Alcoholics Anonymous

by Alcoholics Anonymous

Just a few of the gifts of the program for surrendering, suiting up, and showing up for life every day.

I’d already tried but was never able to find out why until I learned the answer in A.A.—because I’m an alcoholic.

Always we’d emerge with a new formula for avoiding future trouble. “You’ve

Two reasons,” he said. “First, I couldn’t be sure. The line between a heavy drinker and an alcoholic is not always clear. It wasn’t until just lately that, in your case, I could draw it. Second, you wouldn’t have believed me even if I had told you.”

Here I found an ingredient that had been lacking in any other effort I had made to save myself. Here was—power! Here was power to live to the end of any given day, power to have the courage to face the next day, power to have friends, power to help people, power to be sane, power to stay sober.

“Be still, and know that I am God.”

“Don’t drink! Don’t think! Go to meetings!”

tingling toes. As my sponsor used to point

Giving up alcohol alone was not enough for me; I’ve had to give up all mood- and mind-affecting chemicals in order to stay sober and comfortable.

I had a brain tumor and would die, and everyone would be sorry for me. The Mayo Clinic seemed like a good place to have my diagnosis confirmed.

It seemed that all they talked about at meetings

To this day, I am amazed at how many of my problems—most of which had nothing to do with drinking, I believed—have become manageable or have simply disappeared since I quit drinking.

It helped me a great deal to become convinced that alcoholism was a disease, not a moral issue; that I had been drinking as a result of a compulsion, even though I had not been aware of the compulsion at the time; and that sobriety was not a matter of willpower. The people of A.A. had something that looked much better than what I had, but I was afraid to let go of what I had in order to try something new; there was a certain sense of security in the familiar.

no off switch in both eating and drinking

When I stopped living in the problem and began living in the answer, the problem went away.

unless I accept life completely on life’s terms, I cannot be happy.

I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes.

He forgot to mention that I was the chief critic.

A.A. and acceptance have taught me that there is a bit of good in the worst of us and a bit of bad in the best of us; that we are all children of God and we each have a right to be here.

Before A.A. I judged myself by my intentions, while the world was judging me by my actions.

was as if I had, rather than a Midas touch which turned everything to gold, a magnifying mind that magnified whatever it focused on.

as I thought about Max, her good qualities grew and grew, and we married, and all these qualities became more and more apparent to me, and we were happier and happier.

And the more I focused

my mind on her defects, the more they grew and multiplied.

the Serenity Prayer meant not that I should change my marriage, but rather that I should change myself and learn to accept my spouse as she was.

But when I try to see what I can add to the meeting, rather than what I can get out of it, and when I focus my mind on what’s good about it, rather than what’s wrong with it, the meeting keeps getting better and better.

When I focus on what’s good today, I have a good day, and when I focus on what’s bad, I have a bad day.

If I focus on a problem, the problem increases; if I focus on the answer,...

Today Max and I try to communicate what we feel rather t...

Eventually I had to redo each of the Twelve Steps specifically with Max in mind, from the First, saying,

Perhaps the best thing of all for me is to remember that my serenity is inversely proportional to my expectations.

THIS!

How important is it, really? How important is it compared to my serenity, my emotional sobriety?

Acceptance is the key to my relationship with God today. I never just sit and do nothing while waiting for Him to tell me what to do. Rather, I do whatever is in front of me to be done, and I leave the results up to Him; however it turns out, that’s God’s will

THIS IS DOING THE NEXT RIGHT THING!!

for me.

for my bottle, my resentments, and me.

My food, my resentments, and me

“It’s not how much you drink, it’s what drinking does to you.” That statement changed my whole attitude. Of course I had to surrender and accept I was an alcoholic. I had a hard time giving up the anger at my ex-wife

No one had ever done this before. I had been

preached to, analyzed, cursed, and counseled, but no one had ever said, “I identify with what’s going on with you. It happened to me, and this is what I did about it.” She got me to my first A.A. meeting that same evening. The people at the meetings gathered around me

the tides of life flow endlessly for better or worse, both good and bad, and I cannot allow my sobriety to become dependent on these ups and downs of living. Sobriety must live a life of its own.

didn’t grow up in a home that used alcohol, but when I took my first drink at the age of thirteen, I knew I would drink again.

recall one day when I was doing a midday show, I realized I could not go another minute without a drink. I

I might get a good six months of sobriety under my belt, but then I would get a bottle to celebrate.

There is a saying that alcoholics either get sobered up, locked up, or covered up.

I can’t start to describe the forced humility that is placed upon an alcoholic who comes to prison.

this is the consequence -- alcoholo causes the BEHAVIOR that gets you into trouble.

The First Step showed me that I was powerless over alcohol and anything else that threatened my sobriety or muddled my thinking.

I came to understand that the behavior, opinions, and thoughts of others were none of my business.

if I remain aware and keep my mind quiet enough, my Higher Power leads me to amazing realizations.

patience, acceptance, honesty, humility, and true faith in a Power greater than myself—are

As one of my early A.A. sponsors used to say, I didn’t hang out with lower companions—I had become one.

and I had been in a blackout for over a week. After everything else that had

Along the way I learned, in spite of myself, that the best thing about A.A. service jobs is that, for a period of time, I got out of myself.