Category: Lifeline

“Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.”

Earlier in my recovery I was told that Steps 10, 11, and 12 where the ‘maintenance steps”. I’ve come to understand that they really are the “acceleration steps”. I fumbled around with 1 through 9 learning how to implement the spiritual principles behind them. Now I get to implement all those principles in all areas of my life always and in all ways.

One of the biggest concepts that I have received from continually taking my inventory and continually practicing the principles of this program to the best of my ability is what it talks about in the 12 x 12. That is the “spiritual axiom that every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with us.”  When I first read that I could not comprehend it at all. When I was drinking I was not only the victim of the world, but I knew the entire universe was out to get me! Through working this program and some very good sponsorship I now know that you can’t hurt me, period! That doesn’t mean that I’m not going to be hurt, it just means that when my feelings are hurt I know full well that it’s me doing it to me. Which is good news because if it really was you I would be totally up a creek, no hope whatsoever. I’m not responsible for your actions, what I am responsible for is my reaction to your behavior. That I can do something about.

I used to think that when I got through the 12 steps I would never get angry, upset, fearful or disturbed. What planet would that be? Certainly not this one! What I have discovered is that I no longer get as insane over things. I’ve discovered that I can get angry at something or someone, pause before reacting and deal with the situation in a much calmer, civil manner. I can then look at my anger, discover the underling beliefs that I’m holding onto and heal them.  With the help of my Higher Power I can see and therefore experience life differently.

We are such blessed people to have gone through the things we’ve gone through. Not only to say that we’ve survived but that we have found a program, a way of life that really does work. It continues to amaze me that the spiritual principles of these steps have no limits. The only limits they have are the ones I put on them by my unexamined concepts and beliefs.  This step gives me another tool to look at every concept or belief that I still have that stands in the way of my usefulness to God and my fellows.

I remember when I first saw the 12 Steps of recovery. They were the most foreign sounding concepts I had ever heard. Today they are a way of life that brings me the joy, peace and happiness that I wanted from the very beginning. That’s what I wanted the alcohol and drugs to do for me, and at times they did bring a certain amount of happiness and joy. But it was always fleeting and shallow. What I have today is an unshakable foundation for life.

~ The New Yorker Group
48 W Market St , Salt Lake City
Fridays 6:40am

“Good service leaders, together with sound and appropriate methods of choosing them, are at all levels indispensable for our future functioning and safety. The primary world service leadership once exercised by the founders of A.A. must necessarily be assumed by the Trustees of the General Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous.”

Concept Nine is about the leadership of A.A. Some members of A.A. may think that since A.A. has a very different structure than other organizations there are no “leaders” in A.A. Nothing could be further from the truth! Leaders in A.A. are those who, through their actions and their example, inspire us to follow them. It is true that no one can lead if there is no one who will follow them.

In A.A. the service structure rests on the dedication and ability of the General Service Representatives – those people we choose to represent our groups as G.S.R.’s – then on the committee members and Delegates. These are the link between the group conscience and our world services.

At the General Service Conference the Delegates, acting as the effective voice of the group conscience, choose the General Service Trustees who form the General Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous. This Board is entrusted with operational leadership and oversight of A.A. World Services and the Grapevine.

Where do these Trustees come from? The Areas choose the candidates for Regional Trustee and Trustee at Large and submit the names through their Delegates. Sometimes these nominees are chosen based on personal and professional accomplishments, but most often they are chosen based on their record of service within their groups, districts and areas. As GSR’s and Area Committee Members when we choose a nominee for Trustee we are participating directly in choosing the leadership of Alcoholics Anonymous!

What about those “Class A” trustees? These are non-alcoholics who volunteer to serve A.A. on our General Service Board. They, too, are nominated from within the fellowship. These nominations most frequently come from Area Delegates who have learned of their unique qualifications and willingness to serve. These are most often members of professions with whom A.A. cooperates (medical, legal, financial, or religious leaders) who have demonstrated their willingness to lend their time and talents to A.A.

Trustees serve for a limited term, as do all the trusted servants of Alcoholics Anonymous. Therefore, there is always a need for continuous action in providing our fellowship with good and effective leadership. Our future effectiveness depends upon developing ever-new generations of leadership. This spirit of rotation ensures that A.A. leadership will not become stagnant and will continue to reflect the true group conscience.

This is the bottom line – our leaders carry the effective conscience of the A.A. groups! It is our responsibility to provide them with the information and support that will enable the group conscience to be expressed throughout Alcoholics Anonymous.

Yours in service,

Mickey H.
Past Delegate, Panel 49, Utah Area 69

It was my first drunk that I found how I could fit in. I didn’t exactly like the way that I felt getting drunk at twelve years old; dumb and clumsy. But what I loved the most was that I was drinking with older kids who used to harass me and make fun of me for being younger, smaller and poor.

That’s how the addiction started for me. Of course I had fun and enjoyed partying like everyone else. But early on what I loved the most about drinking and partying was how it positioned me socially. Back then when I drank the girls that normally wouldn’t have anything to do with me were now suddenly flirting with me and treating me like one of the cool guys. The tough kids I wanted to be like were the sons of bikers. They would share their booze and drugs with me, give me rides in their muscle cars and bring me along for drinking induced illegal activities.

This type of drinking continued all throughout my teenage years and well in to my twenties. But eventually fitting in just wasn’t good enough for me anymore. My drinking started moving in to a completely different level. I found I got a lot of attention for being the crazy guy, the badass, the stud, or the lady killer. I wanted to be the Fonz of punk rock.

I was no longer satisfied with blending in with everyone else. I wanted to stand out by becoming a monster that no one would mess with. And I did just that. Mysteriousness, danger, street cred and status, all became the construct of my drunken identity. The hardcore punk legend in the making was taking place and all it took was for me to keep drinking. Because, when I drank I was dangerous, obnoxious, loud and crude and the fearless fighter. Every time I drank something inside of me would trigger an expectation that whatever I did would have to be that of legendary proportions. Yep, that’s how delusional drinking made me.

Early on my punk rock circle of friends gave me a nickname fitting enough for my Mediterranean and Irish lineage, and my lust for scrapping and chasing women. But this was all just a front I created in order to protect what I was really hiding – the real me.

After more than twenty years of living this destructive alcoholic life and creating a lot of heartache and pain, I was done. My drinking was out of control and I needed it to stop. I came to believe that I had no idea who I was anymore.

The one place I found unconditional acceptance was in an AA meeting in January 2010. After all the years of the drinking that which altered my perception of how I fit in the world, I didn’t need to qualify myself with any of you. It was in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous that the only thing I needed to have for qualification – was the desire to stop drinking. I knew my destructive behavior was primarily a symptom of my alcoholism and that when I drink I make very bad and dangerous decisions.

It took some time for me to really get comfortable in sobriety, so I gravitated to the recovering drunks who shared common interests as I. My first sponsor loved film and Rock ‘n’ Roll, which we would talk passionately about after meetings. I started bonding with other women and men in AA and becoming more focused on long term sobriety. The psychic change that is talked about in the Big Book was apparently working inside of me as I started caring about other people and their passions and desires.

I searched for over 30 years to be a part of something much greater than myself. In search of my own secret society, an underground of working class women and men who have a common bond that unites us all. I have found that in Alcoholics Anonymous. When I use to guard the hardcore punk scene so passionately from those less worthy of its existence, I have to share with others what makes me part of this fellowship. But I have to earn my AA chips to be able to do that. And that is exactly what I did.

I made my first AA meeting I went to my home group, and that’s also where I met my sponsor. I went to other meetings, and took suggestions from my sponsor once we started working the steps. I did a thorough 4^th and 5^th step, and completed working the steps. I’ve been working as a sponsor to other alcoholics since March 2011.

In the last two plus years of recovery I have learned to love and accept myself for not only who I am, but also for what I have survived to get to this point in my life. The rugged exterior has slowly cracked and crumbled away, revealing a man who has learned to love again, and to also accept love in return. As a result of working the steps, I have learned to forgive myself and also the persons, places and principles that I blamed for so much of my pain and anger.

Today I am free from the anger and resentments of my past. My life is much different now; peaceful and quiet. I work on a daily basis to maintain that freedom with a lot of help from the force in my life that keeps me sober, and also being grateful for the promises and rewards that I have today.

~ C.A. Salt Lake City

“Alcoholics Anonymous Should Remain Forever Nonprofessional, but Our Service Centers May Employ Special Workers”

Written to protect us from ourselves, the Traditions reflect the collective problem solving experience during our fellowships first dozen years. In the 60 plus years since they were proposed then adopted, none have ever been changed. What held true then holds true today.

Bill W., says in his essay about Tradition 8 in the book Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions; “Freely have ye received, freely give.” In the next paragraph Bill reminds us, “Almost from the beginning, we have been positive that face-to-face work with the alcoholic who still suffers could be based only on the desire to help and be helped.

Tradition 8 guides our financial responsibilities telling us that Twelfth Step work is never to be paid for. As A.A. members representing the A.A. program we are all volunteers and the only expertise we claim is our own experiences as active alcoholics and our individual recovery through the practice of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. This one-on-one sharing is the basis for our fellowships existence and the key to the spiritual experience of one alcoholic relating to another alcoholic, thereby saving two lives.

The Twelve and Twelve also defines SPECIAL WORKERS as professionals or paid employees who make Twelfth Step work possible. Someone has to sweep the floors, answer our phones, edit and produce our literature and “man the AA lifelines.” None of these paid workers are considered to be professionalizing Twelfth Step work. Their jobs are to make Twelfth Step work possible.

In our Home Group none of our members are paid for the work they do. Someone sets up the chairs, someone lays out our literature display, someone provides our coffee (out of their pocket, not group funds), someone pays our rent and keeps our books, someone attends business meetings and provides reports and all are volunteers. The rent we pay does help pay for the clean, climate controlled, facility in which we meet. Those paid employees make Twelfth Step work possible but in no way do they professionalize Twelfth Step work.

A wise oldtimer once remarked, “The Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous often provide just enough rope for us to hang ourselves.”

Monte S.
Sunday Morning Serenity
Ogden, Utah

The Trustees of the General Service Board act in two primary capacities: (a) With respect to the larger matters of over-all policy and finance, they are the principal planners and administrators. They and their primary committees directly manage these affairs. (b) But with respect to our separately incorporated and constantly active services, the relation of the Trustees is mainly that of full stock ownership and of custodial oversight which they exercise through their ability to elect directors of these entities.

Concept 8 deals with the manner in which the Trustees of the General Service Board discharge their obligations and delegate their executive function to its two subsidiary corporations: A.A. World Services, Inc., and the A.A. Grapevine, Inc.  The Trustees are the guarantors of good management of A.A. World Services, Inc. and the A.A. Grapevine, Inc. The Trustees of the General Service Board meet this daunting responsibility by electing the Directors of these service arms, a part of whom must always be trustees. The executive direction of these functions is embedded in the service corporations themselves, rather than the General Service Board. Each corporate service entity should possess its own bylaws, its own working capital, its own executives, its own employees, its own offices and equipment.  Thus the Trustees are not burdened or distracted by the little details and endless questions which arise daily in the routine operation of the General Service Office or the publishing operations, including the Grapevine.

When this concept was written, Bill emphasized that an early mistake of the General Service Board was trying to run the service functions directly.  The result was “too much concentration of money and authority.” The board must devote itself almost exclusively to the larger questions of policy, finance, group relations and leadership. The board’s attitude must be that of custodial oversight.

Concept 8 has served us well since 1962. But much has changed in the financial picture the last 60 years.  The separate service corporations of A.A. World Services, Inc. and the A.A. Grapevine, Inc. are facing huge challenges in this area.  This separation has, to date, allowed us to avoid the concentration of money and authority. We have placed our reserve funds with the Trustees, and divided our total working capital between A.A. World Services, Inc. and The A.A. Grapevine, Inc., each entity having its separate executive.  Maintaining this separation may not be enough to meet the challenges we now face.  Concept 8 may be in need of a change.  A plan to change our separately incorporated structure (introduced by Ward Ewing, Class A Trustee) will be submitted to the 63^rd General Service Conference.

As we write this article, 93 Delegates, 21 Trustees, our A.A.W.S and Grapevine Directors along with the General Service Office and Grapevine staff members are all working hard at finding a “needful change”. We pray that their efforts are fruitful.

Shirley and Mike O.

Past Delegates
Panel 51 and Panel 55 respectively

Step Eight – “the beginning of the end of isolation.”  For this alcoholic, this was the adventure step. This was the step that would build “the best possible relations with every human being….”

When my sponsor “suggested” that I create a Step Eight list, I thought “no problem for me.”  As a trial attorney I made a good living at making lists:  Lists of witnesses’ lists of facts; lists of exhibits. Step Eight, so I thought, would be a “no brainer” rest stop located somewhere between Step Seven and Step Nine where I could kick back and go on cruise control.

As is usually the case, I was blindsided with a “two by four” reality moment while attending the Monday night Step Study meeting of the Men’s Sugarhouse Group. It was pointed out by one of the old timers (Stan H.) that we make a list of “all persons we had harmed” and be “willing to make amends to them all.”  That meant that I was not going to get by making a list of “selected” people of my own choosing. The wreckage of my past had already set the agenda. I just needed to be willing to put those who I harmed down on a list. A tall order for this alcoholic.

“What an order”, I thought.  “I cannot go through with it.” But in my reading of Doctor Bob’s Nightmare I came to realize that Step Eight was a necessary adventure that I would have to “thoroughly” take if I wanted to live a sober, happy and useful life.

What did my sponsor say?  “Do not be discouraged.”  You have all the resources you need at your disposal:  God (as you may understand Him), the Big Book, the Twelve and Twelve, a sober sponsor who believes in attending meetings, and the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. Little did I know, that I had at my disposal the best of the best tools for one’s sobriety tool box.

This making a list of “all persons” I had harmed would require me to list Uncle Sam, and my law firm.  As an attorney of some experience, I did not use a gun or knife to harm others. Worse, I betrayed the trust of others and sacrificed my integrity which itself faded as my alcoholism progressed.

Before launching into my new Step Eight adventure I consulted with my wife of then twenty plus years with respect to the Uncle Sam and law firm amends.  After a year of sober deliberation my wife and I made one of our best decisions: I made my amends to Uncle Sam and my law firm.  Those amends led, predictably, to the loss of my job and sanctions from the Bar Association which suspended my license to practice law for a time. I lost my job.  We lost the house, a lot of money and a lot of other “stuff.”  But the family stayed together and a stayed sober.

I worked as a law clerk for several attorneys, some of whom I had previously hired or mentored. What started as a forced feeding of humble pie resulted in a feast of gratitude. With the help and care of God, my sponsor (Woody W.) the A.A. Fellowship and many lawyers and judges, I became a lawyer in good standing.

Today I am a member of a law firm which seems to be a better fit. My wife is the firm receptionist.  We have stayed married for forty four years and continue to learn, love and laugh together.  She is my best friend. My son is one my partners.  I also have a daughter who is, in her own right, a very accomplished attorney. Together we take on the representation of several clients each year who cannot otherwise afford to pay for legal services. So far, we are having a most rewarding experience. How good is that?

I wish good luck and God speed to all as you continue the Step Eight Adventure. Pick up the tools in your sobriety tool box.  As my sponsor would tell you: “Suit up, show up and keep your eyes open for the next miracle to come your way.”

~ Sugarhouse Men’s Group
3280 East 3900 South, Salt Lake City
Mondays & Fridays 8:15pm

I got active in Public Information to give myself something to do other than be self-absorbed. I was welcomed at the District, PI hadn’t been active there for a while. I read the workbook and chose the tasks that didn’t seem too complicated or inconvenient. I began taking literature to hospital emergency rooms, asking the charge nurse where I could leave AA literature. I was always welcomed and felt AA was well received. I began to have a sense of usefulness.

I started talking about my experiences to people, home group members, sponsees, anyone I thought might find it interesting, and hopefully, inspiring. I’m still puzzled that this arm of our service is so unpopular.

A new sponsee was listening to me go on about how useful I felt when I delivered literature, how it’s impossible to guess how many lives could be changed by this work. She rolled her eyes and said, “How hard can this be? Give me a packet and I’ll drop it off at the hospital.” I gave her some pamphlets and explained how to approach the desk, what I said and where I left the literature. I asked her to call me after she delivered it.

Later that evening, I got a call. She said, “Oh my God. I can’t believe what happened. I went in like you said, went to the charge nurse, asked her where to leave the literature, she told me, I put it down and walked out the door. Once outside, I burst into tears. I realized I might have just saved someone’s life.”

It’s impossible to guess how many lives are affected by the simple act of leaving an AA pamphlet in a public place. It’s not so impossible to guess what happens for those who do the work. If only one person gets to experience the freedom from the bondage of self as I have as the result of carrying our message through Public Information, I would consider that a great success. If no one else but me has that experience, I would consider that a great blessing.

~ Wendy W.

“I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.”   -Albert Schweitzer

Volunteer service opportunities exist that match up with any skill set and time schedule a member may have.  As a volunteer in service I can experience benefits that I don’t know exist until I discover them as I do the job!

Our Twelfth Step is the basic service that AA’s Fellowship gives; this is our principal aim and the main reason I am in service.  Therefore, an AA service is anything that helps us to reach a fellow sufferer ranging all the way from the 12th Step itself to a phone call and a cup of coffee or at AA Central Office to keep the phones answered and the schedules flying off the shelf.  The sum total of all these services is our Third Legacy.

Service work is a vital part of A.A. life.  In A.A. we call it service, the rest of the world calls it “volunteerism.”  Volunteerism is as American as apple pie.  In the earliest days we had barn raisings and quilting bees in which we helped others get what they needed.

When I was growing up each member of our family of five children was expected to “help others.”  It was called “noblesse oblige,” which meant that those who have much must help those who have less.  Pretty much like A.A. – those of us who have benefitted by the service of others are expected to “pay it forward.”  Truly a small price for the gift I have received!

The volunteerism I did as a child taught me to look beyond myself and understand my place in the community.  Today the service I do in A.A.  is a meaningful activity that enhances my sobriety.  I can’t imagine a life without it!
My history of volunteerism and my training in an A. A. service based life brought me to Central Office and the attempt to run the office on a strictly volunteer basis.  Many believed it could not be done, but we have been doing it for six months now and it is working just fine.  I knew it could be done because of a life of volunteerism.  I’ve witnessed volunteers turn negatives into positives.  I’ve seen timid folks turn into confident folks just from the work they have done in service.

The question I am asked often is how did we change Central Office to what it is today.  The answer is simple.  My experience with volunteerism and the call to service in Alcoholics Anonymous taught me that all things are possible if I simply say “yes” to life!   So, enough A.A. members said “yes” to volunteering at Central Office to keep it staffed six days a week and I told them that volunteers are cheerful folks who believe all things are possible.  I told them that our job is to give service to all who call us and if we can’t help a caller, we find someone who can.  The volunteers are encouraged to be positive in all dealings with the public, to treat everyone as we would like to be treated and to help each customer to know that they are valuable and important to us.
I think we have turned Central Office into a place that folks are happy to visit.  Our clients sometimes stay quite some time after their purchases are made and information received.  Some even sign up to volunteer for a couple of hours each week.

All things are possible when we band together in service.  Come volunteer at Central Office.  Make a difference and be part of an endeavor greater than ourselves:  carrying the message!

~ Betty H.