Author: webservant

I sobered up in a small group in West Louisiana with six folks who were sober from 2 to 32 years and who believed that everything they needed to know to stay sober was contained in the first 164 pages of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.  They also believed that “sponsorship” was essential and they quickly assigned a woman who had been sober ten years to be my “temporary” sponsor.  She remained  my sponsor until she died.  She told me to show up at her house every Wednesday at 2:00 p.m. and we would “work” together.  I had no idea what “work” meant, but I soon discovered that “working” meant that I read the Big Book to her and when the book instructed “action,” I was to take that “action.” If I was unwilling to take the “action,” I was to leave and return when I was “willing.”

There is a lot of “action” in Chapter Six!  Chapter Six contains the instructions for taking Steps Five through Eleven.   Instructions for taking seven of the twelve Steps are laid out beginning on page 72 and by page 88 I am ready to go out and “help others.”

My first sponsor said that Chapter Six contained “the nuts and bolts” of the program.  She called the first three Steps the “Realization” Steps, Steps Four through Nine the “Clean Up” Steps and Steps Ten, Eleven and Twelve the “Growth Steps.”  My gratitude that I walked into the Harbor Group of Many, Louisiana is boundless.  They told me, quite frankly, that all AA had for me were these 12 Steps and that the fellowship alone could not and would not keep me sober, but could keep me afloat until I did the “work” and that the “work” would set me free.  Because they all seemed to have done “the work” and seemed “happy, joyous and free,”

I believed them and with more than a little trepidation, became willing to do the “work.”

In Step Five I deal with all the “mind debris” of my life.  I find all the things that I have done that have haunted me and told me I was a “bad person.”  I take all that out of my mind’s storage locker admit it to my Higher Power and myself, then tell  it to “another human being.”  I took my Fifth Step with that first sponsor and we discussed everything: my guilt, shame and regret.  In Steps Six and Seven I became ready and willing to have all my character defects removed, I then asked my Higher Power to remove them.  I learned that I do not have to pick and choose what is to be removed or when.  I simply try to live in an attitude of “patience, tolerance, kindliness and love,” which, for me was a tall order.  In Steps Eight and Nine I “clean up the wreckage of my past” by making a list of all I have harmed and speaking to each one, setting things right and making financial restitution where owed.

Step Ten changed my life.  I learned to take a “spot” inventory.  If I am at odds with anyone or anything in my life I find my part in it, ask for help and set it straight by making amends.  An unfailing commitment to Step Ten enabled me to change my behavior.   Step Eleven gives instructions for asking for help each morning and reviewing my actions each evening.

In one sentence:  Chapter Six lays out a course of action that has given me a “life beyond my wildest dreams.”

BETTY H.

But what about the other victims of alcoholism?

What about the scars of those family members?

As alcoholics, we know of the heartaches and distress that our families have experienced because of the disease of Alcoholism. What a debt of gratitude we owe to these first women of the program now known as Al-Anon. Many of us have family members in Al-Anon presently.

Lois Wilson, the wife of Bill Wilson and a co-founder of The Al-Anon Family Groups, was born Lois Burnham on March 4, 1891 at 182 Clinton Street in Brooklyn Heights, New York. She lived to be 97 years old.

If you have ever had contact with Al-Anon, then you have been the benefactor of Lois Bumham Wilson. Lois W., as she often called, was the wife of AA Co-founder Bill Wilson. Her obituary reads: “As Lois W., she was revered as ”the first lady of Al-Anon,” and as a living reminder of the beginnings five decades ago of the Alcoholics Anonymous self-help movement.”

In 1951, Bill suggested that Lois create a program for the family and friends of alcoholics so they might receive similar help to that of the members of AA. At the age of 60, and with some reluctance, she followed Bill’s suggestion. She wanted to pursue some of her more artistic activities and her gardening. Nevertheless, Lois’ strong sense of service outweighed her personal interests, and at the end of the 1951 AA General Service Conference, she gathered the delegates’ wives and local family groups’ members to discuss the formal organization of Al-Anon. Al-Anon now has over 29,000 groups worldwide and a membership of over 387,000. Recent anonymous sources say that worldwide membership of Al-Anon is estimated now at about 500,000.

Sources too numerous mention here give homage to this amazing woman. Lois W. is an inspiration. Here are just a few of the quotes from her life:

“Hearts understand in ways our minds cannot.” 

“Focus on what you can do, then do it with all your heart.”

“The world seems to me excruciatingly, almost painfully beautiful at times, and the goodness and kindness of people often exceed that which even I expect.”   

Lois Wilson was one of the 20th century’s most important women. Her life was, in some ways, shadowed by that of her husband, but more recently, she has been brought to light for her unique contribution to humanity. Her tireless efforts and vision made Al-Anon the strong organization it is today and are the reason why it continues to attract members through its message of hope and healing. Truly, there are no words that encompass debt of gratitude we owe to the selfless people like Bill and Lois that brought us together as members of AA and Al-Anon. For those interested in learning more about her, Mrs. Wilson wrote an autobiography, ”Lois Remembers,” first published in 1979.

—Nils J.

 ~For more information on the Al-Anon Family Groups, please visit the website at www.al-anon.alateen.org

Step Five

Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs

So there we were…coffee in hand, sitting across from each other at the park. I was staring awkwardly off into the distance as my sponsor was waiting patiently for me to begin. The moment had come for me to clean out my closet and expose years of resentment, fear, and poor moral behavior. I had spent several hours compiling an honest and thorough fourth step in the preceding couple of months, and though there was delay on my part, I was finally done! I was relieved and excited to begin step five, but that was somewhat shadowed by fear and insecurity for what I was about to disclose to this man that I had only known for six months. I couldn’t help but ask myself, “Is this really necessary to stay sober?” Then, without dwelling on that brief moment of doubt, I did what I had been doing since my first day of sobriety. I trusted in the process, I trusted all the people that came to AA before me, I trusted my sponsor, and most importantly I trusted that God would watch over me. So, I began reading off my resentments one by one. First the person/place/institution that I resented, why I resented them, how it affected me, and last, what my part was in the resentment. Followed each time by a brief discussion between my sponsor and me about how I was selfish, fearful, or concerned in matters that were not my business. It almost made me laugh to see how many things I resented that had no real bearing on my life and how much confusion and chaos goes on in my head on a daily basis. It really helped to get a new perspective on my thinking. Next, I read all of my fears aloud. I thought that I might be judged or that my sponsor would laugh at me, but to my surprise and comfort, he shared with me most of the exact same fears. We began talking about them and he helped me realize that my fears were not real, but just created in my mind. Last, I read several pages of my moral conduct inventory starting as early as I could remember in my childhood and finishing with that day. There were several things in my inventory that I was not proud of, but after my sponsor shared some items from his inventory, I knew I was not alone. When we finished I was physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted!  However, spiritually, I felt very connected to God and was overcome by a huge sense of relief. After a prayer and a hug, my sponsor sent me off to complete my sixth and seventh steps alone in the mountains overlooking the valley. As we parted ways, he said to me, “Welcome to AA, most people don’t make it this far.”

–Jeff F.

The language on the first page of Chapter 5 is dire.  It is filled with ominous worlds like ‘Will not completely, constitutionally incapable, naturally incapable, chances less than average, suffer, grave emotional disorder’. Whew!

These grave phrases may seem melodramatic to a non-alcoholic but to me they described the final years of my drinking perfectly.  I had been constitutionally incapable of being honest to myself, let alone my loved ones.  I suffered from grave emotional and mental disorders. I was a mess and I wanted out.

As I continued reading, the chapter summarized that I would need to hold nothing back. This was it. I could continue acting as I had and slowly dying, or I could face the music and live as the program of Alcoholics Anonymous is laid out.

That is the beauty of Alcoholics Anonymous – the words read in the Big Book and uttered by other alcoholics in meetings made sense to me because I had lived those words.  Those stories were my story.   To outsiders they may be interesting, amusing and horrific, but to me they felt like pages ripped out of my diary.

This chapter opening may read like a downer to a person who has not suffered the ill effects of alcoholism, but it doesn’t to me.  I feel it summarizes what I had been through, the rough and utter hopelessness of being an alcoholic in the midst of my disease.

It also offers hope.  If I am willing to take the ‘easier softer way’ of Alcoholics Anonymous, I will have a life beyond my wildest dreams. For me this means I like myself, I am sober.

-Mike W.

Without it we have nothing!  As I began to put together the words that would make up this piece, I didn’t know exactly what it was I was going to say or even how I would say it. However, after a plethora of prayer & a maelstrom of meditation, I began to believe that I would be able come up with something that, by a recent experience, would indeed give someone else a bit of something which I had been completely out of for so long.

After having distanced myself from my father through irresponsibility, irrationality and inescapable fear, I was unable to get/cause myself to reconnect with a man whom I admire a great deal, love very much and have disappointed more than my share. I felt as though I had begun to exist within a circle of light that, as time passed, began to grow even darker and ever smaller. I felt like there wasn’t any and there was little chance of it there ever being any as the days became weeks, months, years and eventually decades.

Fear frolicked in my “magnifying mind” as I created scenario after scenario of what his reaction might be, words he might say and how, if at all I would be able to handle myself after doing something I’ve needed/wanted to for so long now. (As if I was handling it well at all.)  LOL

Daily a desire to re-establish a contact burned within me. Despite this, however, I remained unable (unwilling,) to bring myself to initiate contact with the man who brought me into this world (with my mother’s help). Friends and relatives would suggest that I just pick up the phone (the 100 lb. one) and call him.

My Mom (divorced 40 yrs.) would always ask me if I had called him. More than once I had told her I planned on calling him as soon as I was finished talking with her. (Actions speak louder than words) Yet she too had been left wondering about me for almost two years and knew that she’d believe it IF she SAW it!

It seems rather ironic to me that I had volunteered for this “assignment” (writing this – not calling him) when in fact I had little of it but knew there was some so I agreed to do my best at getting it done.

Christmas Day, at about two o’clock, I called my Mom to wish her a Merry X-Mas and to ask her if she had gotten the poem I had sent via e-mail to her earlier that day. I’d been unable to get and send her even a card so I did my best at putting my love for her into words and BELIEVED she’d appreciate it. She, after some resuscitation of her “dinosaur” tablet, said she thought it was there and after a short time she read it aloud back to me. After she was done reading it she said “Thank you it’s adorable. Have you called your father yet?”

Once again I told her that I planned to (remember God shows his sense of humor when I make plans) as soon as we finished our talk.

This time however was different. I DID CALL!!! Lo and behold he even answered this time. I’d called him a few weeks earlier (believe it or not), and come to find out he was out of the country. Here I thought he just didn’t want to speak with me (he would often tell me “that’s what you get for doing your own thinking).

After wishing him a Merry X-Mas and telling him how much I loved him I asked him how the weather was in Huntington Beach on Christmas. He said he didn’t know ’cause he was out at his brother’s house in WVC. I asked him if he had the means to come pick me up from Fellowship Hall and he said yes!  WOW!

After enduring more than twenty years of being afraid to tell my own Dad that I was in fact gay he began to tell me that his uncle “PAT-sy” was also gay. He said he didn’t give a damn if I was gay, straight or what have you. His ONLY concern was that I was happy being who I really was!

Wow! What a relief! Just as it was as I first came into A.A. I had little of it if any, now by the grace of God I have more HOPE than ever.

I am an alcoholic who happens to be gay & when ANYONE anywhere reaches out for help I want the hand of A.A. to be there for that I am responsible.

Alan B.

A drunk is lying on a bed in a hospital.

A doctor is sitting beside the bed.

The drunk wails in earnest, “…a wave of depression came over me. I realized that I was powerless, hopeless, that I couldn’t help myself, and that nobody else could help me. I was in black despair. And in the midst of this, I remembered about this God business…and I rose up in bed and said, ‘If there be a God, let him show himself now!’ Tell me doctor. Am I insane, or not?”

Fortunately for Bill, and A.A., the doctor was Dr. Silkworth. Very possibly, the future of A.A. hung on the doctor’s answer to that question. “These people do not want to do the things they do. They drink compulsively, against their will.” One of the early drunks whom Dr. Silkworth treated, a big husky six-foot man, dropped to his knees, tears streaming down his face, and begged for a drink. “I said to myself then and there, this is not just a vice or habit. This is compulsion, this is pathological craving, this is a disease!”

It was there that Dr. Silkworth made the first of his indispensable contributions to A.A. He knew, by insight, what no amount of medical training can give a man; that what had happened to Bill was real, and important.

“I don’t know what you’ve got,” he told Bill, “but whatever it is, hang on to it. You are not insane. And you may already have the answer to your problem.”

The encouragement of the man of science, as much as the spiritual experience itself, started A.A. on its way. Although he died on March 22nd, 1951, Dr. Silkworth is yet with us. Because of his profound personal modesty, disarming gentleness, his unassuming skill, he accomplished his daily miracles of medical and spiritual healing, which continue in every room where two drunks meet. He was a prodigious and relentless worker, having spoken with over 51,000 alcoholics. This gentle doctor, with his white hair and soft blue eyes, was a man of immense personal courage. He went much farther than merely encouraging Bill’s faith in his spiritual experience; he saw to it that Bill was permitted to come back into Towns Hospital to share his discovery with other alcoholics.

Today, when “carrying the message to others” has become a very respectable part of an effective program, it is easy to forget that carrying the message undoubtedly found its genesis in Dr. Silkworth’s gentle hands.

Our technique has been mellowed and refined by the wisdom of experience. We know that the blinding light and overwhelming rush of God-consciousness are not necessary; that they are indeed very rare phenomena and the great majority of recoveries among us are of the much less spectacular, and lean toward the more educational kind.

Why did he do it?

The answer to that is the answer to Dr. Silkworth’s whole career: he loved drunks. Early in his career, at a time when alcoholism was almost universally regarded as a willful and deliberate persistence in a nasty vice, Dr. Silkworth came to believe in the essential goodness of the alcoholic. He loved drunks. But there was nothing in the least degree fatuous or sentimental about that love. It was an almost surgical love. There was the warmest of light in those blue eyes, but still they could burn right through to the bitter core of any lie, any sham. He could see through egotism, self-pity and similar miseries we drunks so cleverly use to hide our fear and shame. All this he did, while insisting rigorously that recovery was possible only on a moral basis; “You cannot go two ways on a one-way street” he never preached, never denounced, nor criticized. He allowed you, rather, to make your own judgments. “It’s a gift,” he would say.

Dr. Silkworth not only had vision, he gave vision.

Jeremy B.

“Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or A.A. as a whole”

Because of Tradition Four, each group can be autonomous. This means that each group has the right to run a meeting in any format that they wish and because of this if you explore enough meetings I believe you can find one that is right for you. Salt Lake has about 55 meeting a day of Alcoholics Anonymous. Most meetings I have attended are similar in format. Some meetings start off the meeting by having someone read from the big book, most meeting’s last an hour and then usually end by the group circling up and saying the serenity prayer. Although this is the majority basic format for most meetings I have attended, it hasn’t been for all.  I found comfort in a young peoples meeting. It was a meeting that majority of my friends did not like, but it was a meeting that I appreciated and attended regularly. The format was structured different than that of my home group, it was more rambunctious and I loved the free spirit of the young alcoholic. Just because a large portion of people I knew did not like this meeting did not mean it was harmful to AA as a whole.

My home group is a Twelve and Twelve step study meeting. The group reads through the Twelve and Twelve and then discusses the step that was just read. The second Friday of the month the group reads then discusses the tradition that corresponds with whatever month it is.

If you’re new to Alcoholics Anonymous and haven’t found a meeting that’s right for you, I encourage you to seek out other meetings. We have beginner meetings, traditions meetings, meditation meetings, young people meetings, discussion meetings, open meetings, speaker meetings etc. And if you still haven’t found a meeting that is right for you, I encourage you to take advantage of this tradition and start your own meeting, format it any way you’d like. But please keep in mind the rest of the traditions.

Damian T.

For me, the Fourth Step is not just a list between the pages of a well-hidden journal, but the Fourth Step is a continuous, yet imperfect practice of empathy. Although I completed an exhaustively detailed Fourth Step, one that extended back to childhood events that had occurred before I had acquired the language to articulate them, and extended forward to fears of impossible and distant somedays, new fears and resentments—or seemingly new configurations thereof—arise on a daily basis.

In my Fourth Step, perennial patterns emerged, a consistent calculus of character defects, which are not the result of my uniquely dark soul, but are merely human. And, when resentments emerge, as they so often do, I must remember that other people, too, are human, and try to extend to them the same tolerance, pity, and patience that has been so cheerfully and gracefully granted to me. When I am actively practicing the Fourth Step, I need to look at other human beings, in all their fragility and fallibility, and think, “ You must feel a pain that I, too, have felt.” We are told that we must ask ourselves in what ways we are similar to others, where are we to blame? Although I might not identify with someone else’s particular action, or in other situations, I might feel blameless, I can identify with the entrenched insecurities, the deep emotional wounds, and the fears that gnarl us and cause us to make the mistakes that I once thought only I could make.

I remember reading my Fourth Step to my sponsor—in my backyard, at coffee shops, at her kitchen table—and what I remember most are not the things I told her, but how she gently empathized with nearly every item in my inventory. And how what once felt so sinister and secret no longer separated me from others. If she could identify with what seemed to be the worst parts of me, perhaps I could learn to identify with others. The cruelest thing I could ever do is to disregard the emotional complexities of others, thereby denying them their humanity. And to truly be human is to empathize with everyone, absolutely everyone.

Tasha M.