One Day at a Time

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.

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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Inventory Freesze

Don't Get Stuck On Step Four Odysseys

Despite what we sometimes hear in the rooms, recovery - the kind of recovery described in the wonderful volume titled "Alcoholics Anonymous" - most definitely is a race. Beating out an approaching hit of insanity that the co-authors of that book identify as alcoholic "obsession" centering in the mind - can be a matter of life and death. When a newcomer loses that race for sanity he sometimes loses his life too. Is this your humble narrator's usual Big Book Thumping hyperbole? You decide. You may suspect so but if you are out here in the trenches with we who have recovered and carry the "this" message - then you know that it is not exaggeration by any stretch.

Have you ever run into someone who is apparently a willing 'taker' of Twelve Step recovery who did not really want to be sponsored? They don’t really want someone to take them through the twelve steps. They think that they do but once having learned exactly what is involved – the vigorous inventory process; the lifelong commitment to helping others – they decide to resort to something less drastic. Maybe they become a "Living Sober" Thumper or a "12 & 12" practitioner - or maybe a service addict or 'turn -pro' at commercial quality eighty cup coffee urn handling.

I run into people around here on the Peninsula of Doom who are looking – not for a sponsor – but for a “fourth step coach”. Such 'management' is available -- but it is not a Big Book concept - does not true freedom and is only a way of maintaining the problem of human reliance instead of molting it off of our selves like old skin.

It is almost as if they want to create their AA portfolio (written inventory) so they can have some tangible evidence to prove for themselves that they have “done the work” thereby achieving the right to tell others that they “did the steps” which of course won’t be true unless they “practice these principles in all our affairs” but the fear of being called ”judgmental” by their peers will prevent that from ever being revealed.

Go to an AWOL – get your POP-AA “step taker” credentials and strut around like a sober cock in a recovering hen-house. "Yeah, that’s the ticket?"

Some self-styled "Big Book sponsors" want to take title to their protegees for a while. Freedom is not desirable. Even a well intentioned Big Book sponsor turns out to be a tyrant - trying to stay 'high' in his sponsorship role - addicted to the dependence and neediness of his own "pigeons" and "babies" - where the "relationship" is prioritized over recovery. In an area like where I live - somewhat cutoff from the rest of the country, in attitude, media and spirit, there is this discernible tendency for AA sponsors to want to hold on to their protégées.

Fat egos being what they are, these ersatz AA 'sponsors" will readily skimp or fore-go entirely the clear directions in their own Big Book --- where it speaks of being "satisfied" that a 'prospect' for the Fellowship is a "real alcoholic". Instead they will sponsor just about anyone at all - anyone who asks - anyone who is willing to sit down with a pen and paper at some point allowing them to assume the authoritative sponsorship role.

It's an act. They are acting the 'sponsor' in an 'act' of what will be just one in a very short four act play.

Non-alcoholic drug addicts, bi-polar patients sent to AA room by ignorant counselors, doctors and legal beagles- virtually ANYONE to keep them busy all get taken on. No reasonable offer refused. No qualifying. No one turned away and that means no truth because not everyone with an alcohol problem is a real alcoholic and a candidate for what we have to offer.

Getting a man to God before that next ‘first drink” obsession hits that man, perhaps killing him, is not a priority. And so many men get trapped into a pattern of this protracted ongoing writing phase of recovery in their fourth step.

Ebby did not drag Bill Wilson on and on into a long fourth step writing job. There was no excruciatingly long inventory process in Bills hospital bed in town’s hospital. Seriously! If you understand AAs description of the alcoholic then do you REALLY think that the real alcoholic described in this book has THAT freakin' LONG to wait before he recovers and gets rendered free from alcohol? Are you out of your cotton pickin' mind?

The Big Book tells us that the spiritual awakening begins to happen during the Fifth Step. That’s the “when” when someone asks, "When does it happen?

It is one of the amazing promises made to us in that book. That being the case do you mean to tell me that we are going to have a man sit and write down his resentments for months and months on end - all the while he is a hair away from being placed in a place of safety that comes from a spiritual awakening? You must be shitting me!

Part II NEXT


Peace and Love,

Danny S - RLRA
Real Live Recovered Alcoholic

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Stuck on the Bridge?

The beautiful thing about the message of the Big Book is that once optioned, the spiritual awakening that occurs as the result of the Big Book's Twelve Steps even saves us from the Big Book itself.

It doesn’t matter what it is – a woman, a man, a car a job or a ham sandwich, yes even the Big Book itself can become an obstacle to full recovery when it is abused – when it is put before God.

There is a mountain of difference between worshiping the Big Book and adopting the Twelve Step design for living that is its message. You may have experienced with folks so focused on THE BOOK and THE INVENTORY that they never seem to get unstuck from that 'mid-span' of the bridge -- over to God and maximize their usefulness through continuous spiritual growth.

Having been on both sides and having been stuck in that jam some of us are happy to report that once we give up our addiction to the written word - stop worshiping the book and its message and instead live and practicing it – our guidance, inspiration and direction comes direct and not out of the material. The heavenly intuition at subconscious and conscious levels doesn’t come from “human aid”

Not from the Big Book. Not from Emmett Fox. Not from Joe and Charlie, or the "Twelve and Twelve" - not from some self-appointed Big Book Study AA Group poo-bahs, not blogs like this one, not from CDs and circuit speakers. Not even the Bible. These might all be good things and each worth a value of its own with something to offer. What they definitely do not do is serve as a source of spiritual direction and it is a given that they are each with severe limitations in-as-far-as being a central source of guidance.

There are those who have tried it and who find this out the hard way and it is their misery that is the evidence.

Why not do as the co-authors of the Big Book suggest and did themselves? The put their reliance upon a God has no limit.

Getting to a place where that line of communication opens up and happens through daily prayer & daily meditation (Step Eleven) and it grows and improves continuously in daily Steps 10 and 12. Things get a lot smoother. There is no middleman. There is no "preacher" - no spiritual 'guru' - no bullshitting creep with vibrating stones and tarot cards or steaming incense stenchers.

Now THAT'S REAL FREEDOM!

But some people get stuck in that book. It comes from not following the directions in their entirety

Of course you could always just get around to the Steps at some indeterminate date, just suit up and show up, read the Big Book ad infinitum, go to open discussion meetings and chant AA slogans and "Just don't drink" "One day at a time." grinning like a good little POP-AA Fellowship-bot

That's worth something too. Probably.

But somehow it just does not seem worth the establishment of a huge worldwide spiritual fellowship when compared to the experiences just described in the first several paragraphs of this article, does it?

If you still think God speaks through people - who told you that? Your Big Book? Nope. Your Big Book tells you to avoid “human aid”. THE OPPOSITE!

Your Bible? No. No, Scripture is more a testimonial -- not a set of directions. Your Sunday morning Preacher? . . . . .

. . . . Uh, wait a minute! I know who told you that God talks through people. It was ‘People’, wasn't it? Probably "people" who similarity gets their spiritual "messages" through still MORE people. Nice of them to say. That’s quite an assignment reserved for “people” isn’t it?

That's not exactly relying on God INSTEAD of people, is it?

It is no wonder then that so many of us are still a mess thibnking that we have a design for living that supposedly works, has worked for so many others yet still seems to evade us.

We still get caught up with bedevilment and unmanageably that should have been shed a long time ago. No wonder we go to meetings, thump our Big Books, go to church, thump our bibles and still our kids are on drugs, we can't keep our 'units' inside of our own pants, are addicted to internet porn, smoke like chimneys and are going to early graves clutching Twinkies and Ho-Hos besieged by the physical ailments brought on by self-inflicted diabetes.

Oh crap, we might as well drink, no?

What if God has got something to say directly to you? Don’t you want to get hooked up? The answer to that is Step Eleven - prayer and meditation. Or else a burning bush. Waiting for a burning bush maybe?

"He had stepped from bridge to shore. For the first time, he lived in conscious companionship with his Creator. Thus was our friend's cornerstone fixed in place. No later vicissitude has shaken it. His alcoholic problem was taken away. That very night, years ago, it disappeared." (56:2)

Peace and Love,

Danny S - RLRA
Real Live Recovered Alcoholic

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Alcoholics of 'Distinction'

An excerpt from upcoming article:

The Alcoholic/Drug Addict Distinction

"Failing to recognize the distinction between 'addict' and 'alcoholic' and ignoring that distinction could be the reason for your next relapse.

It is a very unpopular notion that there could be a distinct line between alcoholism and drug addiction but it is for good reason that this vital information is being held back from so many of us who place our trust in a system that has ulterior motives.

Those motives behind this are ambiguous and they are not what they seem on the surface.

The treatment industry MUST blur that line in order to maximize their incomes. It is intentional and it is a cruelty that -- as unimaginable as it is to the clear soul --- is absolutely true and being done right now as you read this article.

The means used will be revealed.

Well meaning employees of rehabs centers and treatment facilities are not even aware of the harm they do nor of the misery they cause in their daily practice. They do not know why their "success" rates are so incredibly low. They have been "trained" and "certified" with incorrect information about recovery that guarantees that the alcoholic or addicted patient will "never recover" and always be in need of their services. These counselors, directors and medical personnel have been indoctrinated into a profit motivated bureaucracy has no conscience, no need for real success in treatment and no real desire to free anyone from their prisons.

Anti-Step One

Like virtually all slogans heard in some recovery circles "A Drug is a Drug" is a hypnotic suggestion. AA members carry it into the AA Fellowship from outside sources and then spout it in church basements like parrots in cages. There is great power in words and the efficacy here is in the energy force that lies behind its repetition.

This is being reinforced in earnest every day throughout the country in rehab centers, detox faculties, hospital and counselor offices and yet this idea flies directly in the face of everything that the Granddaddies of Recovery, the co-authors of the Big Book, "Alcoholics Anonymous", experienced and chronicle so well in the first forty three pages of their book.

The "Alcohol is a drug" myth cleverly embedded into clinical treatment environs is the Anti -Step One language which fosters a diabolical formula guaranteeing that the patient will never get well.

They may improve temporarily - on the surface - through abstinence gotten by having been enslaved to to the 'clinician' - a sick devotion that is later transferred - for 'safekeeping' until the next relapse - over to the the Spirit of the AA Meeting. These sad folks are never truly free. They are intentionally kept from discovering their own truth about their malady, whether alcoholism or drug addiction. Only their "addictive"-ness is ever discussed with some strange ability possessed only by "addicts" to plug into this formula any "drug of choice" that they happen to desire. These are insane notions and entirely unsupportable - not by logic nor by trial.

These people are 'released' but are not healed.  They have not really stopped using or drinking. All they have done is helped the treatment system display a false recovery by lengthening the in between their debacles. The debacle still come. It looks like some sort of recovery when viewed through such micro-vision lenses - but there is no long termed abstinence when the broad picture of time is observed. It is cruel.

When the inevitable relapse occurs they blame the "patient" for not "doing the right thing" or going off their "Aftercare" system of counseling, AA meetings and other "suggestions" that is really outside of their expertise.

Confusing and confounding is the name of the game. Non-alcoholics think their solution is one that they don't need and alcoholics think that theirs is one that will never work."

COMING SOON to this blog please check back for the entire article.

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"AA Doesn't Work!"

Guest article

by Clifford B.

Do What You Are Told?

One of the saddest statements I have ever heard is, “I’ve been to A.A. and it doesn’t work.” There is no way I can count the number of times over the past couple of decades I have found an alcoholic coming off a drunk who made that statement. Just today, one of my protégés called to tell me of a man, holed up in a cheap motel room, he was asked to locate and see if he could help him.

My protégé was successful in locating the suffering alcoholic and did what he had been instructed to do on a Twelve Step Call. He told him some of the story of his drinking and how he had come to know it to be an illness over which he had no control nor did the medical profession have a solution.

The suffering alcoholic finally said, “You’re going to try to tell me about A.A. aren’t you?”

“That is where I found my Solution.” said Jake. "I have gone to A.A. meetings for the last eight months and did what they told me to do. It doesn’t work for me.”

“Did you take the Steps with a Sponsor who had been blessed with a spiritual experience as the result of having taken the Steps?”

The sick one said, “I think I did but the main thing they told me was just keep coming back and you’ll be OK. When I asked what else I should do, I was told, ‘Don’t drink and keep on going to more meetings.’

I did what they told me to do and A.A. just doesn’t work.”

Driven to Drink

A member of Alcoholics Anonymous found me near death in 1964 and told me he could help me. He said to me, “I understand. I have been where you are and I want to help you if you will let me.” I was willing to do anything. He took me to his A.A. Club and began sobering me up on Orange Juice with some honey mixed in it. When I began having Delirium Tremens, they added some Bay Rum to the mixture. There were no treatment centers in our area at that time and hospitals would not admit us for alcoholism. We either shook and sweat it out in jail or at an A.A. Club. By far, most of them made it to the end sober or they still are. I wasn’t one of them.

I saw an opportunity to return my ego to its earlier level by getting involved in a new and exciting profession and so I went for it. Sixteen years after my last drink; eleven years after my last meeting, on a day without a cloud in the sky, I thought having a beer would be a good idea, so being in a very dry county, I drove seventy miles for a Six-pack.

It took me two years to make it back to Alcoholics Anonymous --- very, very drunk.

What a difference thirteen years can make! There were no alcoholics laying around the Club with dry heaves. There were no blood shot eyes, sweating faces, no vibrating bodies, the aroma of alcoholism was missing. There was no orange juice in the refrigerator nor honey near the coffee pot. There was no Bay Rum in the file cabinet. It was no longer needed because almost everyone had gone to “treatment” and been medicated through the process of what is termed “de-tox.”

They had missed those wonderful Golden Moments of the misery, suffering and pain of sobering up. At first, I thought the new approach was good but then I began to see the results. There was less and less commitment to the Group and the action necessary for long term emotional sobriety was being ignored.

There were very few Big Book Study or Speaker meetings but a large number of “Discussion/participation” meetings where everyone was given an opportunity to talk about whatever was on their mind whether on not they knew anything about alcoholism or recovery from alcoholism. There were even non-alcoholics participating in these meetings. This newer approach of learning to live with alcoholism was beginning to prove to be a dismal failure.

We Work 'It'

I heard a tape of Joe McQ. and later attended a weekend of Joe McQ. & Charlie P. presenting their “Big Book Comes Alive” program. It then became very clear why so many were returning to the bottle. Not only were we without sick alcoholics laying around the meeting places, there was so little Program in our meetings, it was almost hidden from the newcomers. No wonder so few were finding more than a few months of physical sobriety. They were denied what is required for long term emotional sobriety.

Without the sick alcoholics laying round the meeting place, I had to find a place where I could again see and smell alcoholism. I needed a frequent reminder of where I came from and what was waiting for me if I didn’t continue to pay the price for emotional sobriety. Over the years since I have been blessed to have been given another opportunity to survive the deadliest disease known to mankind, I have volunteered in many wind-up places where those coming off a drunk are present and available to talk with. Again and again, I heard that sickening statement, “I went to A.A. and it doesn’t work.”

Of course, they are right. Alcoholics Anonymous does not work! We MUST WORK IT! But they were never told.

Where Are The Sponsors?

My Basic Text reads, “Rarely, have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path” The “Path” being the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous as outlined in a book titled “Alcoholics Anonymous.” My Basic Text does not read, “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of don’t drink and go to meetings…” It reads, “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and practice these principles in all our affairs.”

Our real problem is weak and ineffective sponsorship. Proclaimed members of our Fellowship who have never taken the Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous will assume the responsibility for the life of a newcomer and will proudly announce the number of “sponsees” they have.

As one of my dear friends said, “The manner in which we now fail our responsibility to the newcomer borders on slaughter.” The demise of our sense of responsibility to those seeking help for alcoholism is one of the greatest tragedies of our time in history. It works if we work it! That is a Promise. (A.A., pg. 84)

Cliff B.

CBBB164@aol.com

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