Come out of the rain

AGO · MIP Old Timer

Come out of the rain

angelov8 · MIP Old Timer

In your post I had trouble discerning whether you are confounded with online sharing or contemporary meetings that you are attending or both. To me they are separate, because this site for example is not stictly an AA meeting or a AA sponsored site.

I want to assure you that the meetings I go to at home always start with How it Works. The importance of steps are definitely stressed. I don't know what the rate of relapse is like in this area. There is one person I can think of who complains about the revolving door and the solution is in the BB and working the steps, not just parking in meetings to rant.

In my short time in the program I have had to deal repeatedly with my resentments about others sharing in meetings in a style that resembled biatch sessions and about speakers who spend only a little time on recovery or the message to my perception.

If I am honest, I do get frustrated with relapse situations in meetings where there seems a never-ending need to dwell on how it was or superficially gloss over what went wrong. I feel sad and scared when I hear about relapse. I know for sure that I don't have all the answers. I listen closely to old-timers like yourself. However, I ultimately welcome all shares and I feel I can learn from everything. Relapse talk reminds me viserally of how I got to step one and took the leap beyond. I NEVER want to forget it. I'm not sure exactly how that has happened for me. I think it wise to follow suggestions and have continued working on the steps. My sponsor has not had to beat it into me, but she does have to press repeat a lot about other things.

My sponsor is an old-timer with mostly traditional views. I feel I've gotten a gentle, loving and kind approach others might view as soft, but it is with absolutely firm promises based on the strength of my willingness to try . This is what has worked for me. I don't know why, just entirely grateful to be here and glad others keep coming back, at all meetings and here, regardless of where they are at. I'm not even sure where I am. I do know it's the right place for me.

I'm not sure I have the sober experience to reply to your thread but felt I wanted to post anyway.

AGO · MIP Old Timer

Thank you very much, I feel heard, I can go to sleep now haha

G'nite

janet · Senior Member

AGO wrote:

I have to admit I am finding online AA new, different and confusing, it's like suddenly, after living for 20 years where the sky is blue, to a place where the sky is green, it's literally that foreign and confusing to me.

It's like I come from a place where it rained on me every day, i got sores, fell down, couldn't see, couldn't make it to work, being wet was ruining my life, I heard about a place where they knew how to help, so I went.

Turns out a few guys discovered how to make umbrellas.

They wrote a book describing the process, it was very specific, but they found a way in which each person could make an umbrella that fit them. They mailed these books out, and pretty soon study groups got together to build umbrellas together, but they learned while studying with people who had built their own umbrellas, those peoples umbrellas kept them dry while they were studying how to make umbrellas.

Those of us with umbrellas stayed dry by teaching other people without umbrellas to build umbrellas, not by listening to tedious blow by blow accounts of what happens without an umbrella in these seminars, we KNOW what it's like to get rained on THATS WHY WE ARE THERE

Pretty soon they learned they didn't have to even make their own umbrellas, as long as they huddled together in fear based groups talking about making umbrellas and discussed slippery places and slippery people and told each war stories about getting rained on.

when they saw clouds, they ran to hide under these umbrellas, frequently they were caught by flash floods those, but people who had been staying dry one day at a time using other peoples umbrellas for years taught them ways in which to watch the sky

watch for storm clouds on the horizon they say

make your own umbrella I say

watch for red dawns and rings around the moon...

make your own umbrella

don't stray too far from people with umbrellas....

MAKE YOUR OWN UMBRELLA

if you don't stay with us every day, you will forget to check the sky one morning.....

.....pssst make yer own umbrella

What happens when rain falls from a clear sky? that happens....

I feel like a broken record, I have never talked so much about the steps in my life...

I woke up and the sky was kinda gray and....

build an umbrellla

I got rained on again, there I was minding my own business, now I slipped in the mud and broke my leg...

build an umbrella

I am tired of getting wet, so I have decided to lock myself in the house for the millionth time and reinvent the umbrella....

hey, there's these instructions.....

OMG I don't believe what happened....I mean there was storm clouds out, and thunder and lightning, and I ran outside, you guys will NEVER believe what happened!!!!!!!!

What does it mean that people who attend these umbrella seminars take years and years before they build their first umbrella according to instructions in the book? when people going to these umbrella seminars for 20 years all the sudden shout out OMFG guys, they can teach how to stay dry by building umbrellas!!!!!!

and they are told to take their time..to wait, an umbrella is a big responsibility....

If meetings keep you dry, by all means, keep going to meetings, know that someday you WILL be caught in the rain, better hope someone with their own umbrella is close by to come save you.

There is also another way, they are called the steps, if you are unable to get and stay sober with meeting attendance or if you can get sober with meeting attendance but you want to commit homicide and/or suicide you may be suffering from a disease that only a personality change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism can help. The steps will give you that change. A meeting will give you that too, while you are in the meeting. there is 23 hours left in a day.

What will you do to stay dry during those hours without an umbrella?

Like I say, it's just baffling to me, it's like I went back to kindergarten and was told we don't need to learn how to read or write any more, that computers will do it all for us....

what happens when your battery dies?

This is all just very strange to me, I don't get it, the steps were just part of the deal in every single meeting I have ever attended all over the world, I don't understand the book and the steps not being an integral part of AA, I really don't get it....they still read it at the beginning of every meeting still don't they?

these are the steps WE took?

past tense?

We?

that a meetings primary purpose is to carry it's message to the still suffering alcoholic? Not how our day was or what happens when we don't work the steps?

If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it - then you are ready to take certain steps.

At some of these we balked. We thought we could find an easier, softer way. But we could not. With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely.

Remember that we deal with alcohol - cunning, baffling, powerful! Without help it is too much for us. But there is One who has all power- that One is God. May you find Him now!

Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. We asked His protection and care with complete abandon.

Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery

I know what happens when alcoholics don't work the steps

They are insane, want to commit suicide or homocide, or they drink, I don't need to hear that in meetings to stay sober, I know that from plenty of my own experience

I don't know, seems simple and straightforward

these are the steps we took.

we

say it with me

we took these steps

has a nice ring to it, seems simple and straightforward

there's the "we" part of the program, "we" are the people that worked the steps and recovered from a seemingly hopeless condition of mind and body and "we" are passing it on to people who haven't worked the steps, that's who "we" are

Every single mention of the word "we" in the big book will confirm that statement

-- Edited by AGO on Wednesday 12th of May 2010 03:49:33 AM

AGO, blah,blah,blah, blah blah blah,etc. I read all of it though.

I need me one of them thar umbrella's! LOL! I hope you slept well.

http://www.youtube.com/v/LoNXsne8exg

J

-- Edited by janet on Wednesday 12th of May 2010 10:03:17 AM

barisax · Senior Member

I've owned a dozen umbrellas in my lifetime. The ones I didn't lose the first time I used them, I lost the second or third time. Don't loan me your umbrella, I'll lose it. When it rains, I run... and I'm close to the world's slowest runner. So if I had to park farther away today, and it's raining, don't laugh at me too hard when I come in the door all wet.

Barisax