If you are satisfied with your progress in AA, you are not only an exception but you may be headed for trouble. Remember One Day at a Time, and Easy Does It. Before you measure your advancement, be sure you have an accurate yardstick. Nature is always slow in its development of good things. Some weeds mature and bloom in a few days, but it takes Nature many centuries to perfect a diamond. Don't worry about your rate of progress - you have a lifetime ahead of you - but just be sure that you progress.
I am VERY satisfied with my "progress" in AA, my sobriety is solid, my gratitude is profound, sanity has been restored, and I have been given a new outlook on life
However, I wish my shirts could be whiter...and I wouldn't mind..."a little more"...doesn't matter what, just...more...sex, money, if I could just be a little better looking or younger or....hahahahahahahaha
None of us are Saints, we claim spiritual progress rather then spiritual perfection, the point is we are willing to grow along spiritual lines, but somehow this all seems so.....familiar
-- Edited by LinBaba on Monday 6th of December 2010 09:12:18 AM
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it's not the change that's painful, it's the resistance to change that is painful
I am VERY satisfied with my "progress" in AA, my sobriety is solid, my gratitude is profound, sanity has been restored, and I have been given a new outlook on life
None of us are Saints, we claim spiritual progress rather then spiritual perfection, the point is we are willing to grow along spiritual lines, but somehow this all seems so.....familiar
What LB said. I can sum it up in one sentence. If I died tomorrow (notice I didn't say today, HP are you listening ) I mean it's just for today right lol, but if the unthinkable happened tomorrow I go with no regrets, not wanting. Sobriety, by far, has provided me with the best years of my life, way better than I ever dreamed or deserved.
Now that that's out of the way, I'm going to say a couple things that some of you aren't going to like. The big lie in AA is "If you're sober today you're a winner". That works for the first year or two but after that your program is slumming totally if your goal is just to stay sober, or for that matter just "practacing these principals in all of our affairs". Quiting drinkking and getting "sober" is , imo, just the entrance fee to the vast amount of personal development that lies beyond the doors and books of AA. The first stop on this trip, once again imo, is relationships. AA points to the problem and the rootes of the relationship problems but really lacks in the tools to change the way we go about relationships of all kinds, Friends, family, intimacy, workplace, neighborhood, society....Beyond those (which are huge) is how well do we take care of ourselves in the eating,health and fitness department? How about occupation/career? How about finances/ preparing to raise a family or retirement? Are you totally "satisfied" in all of those categories?
I couldn't agree with you more Dean, almost everyone I know that is "happy, joyous, and free" as it were has used AA as a "Platform" or "Foundation" and gone on to Therapy, Church, Group Therapy, some form of "outside help", to me AA is a "Spiritual Kindergarten" a necessary foundation for me to build the rest of my life on
StPeteDean wrote:The big lie in AA is "If you're sober today you're a winner" The thing is that is more of the "False teachings", The "heresy" crap that is being bandied about in meetings and called AA, when nothing in fact could be further from the truth, that BS has NOTHING to do with The Program of Alcoholics Anonymous Page 19, paragraph 1: "The elimination of drinking is but a beginning. A much more important demonstration of our principles lies before us in our respective homes, occupations and affairs."
Page 82, paragraph 3: "Sometimes we hear an alcoholic say that the only thing he needs to do is to keep sober. Certainly he must keep sober, for there will be no home if he doesn't. But he is yet a long way from making good to the wife or parents whom for years he has so shockingly treated."
Page 82, paragraph 4: "The alcoholic is like a tornado roaring his way through the lives of others. Hearts are broken. Sweet relationships are dead. Affections have been uprooted. Selfish and inconsiderate habits have kept the home in turmoil. We feel a man is unthinking when he says that sobriety is enough."
StPeteDean wrote:Quiting drinking and getting "sober" is , imo, just the entrance fee to the vast amount of personal development that lies beyond the doors and books of AA. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- He is like the farmer who came up out of his cyclone cellar to find his home ruined. To his wife, he remarked, "Don't see anything the matter here, Ma. Ain't it grand the wind stopped blowin'?" Yes, there is a long period of reconstruction ahead. We must take the lead. A remorseful mumbling that we are sorry won't fill the bill at all.
The spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it.
AA does have great tools for relationships in work and home between the Big Book and The 12 x 12, and I have to admit in almost every case when I have learned something from therapy or some other place, someone else has pointed out where the same lesson was in The Big Book, or the 12 x 12, so it's not that the lessons aren't there, it's I needed extra help, so AA -can- be everything, it just wasn't for me, nor for anyone who "has what I want"
I could go through and quote hundreds of paragraphs about almost any issue or situation we come face to face with in Sobriety, including codependency, romantic relationships, work issues, etc ad nauseum but I won't, as it is not necessary, the answers are there for some people, but I needed extra help
As far as Finances go, one of the most important things I have ever heard in my life comes from that Book
"Freedom from Fear is more important then Freedom from want"
I was told after a year or so to go learn how to be successful, how to handle life if it got good, that this is where my life skills were lacking, that I had "disaster" wired, that I knew what to do when I lost my job, lost my wife, if my car broke down, if I got thrown out of my house, but I probably didn't know how to handle "success"
Truer words never spoken, the next few years were on "The Outside" the best years of my life, I was a successful quasi famous artist that lived on the beach in a beautiful home with a beautiful woman and I actually would get paid to surf and I traveled 4 months a year on vacations, and I have never been so unhappy in my life
Today I know the difference between "This is really bad" and the deliberate manufacture of misery, now this doesn't sound like much, but it is one of the most important things I have ever learned in my life
-- Edited by LinBaba on Monday 6th of December 2010 10:57:01 AM
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it's not the change that's painful, it's the resistance to change that is painful
Hello, as a friend of mine used to say and do . God keeps giving,and I keep Taking. My expeience has shown me that . I am a garden varierty drunk. I know its still hard to say after all these years. My ego and my pride , my selfishness,fears,resentments,and my dishonesty have to be removed by my god it is my job to work the steps with other people who work the steps. Constant self exposure and telling on myself.taking my inventory and allowing others in my support group to show me what I can't see . Page 100 in the book . I have expeienced that and a whole lot more .a lot of days of growing spiritually.not comfortable. When I learned how to put others and there needs first!.in all my affairs.I am a better father to my four children.not playing god it didn't work.I am a better son to my aging mother .humitity moms are always right ! Pop is in heaven now bur for most of my soberiety we became freinds and all I wanted was to be a son who could be helpful. And they let me drive the ford only took fifteen years of practicing this .Being the youngest and of course the best looking .ego narsasistic, learning how to mature in these princables so when I whowas the worst one got the call .the voice on the line said go to the hospital they won't give me any info cause I am not family .I leave work get there .to the ICU.johnny finaaly after fourteen years of coming over to his house with a pack of smokes for him. Listening to the same stories once a week . I learned how to be more than a baby brother I learned to be the only friend he had.I could call I made my other brother do it.he died that day. Only after every one had a chance to say good bye.up to date my progress is not perfect. But a far cry from the selfish self centered skinny drunk that you people loved til I could love my self.thank god for a twelve step program. Are are so many who want to quit but can't.but for the grace of god there go i
Very interesting thoughts. I'm a practicing Christian myself and hope that my experiences and spiritual growth in AA will springboard me toward a higher and more selfless level of service in the church.
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Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God that which is God's.
) I mean it's just for today right lol, but if the unthinkable happened tomorrow I go with no regrets, not wanting. Sobriety, by far, has provided me with the best years of my life, way better than I ever dreamed or deserved.