Sober living with Jesus

The holidays are here - get out there and support your Alkathons!  Look for my upcoming post on Holiday Alkathons and what they have meant to me over the years.  Hopefully, you'll share your thoughts and feelings as well with me and everybody else!

Back in June, I wrote in this blog about the importance of our "singleness of purpose."  Now I am writing about smoking cigarettes and the twelve steps of recovery.  As a 12 step recovery program member and author of this blog, how do I justify such an apparent contradiction of philosophy?  Easily... there is no contradiction.  IT'S A MATTER OF PERSONAL SOBRIETY VERSUS FELLOWSHIP SOBRIETY. Using the steps has removed many obstacles between myself and God, but those things are best discussed one on one and not in an open forum such as a meeting.  One such issue -- a big one at that -- has been cigarettes.  When I decided to surrender to my nicotine addiction, I knew in my heart I could use the same tools I used to be rid of alcohol one day at a time .  The key was being honest with myself about my cigarette addiction and the unmanageable scenario I created with it, open-minded enough to apply the program's principles to it and willing to go to any lengths to br

I was at a meeting tonight where an N.A. guy raised his hand and went on and on about his frustrations with the local meetings of his fellowship.  Rather than bore you with the details, suffice it to say that a woman spoke shortly afterward and assured him that he would be welcome "at any A.A. meeting, regardless of whether he was an alcoholic or addict - a substance is a substance."   Sorry, but I beg to differ with her.  I owe it to the newcomer to keep the focus on alcoholism and not try to be all things to all people.  Moreover, she had no right to speak for all of A.A. in her assertion that he would be welcome "at all meetings."  He would not.  I know of one or two closed A.A. meetings where he would be required to identify himself as an alcoholic and confine his speech to recovery from alcoholism.   The early members of our fellowship were attentive enough to learn from the mistakes of other groups, such as the Washingtonians - who tried to address sev

Recently, at an Area Assembly, the subject of how A.A. could be destroyed from within came up. One of the chief things I see as an obstacle to our growth (and sometimes a barrier to our unity) is the lack of focus on our singleness of purpose: recovery from ALCOHOL. I am plan to kick off a series of blog entries to discuss this and invite your comments.

Many times over the years in meetings, I have heard people make the statement "identify and don't compare."  In the very beginning of my recovery, I thought it referred to substances that we were addicted to -- like heroin, cocaine, marijuana, booze,etc.  At that time, my alcoholic mind was focused solely on the substance as being responsible for my maladies, not me. As time progressed, I began to find other meanings for identification versus comparison.  As I have matured in sobriety, I have come to see the dangers of comparison. It is easy to find others more fortunate than myself, if I measure things only by outward appearances and fail to look inside.  For me, it is much harder to look at all the wonderful things I have and consider myself the more fortunate one (when in the midst of comparison). When I commence to devaluing my life through one of these self-pity motivated comparison sessions, I place myself in danger of picking up that next drink.  The motivati

Recently I received a notice from blogger.com that this blog was a suspected "Spam Bl0g.'' Spam seems to be everywhere, I guess; now it has infiltrated the blogosphere! Hopefully, this will not happen again. When I responded to the e-mail (which was nice and professional - I can appreciate their position), I was informed it would take a few days to investigate and unlock, but conceded that since I was reading the e-mail in the first place, it probably wasn't a spam blog. Now that this problem is resolved, I should be able to continue posting without interruption. Thanks to Blogger for finding me "not guilty" and unlocking this blog!

Early in sobriety everybody said "take it a day at a time" or "one day at a time."  Sometimes, it was 5 minutes at a time.  I sure thought I had a grasp on that concept back then!  Of course, being new, the focus was strictly on going another day without a drink or chemical substitute.  Today the focus tends to be more on confronting those many "faces of fear" I learned of.  I thought those faces existed only to haunt me; through my tenure in this fellowship, I have discovered they actually motivate me to move into a closer relationship with my Higher Power. I relish the spiritual enlightenment that comes with that. As the years advance, I have come to terms with another meaning of living a day at a time, one not so easily defined by words as it is through experience.  During my journey through sobriety, I have experienced many wonderful things, brought about by continually staying sober and gaining years on the planet.  Sometimes those wonderful things

One of the most important things I did early on was get a home group and get involved. To better understand what a home group is all about, I offer this from the publication The Twelve Concepts for World Service : Experience has shown that for most A.A. members, membership in an A.A. group, known as a "Home Group," is vital to maintaining sobriety through Alcoholics Anonymous. In the early days of the fellowship, the A.A. members actually met in the homes of fellow members and shared their experience, strength and hope with one another. From this "Home Group," they went on to help newcomers seeking sobriety through A.A. Thus, the concept of the "Home Group" has grown to thousands of groups through which the "Home Group" member helps others to recover from alcoholism. Through the years, the very essence of A.A. strength has remained with the traditional "A.A. Home Group." This is true especially where isolated alcoholics have found s