One Day at a Time

Thirsty Like a Wolf

Anyone who can "cook with alcohol" and then 'eat it' - and not experience the phenomenon of craving does not fit AA's "description of the alcoholic" .

This is not your humble narration's opinion or some concoction of the ever-becoming-more-fashionable "Nuevo Big Book Elite". It is statement of experience that comes directly from the co-founders of "Alcoholics Anonymous" and co-authors of the book from which they derived their name.

"We are equally positive that once he takes any alcohol whatever into his system, something happens, both in the bodily and mental sense, which makes it virtually impossible for him to stop." (22:4)

A Little Is A Lot
"any alcohol whatever" -- There is no small amount on which we can 'squeeze by'. Even "trace" amounts of EtOH will set off the craving in a real alcoholic.

If, as an experiment, I were to place a single drop of standard, eighty proof supermarket bought vanilla extract under one eyelid right now --- within in minutes I would experience the phenomenon of craving described by Doctor Silkworth when in "the Doctors Opinion" section of "Alcoholics Anonymous" he writes, "All these, and many others, have one symptom in common: they cannot start drinking without developing the phenomenon of craving. This phenomenon, as we have suggested, may be the manifestation of an allergy which differentiates these people, and sets them apart as a distinct entity."

Anyone afflicted with this unfortunate trait would have to be chained to radiator like the Wolf-man until the body has had enough time to finally complete its own 'detox' or else risk a bender.

There is no such thing as someone with this common problem called alcoholism who would not have exactly that same experience. That is why we call it a "common" problem - we all have the same reaction.

If you are eating out in establishments - such as Chinese restaurants where many dishes are prepared with rice wine - and do so with impunity then you probably aren't "one of us".

Bad News - Good News
This knowledge is GOOD NEWS for those of normal thought processes - BAD NEWS for those desperate to experience their understandably highly cherished "sense of belonging" through misappropriated and sometimes even 'bullied' "membership" into a fellowship for which they do not qualify and for which they cannot become members. Only alcoholics are members "when we say so".

No home-style CHEESECAKE for me. Not unless my WIFE has made it herself with fresh vanilla beans baby!

This is just as serious as being allergic to tree nuts! We we real McCoys read our labels and avoid putting ourselves in harms way. Dying is dead by whatever means.

Most of us realize that only a small portion of the world population have deteriorated in the progression of the illness to experience this trait of "alcoholism" They are lucky . It would be nice if they would stop calling themselves "recovering alcoholics". They aren't.

Peace and Love and GO Siobhan!

Danny S - RLRA
Real Live Recovered Alcoholic

^{For some readers - even those who are gosh darn sure that they are alcoholics because they have been so obsessed with drinking for so long - this article may bring up the question as to whether or not they are real alcoholics. That is good. That is the intent. This article discusses only ONE of the two elements that when combined create the description of Alcoholism for which the Twelve Step plan was devised. It is a TWO fold illness - at least. Being plagued by a single fold counts for something – just not alcoholism. For those who have had serious problem stemming out of problems with EtOH NOT fully fitting AA’s description of the alcoholic it is urged that you continue in your search for finding help. There are numerous health-care facilities and folks in the medical fields who are as knowledgeable about alcoholism as the co-authors of the Big Book. May God help you find them.}

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A Life Unmanageable

From Cradle To Grave?

"We admitted we were powerless over alcohol-that our lives had become unmanageable."

They did, that eh? They admitted those things. According to the 1938 Encyclopedic Edition of The Winston Simplified Dictionary the word “unmanageable” means, “Not easily conducted or controlled. Disobedient; not subject to guidance.”

OK yes, we get to a place where we know that our drinking has become unmanageable. We get it and that getting it is a major concession. It means that the spirit decimating experience - that severe case of desperation founded upon a realization that a vicious cycle of obsession and craving is unimaginably dire and fatal. "WE GET IT". It's is a realization that is so nauseating that we gag on our own spittle trying to swallow the grossness of what has become our lives. It's hardens like a knot - it sits in our belly and relief seems a hopelessness cause just gnawing at our once free -- now crippled soul. A bullet in the back of the head can seem a viable way out. Many of us make the decision to take that trip.

Whoever came up with the idea that "Misery is optional" for alcoholics did not know much about what it is like to be inflicted with the malady for real.

For the real a alcoholic who is intent upon recovering from it misery is not an option. It is a bloody requirement. Later it turns out to have been a blessing.

But man! That wasn’t enough, was it? Did they have to impugn my drinking and my entire life as well? To what depth must this deflation go? And so early in ‘recovery’ too?

Isn’t such a broad admission overstepping bounds? To some it is and would prefer to rewrite that step to ‘dis-include' the word “lives’ and limit the “U-word” to alcohol. But they do not.

Let’s see just what the co-founders thought about their (our) “lives”, shall we? We can do that by looking to see other instances where they talked about our “lives”

Here it goes:

• "Now we try to put spiritual principles to work in every department of our lives. When we do that, we find it solves our problems too; the ensuing lack of fear, worry and hurt feelings is a wonderful thing." (116:3)

• "They appear to be in the nature of huge emotional displacements and rearrangements. Ideas, emotions, and attitudes which were once the guiding forces of the lives of these men are suddenly cast to one side, and a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them."(27:3)

• "When many hundreds of people are able to say that the consciousness of the Presence of God is today the most important fact of their lives, they present a powerful reason why one should have faith." (51:0)

• "For faith in a Power greater than us, and miraculous demonstrations of that power in human lives, are facts as old as man himself." (55:2)

• “We did exactly the same thing with our lives. We took stock honestly. First, we searched out the flaws in our make-up which caused our failure. Being convinced that self, manifested in various ways, was what had defeated us, we considered its common manifestations.” (64:2)

• “We went back through our lives. Nothing counted but thoroughness and honesty. When we were finished we considered it carefully.” (65:2)

• “Notice that the word "fear" is bracketed alongside the difficulties with Mr. Brown, Mrs. Jones, the employer, and the wife. This short word somehow touches about every aspect of our lives.” (67:3)

• “Time after time newcomers have tried to keep to themselves certain facts about their lives. Trying to avoid this humbling experience, they have turned to easier methods.” (72:2)

• “At the moment we are trying to put our lives in order.” (77:0)

• “In nearly all cases, their ideals must be grounded in a power greater than themselves, if they are to re-create their lives.” (The Doctor's Opinion)

Clearly when the co-authors write about our “lives” they mean OUR LIVES~! Not any single limited aspect of our lives. Not just our drinking. After all drinking is not our problem it is merely a symptom of a more complete picture of depravity. If we go back over the above extracts and substitute the word “drinking” for “lives” - the statements do not work. So clearly when they talk of our lives being unmanageable they are saying,

According to The Winston Simplified Dictionary, 1938 our "lives" is the “period of time from birth to death”. Now when that has become unmanageable, and it does, we are in the deepest of deep doodo.
One look at the life of an alcoholic can abundantly illustrate that un-manageability handily. Of course all lives are un-manageable to some degree. It is the alcoholic who needs to admit it! Living without that admission might be the luxury of normal man and woman but if we are to recover we have to deflate and admit that we are nothing without God.

Not only do they propose that we could not manage our drinking, but we could not manage our LIVES either.

Our drinking has affected EVERYTHING about us. It isn’t about the substance - it is about us as human beings where we are becoming more and more inhuman. As alcoholism progresses in severity we devolve in our original humanness.

It is at a level that would elude the lenses of an electron microscope -- something that is far beyond mitochondria analysis and DNA patterning -- so deep and so viscerally spiritual that science need see that it is they, the Johnny-come-latelies or alcoholic recovery, need to take a back seat to the effort. They need to leave this recovery business to the real Pros. They need to leave it to the spiritual mystics whose practices can actually help the real alcoholic. Some of them are in AA.

Somewhere sitting in that church basement, maybe next to the guy who “don’t know how this works” yet incredibly just "knows that it does” or maybe right behind the disrespectful and ignorant “alcoholic ANDA addict” who can’t tell anyone Jack Shit about his own truth and isn’t interested in it either, let alone help a newcomer discover truth - but who is very happy to share with all who can sit through it what some arrogant Traditions scoffing sponsor told him that his boring ass junkologue was somehow alcoholic “experience strength and hope” – there just might also be real live recovered alcoholic.

He might not collar the new one during that meeting. He is probably too respectful of his Group’s time. But he’s watching.

He is sizing him up – wondering if he is serious about recovering from alcoholism - if his time with the newcomer will be helpful or if it might detract from helping someone else who does want what he has to offer. He might take a run at him after the meeting – right upstairs in the parking lot aiming for him like a heat seeking missile. He has been given the power to help others. Why not you? Uhm I mean 'him'.

Peace and Love,

Danny S - RLRA
Real Live Recovered Alcoholic

Mark Houston - Rest In Peace

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Big Book Buffoonery vs Genius

Have you ever gone to a meeting, even one purported to be a “Big Book” meeting and been a witness to some of the most absurd and shocking treatment of the Big Book text that you wondered if you were even in Twelve Step Fellowship meeting?It is scandalous. Deadly so.

The Big Book, “Alcoholics Anonymous" is an amazingly structured, succinct and ordered spiritual text book - a fact that escapes many of us until such time we actually work through it as it has been designed.

Then and only then does its incredibly on-target arrangement of content and editing become apparent.

Even the formerly educated and highly intelligent man of science, Doctor Silkworth believed that alcoholism has been written well enough to make the following statement in his "opinion" letter:

"There was, therefore, a sense of real satisfaction when I was asked to contribute a few words on a subject which is covered in such masterly detail in these pages." (The Doctor's Opinion - 2nd letter)

 

"masterly detail"? What a far cry from some of the comments we hear today about this book being "poorly written".

How could such extremely contrasting opinions ever have evolved? Could it be that some folks simply do into identify with the description of alcoholism in this book? Most people who do not agree with something they have read will convince themselves that it is written poorly or that the authors ignorant. In this case only the former will safely do.

The construction and plan of it is an observation that will escape the casual reader.

Even the most ardent student who acquires Big Book knowledge, verse and chapter, frontwards and backwards, will even 'test' you and compare in conversation - learned for knowledge sake --- will miss it. Has missed it.

Studying the Book in order to become a better 'teacher' of the Program for spiritual awaking is one thing - studying it to attain a "pass"ing grade in Bigbookology, passing fantasy AA 'bar' exams in meetings, is cerebral puffery at best - spiritual masturbation at worst.

Look at a major limitation of the printed Big Book: The missing ingredient - the thing that keeps the book from being immediately 'identifiable' as a collegiate style 'textbook' are the glaringly omitted Sectional Headings and subtitles with a corresponding index.

There also aren’t any illustrations to misinterpret or to distract us – but . . . ok, they were not even trying to tempt anyone who did not need the steps to take the steps, right? – not trying to make it easy. The work is freakin’ hard man! And so it ought to remain.

We can consider ourselves lucky to have Titles at the head of each Chapter we do have! Even those are so utterly un-revealing and a tad ambiguous considering the content of each chapter that each represents. Many aren't so much as tempted to crack open some of those Chapters without actually needing to follow the directions inside. In other words desperate enough!

I mean, who would even guess that the answer to the question, "What do we do for a relapse" is fully answered in a Chapter called "To Wives"?

How ingenious! What brilliance! Or does Divinity so well impersonate human resourcefulness and insight?

The very short-cutting tool that many an alcoholic picked up in his youthful academic studies has been left out of the printed recovery toolbox. To learn the deal you have to actually do the work - you can't just 'look it up' on the cuff in order to memorize and use later in intellectual debate - or with which to hit others over their un-recovered heads without looking like a hypocritical buffoon.

You know those buffoons, don't you? Their 'fruits" advertise well how well they are doing and just what are their recovery "credentials". Judgmental? Not at all. Discerning? U-betcha! Just keep it to yourself because in Cape Cod AA meetings it is very distasteful to publicly reveal possessing any kind moral psychology.  If you are Christian, then your own Bible tells you how and encourages you to do this - and how to help buffoons too

Were the co-authors all that smart - aware enough to consciously stylize the book in this manner? Maybe they were. How can we say for sure?

Out of a hundred – more or less - folks overseeing this entire volume back in 1938 there were bound to be all extremes of intellect and wisdom varying from the enlightened and ingenuous to the most moronic imbecilic bordering on wet brain.

One thing that evident is that Someone – upper or lowercase ‘S’ - take your pick - sure made certain that this textbook turned out precisely the way it needed to turn out. Although the Book certainly does receive intellectual abuse its current design its present design still very effective at minimizing it.

Peace and Love,

Danny S – RLRA

Real Live Recovered Alcoholic

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AA Truth and Tragedy

Or

^{Fear and Loathing
in Recovery}

"Anyone is member whenever they say so". One cannot become familiar with AA literature, history, traditions and still hold onto that idea very long. When we look into it all we do discover that any alcoholic is a member whenever he says so and that a non-alcoholic is never a member even if he says so.

No one is going around AA meetings taking names and purging databases over this - but we can at least maintain some decorum despite this revelation and manage to keep our focus on helping real alcoholics while at the same time assist non-alcoholics in the discovery of their own truth. Step one is the qualifier. In taking Step One and therefor having learned what "powerless" means in terms expressed ijn AAs "description of the alcoholic" - either you can or you cannot admit that you are "powerless" over alcohol.

Not every human being who happens to stumble down the steps of protestant church at 7:3o in the evening, who takes step one can come out the other side of it as an alcoholic.

To propose this lie does nothing but foster fellowship full of 'false positives'.

Step one is as good for all. It is as good for the fellowship as a whole as it is for the alcoholic who discovers he is one as it is for the and non-alcoholic who 'fails' the litmus test of STEP ONE -- for now he doesn't have to commit himself to a lifetime of fraekin AA meetings that he really has no need to attend. He ought to be grateful, no?

Uh, no. They are not. Occasionally but not always. Prospects who are truly new – who haven't yet been contaminated with water-down AA sloganeering bullshale are not a problem. But if a man has spent any time "going to meetings" and being indoctrinated with "Recovery Rehabeese", treatment industry chants and other stuff disguised as AA recovery mantras – oh boy can deprogramming those people be a thankless task. It can seem an impossible thing.

The duty to tell the truth doesn't go away and it must be revealed even if it means owning the ire that will be inflicted upon the twelve stepper doing the work. Oh and they do rage when the truth comes that close and if a sponsor is doing his work well then the truth does present itself. If you have never experienced the fury caused by the cognitive dissonance* of a non-alcoholic coming to his own truth then you probably aren't really working with others out of the Big Book.

Do you realize how many people sit in AA meetings every single day saying "I am an alcoholic" having never been taught how to tell if that is true or not?

They cannot describe what the co-authors call "powerlessness" - the cannot tell anyone what is meant by "unmanageable" in their own Big Book and all they can do is spew a slogan or two back at you that is somehow supposed to mask their ignorance. Do you realize how many real alcoholics die because of this? (Maybe you don't. If you haven't worked with many then you haven't experienced to horror of burying alcoholics who has balked at the Program and fellowshiped his meeting-going, 'problem sharing" ass into cemetery dirt - and it not too likely that you will understand this.)

Fortunately most interlopers will phase themselves out and away from the fellowship in about three or five years. Some do stay longer despite the lack of qualification. They seem to fall in love with the status of their Deputy Dog sobriety badges eagerly flashed to newcomers -- to "show em' that it works" , of course -- and this has gone on for so long that 'membership" has built and caked-up the clockworks of AA's Primary Purpose and made a once Spiritual Fellowships turn top-heavy with folks who may have needed to come to find out what their truth was concerning alcohol abuse - but who were never shown how to qualify and are now rewriting new 'rules' for us all. The new rule is that if their rules can't be followed then anarchy is preferable. ("No musts, no rules, no steps, no recovered alcoholics")

The disconnect worsens when we fail to insist that one qualify as alcoholic in order to become a member of a fellowship designed for alcoholics only. Hell, the fellowship has even created something they call an "Open meeting" so that anyone, even non-alcoholics, could seek a spiritual life without even worrying about not being alcoholic or qualified for membership. Do you think that they thought that outsiders would start insisting they too be considered 'members' - alcoholic or not - just because they came to those open meetings. Do you?

Yes, there is such a thing as a "closed" AA meeting -which ought to be evidence enough that 'YES ALCOHOLIC -NO ALCOHOLIC' are two real possibilities. Whether someone is or is not an alcoholic can be can be determined. If such determination could not be made then how could there ever be an "Opened" meeting or a "Closed" AA meeting?

"We hope we have made clear the distinction between the alcoholic and the nonalcoholic." (44:0) . . .

. . . and there is a duty to make that determination for ourselves - if only someone would show us how that is done - how it was done - and yet it is right now being done every single day by Twelves Steps practitioners despite the many bony fingers of contention waved by POP-AA, hypnotized, middle-of-the-road solutionists who must bemoan the notion and practice or else rick exposing their own masquerade.

What about the absurd idea anyone is an alcoholic just because they say so. Normal human sensibility tells us that cannot be so - we cannot 'create' alcoholics - not through declaration, decree or voodoo.

Once we do learn what this book is all about -- not what we think it is about but we actually experience its purpose, method and content through the practice and teaching of the program therein detailed -- then we cannot help but learn the truth and tragedy and tragedy of just what this malady is - with whether or not we are or are not afflicted with alcoholism. We also discover whether or not we are truly "in the right place" a truth that many of us cannot bear to learn. The solution for many of us then is easy.

It's dishonest but it is easy: We sit in meetings and ignore those 'offensive' steps, not even admitting that we are offended by them. We might even cover up our personal fear and loathing of The Twelve Steps by vocalizing support of them - even "sharing" false or only casual experience with them as some sort of "Program" justifying it with the ubiquitous "for me" qualifier.

We will even adopt 'treatment center' industry theories and practices on substance abuse and reposition these as AA or AA related adding further insult to injury with an obligatory "Whatever works is good" reasoning. Even if it doesn't work, which invariably proves to be the case, we'll just parrot these AA counterfeit slogans all the harder.

Real alcoholics, those fitting AA's "description the alcoholic" (60:2) have certainly not cornered the market of pride, egotism, and self-centered arrogance. Until we recover we may of us have had quite a lot of it but it also seems to be a fairly far flung human condition in whole and probably impossible to eradicate in non-alcoholics by utilizing a system that is designed by alcoholics especially for alcoholics. For them a less drastic method of attaining a spiritual awakening - say a religiously affiliated one - might do better - or else the ease of a 'no choice' spontaneous awakening such as the one experience by Saul on the road to Damascus. (Of only we all could be as blessed as he was.)

After all no one ever recovered from an illness that they did not actually have. It is no wonder then that so many folks isn't they will never recover. They are probably correct.

Let's extend them the same courtesy we would have them give us when we say that "We have recovered". They will never ever recover from alcoholism. Believe it!

Peace and Love,

Danny S - RLRA
Real Live Recovered Alcoholic

_{* Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. The "ideas" or "cognitions" in question may include attitudes and beliefs, the awareness of one's behavior, and facts. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, or by justifying or rationalizing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.[1] Cognitive dissonance theory is one of the most influential and extensively studied theories in social psychology.}

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Getting To . . . And Through The Fourth Step

It IS a RACE

Don't you get at least a little cagey when you hear stuff regarding Inventories that comes from outside the AA Big Book -- new terms, words and ideas not used by the co-authors? Does hearing non-Big Book phrases, terminology and ideas that cannot be reconciled with the Big Book itself make you feel a little bit uncomfortable? Maybe it is your God given BS radar alarm sounding. Maybe you ought to at least investigate and discover the truth. Yes, even if you read it here. Some of us like to take an already clear idea and re-title it - as if to re-invent it all over again. For example terms like "the turnarounds" when talking about about what the co-authors of the Big Book simply called "our mistakes". What's wrong with calling it "our mistakes"? NOTHING is wrong with it. It works fine. It may not be that big of a deal by itself but you will find that there is fire behind smoke, usually. Peek under the kilt of a Big Book Step sponsor blowing that smoke and you could be in for a shock. Things are not always as they appear - nor are people. If you fall for it without first looking you could find yourself 'hooked' and it is too late. But if you fall for it without first looking you could find yourself 'hooked' and it is too late. New 'lingo' and calling AA and that sort of thing just reeks of re-vised techniques that are the products of someones ego injecting its own juice into what is otherwise already clear and detailed precisely as intended. The original language isn't good enough for some egos - it must insert its own so it can glean some credit for things. There are Big Book Study Groups and other kinds of groups that 'attract ' such predators into their memberships the way Boy Scouts of America or a Summer Camp might subconsciously attract sexual deviants to those organizations to pursue avocational work. Newcomers need to be able to recognize those kinds of predatory individuals so they can attend those fantastically focused meetings and belong to those wonderful Groups without fear of being spirituality raped. You people with sponsors using the "12 & 12" or Eckhart Tolle, Emmett Fox, Deepak Chopra, and Wayne Dyer books to assist in taking you through the steps know exactly what I am talking about - even if you won't admit it. That stuff is all over the fellowship in different forms masquerading as the genuine article. But the genuine article is like water to their oil. Often there is more 'meddling' lurking underneath. When it come to AA's spiritual Program of recovery - called The Twelve Steps - if it isn't in the Big Book then it IS bullshit -- and if it says it's in the Big Book and it still isn't . . . . then it's lying bullshit.

PART II

"If you do a fourth step too soon you will relapse or commit suicide". Or another favorite: "If you do a fourth step too rapidly you will not be thorough enough and you will relapse or commit suicide"

Have you heard either of these inventions? Most of us have. Could you imagine that advice being given to Bill Wilson when he and his "sponsor" Ebby Thacher did this work from Bill W's detox hospital bed? How about Doctor Bob in Akron or Bill D the lawyer, Clarence Snyder -- all of the co-founders? We can even hear this stuff from self-styled AA veterans who aren't "old-timers" at all but are really just longtime fellow-ship addicts attending meetings meetings and more meeting - Jesus Christ, two three meetings a day- seven days a week, when do they ever "work with others" (they don't) . Does this seem like freedom to you?

It is no wonder that we cannot keep folks in the fellowship for much longer than a typical five year 'tour of duty'. We have people going to so many meetings, clinging to our selfish cultish clannish cliques that they become AA Burn-Outs - over-heated on their self-inflicted and guilt powered excessive fellow-shipping -- always before they have ever even been properly introduced to the Twelve Steps. Most have never even been taken through Step One.

Where the Grand Daddies of Recovery - the co-founders of Alcoholics Anonymous were - back in the thirties and forties - turning out spiritually weakened recovered alcoholics - we are today are turning out hypnotized POP-AA zombies who continue a newer tradition of mantracized treatment center jargon, sing-songish recovery slogans masquerading as AA wisdom and holding fast like dingle-berries to their church basement folding chairs because "I don't want want to drink today." and "I need you people to stay sober today" --- instead of rapidly moving through the Twelve Steps detailed in beautiful clarity in the Big Book, "Alcoholism Anonymous". Don't you just want to puke?

Yet there are folks who will push that idea of it always being "too soon for inventory" to newcomers in order to get them to delay their approach to the Twelve Steps--

– or at least slow down their progress toward the promised spiritual awakening. These are arrogant bastards - sorry but that is what they are.

Yet consider for the moment the person saying such a thing. When you do, for one crisp moment, the idea almost does carry some weight. Not a whole lot. Just some. Almost. Some.

There is reason for this. The painful past is of great value to the real alcoholic about to awaken spiritually and recover from his malady. The obsession to drink at all is about to be removed. It is a positive. Not so the heavy, hard drinker hanging out in AA meetings. To him the past really can be a trigger because he is someone who drinks (drank) solely to help him bear the strain of a painful past and maybe even a present. The drinking of the real alcoholic isn't tied to pain.

Please pay careful attention to what you are about to read: Alcoholism is not tied to anything other than his insanity and proclivity to drink no matter what and his utter inability to stop once that mental aberration gets him started. That is all there is to the kind of alcoholism that is the "our description of the alcoholic" clearly delineated in the first forty three pages of "Alcoholic Anonymous."

Alcoholism is not tied to 'consequences' (Sorry Dr. Drew you could not be more wrong that) It is not tied to behaviors. It is not tied to environment, slippery places, the wrong crowd. It is not even tied to post-traumatic stresses or youthful trauma.

'Alcohol abuse' might be but alcoholism is not. This is one of the reasons why non-alcoholics who erroneously call themselves alcoholic and who advertise themselves to newcomers as AA 'members' are dangerous to the AA fellowship and to a threat to the health, well-being and very lives of newcomers. Non-alcoholics in AA must de-spiritualize the process for themselves and others. They must diminish or even eliminate the requisite self-searching, pride leveling and admission of shortcomings that are in the fourth and fifth step process. If the pain of the alcoholic can be his touchstone of spiritual growth then for the heavy drinking non-alcoholic it may be a "trigger".

It is not uncommon for someone doing a forth step to experience a 'need' to drown their sorrows somewhere in the process. Sometimes a barley resistible and even irresistible urge. This is not necessarily a horrible thing. If a real alcoholic hasn't yet recovered – still being too soon in the process – it is actually to be expected. It isn't "obsession" but it isn't exactly a pleasant thing to endure either -- but endurable it is. Urge is not obsession and obsession is not so weak. Urge is absolutely unendurable. There is no forethought in obsession.

In obsession, the alcoholic simply gets struck drunk! BAM! One Drink and then the vicious cycle is set off by the ensuing crave for more. For someone who isn't really an alcoholic this desire to drink during a fourth step inventory is understandable.

Non-alcoholics drink because they don't like the way they feel. Real alcoholics drink no matter how they feel.

If you are not an alcoholic such as is described in the first forty three pages of the book, "Alcoholics Anonymous" - if your idea of being alcoholic is based upon anything other than the "our description of the alcoholic" (60:3) - then you may not understand this. You may also be one of the arrogant assholes circulating within the AA Fellowship harming and maybe even killing us real alcoholics with your opinionated, agnostic treatment center drivel written about frequently on this blog site.

A man going through his forth step is supposed to feel like shit. What he discover is supposed to be "objectionable".

Objectionable - Arousing disapproval. Unpleasant or undesirable. (The Winston Simplified Dictionary, 1938)

Feeling like shit is good business for the real alcoholic - not only so that he can finally once and for all admit to his innermost self his powerlessness over EtOH -- but so that his pain will fuel the spiritually psychic energy he will need to perform a sixth and seventh step – a step devoted to the miraculous removal of defects.

If our defects aren't objectionable enough then who would experience enough of the mortification to take such drastic measure as to permit the leveling of pride - relinquishing removal to another being - named God? A fourth step inventory frozen in midair might be tasty enough to lick for a moment but despite the sweetness in its promise for ultimate recovery unless one gets beyond it and moves toward being of maximum service as a spiritually fuel being then the physical inventory will ultimately prove not to have been the real dessert at all.

It's more like a hor'd oeuvre for the main course that never arrives. Inventory Freeze will give you a headache worse than ice-cream. It'll pull and tug and pinch your soul into a throbbing spiritual migraine finally you will drink. You will drink. That is not a blind prediction. It is based upon experience repeated through year of taking men through the twelve steps and repeatable at anytime.

Entire Groups sometimes sprout egos too. That's right entire groups begin to ooze with the prideful juices of their own membership – thick and syrupy and congealed like fatty gravy. The object of being sponsored into AA and through these Twelve Steps is NOT to become a working Member type of any specific Group. The object is to have a spiritual awakening. The object is not to become a good little Primary Purpose Grouper or a BBSS guy or a Wally P. Aficionado – it is to have a spiritual awakening. Period! Those entities can be wonderful and can serve as virtual Houses of the Holy for alcoholics but motives are what counts -- not affiliations -- nor is any validation by things "man made".

Motives falling outside of attaining sobriety - freedom from alcohol through the teaching and practicing the twelve steps, secret or bandied – blatant or subconscious - are deterrents to recovery from alcoholism - for the real alcoholic anyway.

For the heavy drinking non-alcoholic these are less of a hindrance and can actually serve to assist such 'problem drinker' in staying away from a drink and improving his lot in life - as long as he "keeps coming back" and "remembers the last drink" and look to "YOU PEOPLE" for human aided support instead to take the place of a loving God who can solve the problem once and for all.

Becoming a hypnotized Big Book Study Hobbyist or a POP-AA sloganeer – there is no difference - can work --- unless one is a real alcohol. Non-alcoholic study hobbyists seem to have a knack for getting stuck in "Inventory worship" which is debilitating for a real alcoholic. A real alcoholic who is "still writing" his 4th step inventory after a month will be a monster – yet restless, irritable and discontent - not truly a "recovering" alcoholic in any sense. A person who is "still writing" four, five and ten months after making his beginning in Step Three is NOT 'launched' and not being ""vigorous.

Sitting in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous - un-recovered and not recovering from alcoholism - announcing to be "still writing" week in -- week out-- for months on end is not a badge of courage or honor. It is moniker of fear, doubt and faithlessness and a testament what happens when the Big Book is sodomized by 'recovery perverts' and it a disgrace to the process detailed in the book, "Alcoholics Anonymous."

This is despicable. It is disgusting and nauseating thing to witness the wasted time and effort while pushing their own agendas under the guise of "Twelve Step Recovery" while real alcoholics are dieing from unterated alcoholism every day because they aren't being presented with the "this" message of the wonderful book, "Alcoholics Anonymous".

It is phony. It is deviant and predatory behavior.

When we hear "vigorous" some of us think we mean rigorous. We can confuse being rigorous with being vigorous.

Rigorous means demanding strict attention to rules and procedures; vigorous means strong and active physically or mentally. There is a world of difference.

Strong and active launch into action the first step of which is this inventory is necessary and the truth is that if your inventory is taking weeks or months then you are not being vigorous. Perhaps you sponsor failed to communicate to you what it is you are looking for in your inventory or you didn't "get" what the Big Book directions gave --- or perhaps you have forgotten, more than likely you are procrastinating. Procrastination is anti-"launch" and anti-"vigorous".

If you believed that there was a great benefit to be had from walking across a bed of broken glass or hot coals – that you would be a better person once you successful got to the other side but you would have to suffer great pains as you crossed in order to receive that benefit-- -- do you think you would do well to get across it as soon as you possibly could - trudging and with purpose and dignity - or would you want to move as slow as possible to risk morbid wounding? What if you stopped part way across? There is no need to over-explain this -- is there?

So how long is a forth step and how much time should it take to complete one? For the answer to that look back to the result desired.

The idea of a fourth step inventory is that there ought to be an effort that is thorough enough and honest enough to be contributory toward having a spiritual awakening. That is, ". . .  the personality change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism" (Appendix II)

That's it man! Nothing more than that. It is NOT to be thorough enough to provide an amateur psychoanalytic experience. Not thorough enough to keep one sober or happy or relived. Those are nothing more than an EGO trying to do something it hasn’t even the ability to do. A fought step had better be thorough. It had better be honest - it had better be launched, done with vigor and it had better be completed damned soon - before that deadly meteor hurtling though space and heading here right now - called the insanity of the first drink - breaks the atmosphere and strikes earth right where our man is standing.

Anyone pushing anything other than that is screwing with your head. Stay away. I don't care how much they think they are doing "it" as laid out in the Big Book. They are not.

_{A man on a porcupine fence
Used me for an ashtray heart
Hit me where the lover hangs out
Stood behind the curtain
While they crushed me out
You used me for an ashtray heart}

<sub>^{- Captain Beefheart – Ashtray Heart}


Peace and Love,</sub>
Danny S - RLRA
Real Live Recovered Alcoholic

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