened to him share about being one drink away from his next drunk. He shared about it taking so long to get better, about how miserable he was for the first few years.  He was only trying to help. He was sharing what he had to share.  And I love this guy, but I was struck by the effect this had on the newcomers, their body language and their faces said everything.

Then I heard a guy with just over a year share about being recovered.  I listened to him share about having a spiritual experience two weeks into this deal.  He shared about God changing everything.  He shared about helping others and the joy of working with another drunk.  The new guys were all ears they had hope on their faces.  The guy that was sharing was sharing hope.

Remembering where I came from will not keep me sober guys.  The fear of being one drink away from a drunk will not keep me sober.  Again I am depending on myself to train by diseased brain away from the drink with my diseased brain.  My dependence must come from a Higher Power.  Without Him I am nothing.  With Him I have the Power to recover from this disease and stay recovered. More importantly I have the Power to help others.

I am not powerless over people, places, and things.  I have a connection to the Creator of people places and things. I have His Power at work in my life.  I can do anything that He wants me to do, provided I keep close to Him and seek to do His will.

This program is not about powerlessness.  It is not about being careful not to achieve to much, because that might make me stumble.  It is about using all the gifts that God has given me to help others.  It is about Power and nothing but Power.  Not mine but God's...

Are we all just one drink away from a drunk?  Sure... But that is not what I am focused on today.  I am focused on seeking God's Will and doing God's Will.  He will provide what I need.   It doesn't matter to me if that involves sweeping floors or running a corporation, what matters is that it is God's Will and not mine that is important.

My God is an awesome Power, the Power to help others and to live, love, and laugh. But I can't use that if I am going to stay holed up in an AA meeting and focus on the problem.

I'll stop with this from the big book; "Follow the dictates of a Higher Power and you will presently live in a new and wonderful world regardless of your present circumstances."

Now that is Power!!!

Who "we" is...

How can we read "rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path" and then talk about everything but the path to the newcomer.  Guys, the "we" the big book is referring too is not you and me.  It is the first one hundred recovered men and women. 

This is what we hear.  My sponsor said sit down and shut up.  My sponsor said 90 meetings in 90 days.  My sponsor said I must take it slow.  Sorry guy's the big book is not referring to you, neither you or your sponsor is a "we".  "Our Path" is referring to the program of action described in the big book.  It is referring to the 12 steps. 

The only thing we have to offer is a path to a spiritual awakening as a result of working the 12 steps.  That is what my sponsor showed me.  My sponsor says "have you prayed about it". My sponsor says "God's got you"  My sponsor wants me to be dependent on God, not on him.

I hear people share that they have to remember how bad it was. My book says I can't "bring into my mind with sufficient force the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago".  I need to remember what it was like so I can identify with the next newcomer, but I am not under the illusion that my previous misery will keep an alcoholic of my type sober for 5 minutes.

Lack of Power was my dilemma, I have Power from the one who has all Power today.  Apart from Him I am nothing. Connected to Him I have the Power to do His will and enjoy this life...

Why shouldn't I laugh, I have recovered and been given the Power to help others...

Ask

 I know some guys that are going through a rough patch right now.  Unsure about decisions to make in their professional career or in personal relationships.  My suggestion to them is the same.  Ask God in your morning meditation what you can do for the man who is still sick. 

This sounds lame.  But my experience is when I do that answers come, maybe not at once.  But the phone will ring during the day or someone will call me I will get the opportunity to help some one.
And then the funniest thing happens, when I get done helping someone else my problems either are greatly diminished or I perceive them to be. Peace comes over me and I am able to get through the next "crisis".

I am sorry if you don't believe this, but if you don't it is probably because you haven't tried it.  Contempt prior to investigation? 

If I stay in the problem trying to figure it out then I just make it bigger and bigger.  My job is to help others.  God's job is to take care of me...

Meetings

You will all be happy to know I have changed my stance.  Meeting makers do make it!!!  Yep you heard me.  For four years now I have had a meeting with God every morning and almost every evening, with several scattered throughout my day.  The morning meetings take place on my knees.  A lot of the others take place in my truck, sometimes I speak and a lot of the time I listen.

Sometimes I come away from those meetings feeling like God and I are on the same page.  Sometimes I come away feeling like God doesn't even know who I am.  But how I feel about the meeting doesn't seem to matter much, because most of the time I am happy, joyous and free. And even when I am not happy that doesn't seem to matter because God goes ahead and demonstrates what He can do in spite of me anyway.

How I feel, and what my crazy old brain tells me, on any given day isn't nearly as important as what I do. Having these meetings is one of the things I do today.  Helping others is another, carrying out my God given purpose is another.

So you will all be happy to hear, Meeting makers make it!!!  I would also suggest about 900 meetings in 90 days!!!

I promise you, if you will make all these meetings, then when you get to an AA meeting, you will share hope and truth with the newcomers.  You will cross the line from a taker to a giver.  You will go on a rocket ride into a 4th dimension.  And after that you will never "feel" the need to waste our valuable AA meeting time with the details of your day or your worn out war story.  And if you do feel the need you won't do it because it will be against your principles...

Love y'all,

Jerry

The Message still works...

I was reading in the Foreword to the Second Edition the other day... Don't ask me why, I just hadn't read it in awhile and some stuff leaped off the page at me. "Sixteen years have elapsed between our first printing of this book and the presentation of our second edition.  In that brief space, Alcoholics Anonymous has mushroomed into nearly 6,000 groups whose membership is far above 150,000 recovered alcoholics".

I immediately checked and in foreword to the 3rd edition it no longer mentions recovered alcoholics and starts to mention the diversity of the fellowship, more of the same in the 4th edition.

Now I am all about diversity, I love diversity, but it has very little to do with alcoholism.  The stories in the back of the book changed as well.  We started to celebrate the differences in the members and their different experiences.  I was taught what brings us together is a common problem and what keeps us joined is a common solution.

I hear it in meetings all the time, I will always be recovering, meeting makers make it, tell us about your problems...

I tell my guys, I am sorry you are experiencing the problems you are going through.  But if you work these steps and get connected to God, He will solve all your problems, and you will recover from this disease...

I get the feeling some people think that it is arrogant or prideful to identify your self as a recovered alcoholic.  They are missing the point.  I am recovered and I didn't do it.  God did it.  And as long as I take the actions that are the maintenance of my spiritual condition, He will continue to do it...

But it is not my opinion, it is what the book says...  The only thing we have to offer the newcomer is Hope...  I can't fix their marriage, or their legal problems, or any of the other outside issues... But what I can do is show them how I got connected to this Power that can fix all that stuff...

Guess what else that Foreword to the Second Edition said.... It said that the New York stock broker realized that in order to save himself he must carry his message to another alcoholic...

Sounds a little different than just showing up at another meeting to tell my war story one more time, or gripe about my day...

The last thing I have to say is this.  That same section of the book describes a 75% recovery rate... How is the watered down message being carried in so many groups today working? 

The real message of AA has not stopped working it is changing lives...  The problem is so many of our members either don't know the message or refuse to carry it...

See you in the trenches... I love you all...

Old Ideas

I just returned from a business trip in Villahermosa Mexico.  I had some wrong ideas about the place.  But I have been in the program long enough to know I should at least try to attempt to have an open mind.  I was in a little fear and was kind of dreading it, but I went anyway.

What happened was I met some wonderful people who I am sure will be my friends for along time.  I was amazed at the culture, at the happiness of these people, but most of all at the humility and the kindness shown to me.

I left there with a sense of how powerful God really is and how He works miracles in each and everyone of our lives, if only we allow Him to. "The Realm of the Spirit is broad, roomy, all inclusive; never exclusive or forbidding to those who earnestly seek.  It is open we believe to all men."

Yet again I am amazed at the Power of my Creator when I open my mind and depend on Him.

Tomorrow, I have been blessed with this precious way of life for 4 years.  I take no credit for that.  All I did was take the only choice available when alcohol had beat me down to the point of no return.  I did a few simple things and my life has been changed forever.  Not by me, but by you guys showing me how to get connected to God.

Now I simply try to help other folks get the same connection.  I traveled through Mexico City on my trip and it was pointed out to me there are 22 million people that live there.  My mind instantly went to; that means there are 2.2 million alcoholics.

What can I do about that? I can carry this message of hope to the next person that wants it.  They in turn will carry it.  Will it help the folks in Mexico?  I have no idea, that is none of my business.  But it is God's will for me to do and I will continue to do it as long as there is breath in my body.

I live my life one day at a time, but the deal I made in the 3rd step was that I decided to turn my will and my life over to the care of God. It's there and it will stay there.  Never say never they say... But the same they told me not to get my sobriety date tattooed on my arm, they told me not to sponsor anyone till I was sober at least 6 months, they told me just come to meetings, and they tell me I will never be recovered.

Thank God showed me how to let go of all of the old ideas, even theirs.

I love my God today, along with His children, and I love you guys, all of you even the theys...