The Point

1, 2, 3 and Out   
By Rick R.   

When I attended my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, I had no idea what any of the steps entailed, but at that meeting I heard the things that were read and sharing about steps, and I now realize that I came away from that meeting a different man. My life took a 180% turn and I have never been the same since. For the first time in my life, I saw a refreshing new approach to living and all I had to do was show up and listen. That may have been the taking of Step One, but I did not know it at the time. I realize that from that day on, I have had a huge change of perception and I have learned to recognize faulty thinking and to find the answers to life issues as they were articulated by the collective sharing in that meeting.

I have heard people in the program when attending a structured step study meeting say that there may be as many as 35 people at the meeting when they started Step One, but by the time they got to Step Four they might be down to 12 or 13 people left in the room. They say it is like, 1, 2, 3 and out. There seems to be something in Step Four that their ego would not let them address at the time. Like myself, I had things that I thought I would take to the grave with me. When this happens, I believe that they may not be ready for this step yet, and if they are hurried into it, they may start to search for an easier softer way. If they stay on that softer path for long, they may end up having a “half measures” approach, which avails them nothing and they may waste precious years, or worse, they may relapse and do irreparable damage that cannot be undone. When I hear of a person who has a relapse after having long-term sobriety I often wonder if it was due to skimping on Steps Four and Five, which leads to a much more superficial approach to the remaining steps. Thoroughness is the watchword when taking these steps.

I use the Fourth Step in the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions to illustrate what I mean when I try to describe the way reading and hearing the things that they describe in Step Four are things that we live with every day of our lives. Each time we read them again, we realize that we have addressed some of these issues without being aware of them. I have heard people who have not taken Step Four yet using terms such as, “restraint of pen and tongue” or “remove the word blame from my speech and thought” and, without realizing it, they are reducing their problems as the result of this different mindset. If they are honest about not being ready to take Steps Four and Five, it leaves the door open for the time when they are more confident and they will be able to revisit these steps and make a clean slate of it without feeling guilty or being in denial about it.

I believe that the main reason why they wrote and published the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions was because they did not want to establish a precedent of editing Alcoholics Anonymous(the Big Book), and they wanted to give amplifying information and examples of how to navigate the Twelve Steps It is a road map, if you like. We can tell stories and drunkalogues of our drinking days and that’s fine, but if we don’t go through a meaningful process of addressing the causes and solutions to our problems, we will be selling ourselves short, and life is too precious to waste. The question is: If this applies to me, am I strong enough to revisit Step Four and Five?

Stuff Happens in Sobriety   
By Kathleen C.   

When she first got sober, Kathleen thought that would be the end of all her problems. But she discovered the tools she gained from a program of recovery helped her face the challenges life threw at her.

Bill W’s Letter from the Archives   

In celebration of Intergroup and Central Office turning 75 this year, The Point is sharing this letter from the Archives Committee, highlighting the history of the Intercounty Fellowship of A.A.

Bill W. made several visits to San Francisco during the 1940s and 1950s and also visited San Quentin to support the newly formed H&I meetings. This letter from Bill and Lois in March, 1948, was written on the train after one of those visits, expressing their gratitude to the Fellowship.

Step Four : Into Action   
By John W.   

            It was not long after I started to find the serenity of sobriety that I heard a living legend in my home group, affectionately known as “our old-timer,” share something I was to hear again and again over the years. They talked one day about their work with a reticent sponsee who was challenged by Step Four.  The concern being expressed was that if one did not do a “searching and fearless moral inventory” they would drink again.   Although no hard data was ever offered in support, the lore was clear:  If you don’t do a thorough Fourth Step, you drink again and that takes you out, for good.

            Still being “wet behind the ears” in the sober world, the fear that not doing an effective Fourth Step would lead to this fatal result scared the living daylights out of me. I wanted nothing to do with the threat of this lore and wanted everything to do with the success of being searching, thorough, and fearless.

            In confronting this inventory taking, I was told that I could be fearless because I had already “made a decision.”  Since I had been armed in Step Three with the knowledge that the task of taking an inventory would not be done alone, it had immediately appeared less daunting.   I was able to contrast this with the fear and loathing I heard from some in my fellowship when they described how they had struggled with this inventory taking, putting it off for any myriad of reasons.  When these descriptions were rendered, the speaker seemed always to conclude that they had simply given different names to the same bogeyman: fear.  “Knowing” I would have the help of my Higher Power had displaced the fear about this unknown inventory process which it had first posed.

            This left me to grapple with my labels for this bogeyman, my ideas that I might pull a “work around” to the Fourth Step or handle it with my usual “mañana, all ahead, half steam” approach.  But I knew in my heart that these were not and could not be acceptable alternatives.  This made me even more motivated to take the plunge and take the step.  I also didn’t have to look far to find the prescription for dealing with my inventory. It was handily laid out right in front of me, in our literature, complete with columns, descriptions of how to use them, and antidotes of what I should be looking for to accomplish my goal.

            At first, especially given my personal character defect of procrastination, what was not clear to me was the speed with which this task, once confronted, needed to be commenced.

            Having a sponsor to guide me again proved the value in getting one in the first place.  When I asked, my sponsor gently reminded me that our literature is replete with examples of a problem being set forth and the solution to the problem delineated almost immediately thereafter.   My sponsor told me, as to the transition from Step Three to Step Four, that while my “decision made” was crucial and vital, it would likely have little permanent effect if I didn’t take action upon it immediately.   He quickly reminded me, yet again, that my drinking was only a symptom of the conditions that were blocking me and that this inventory would be my first real action to address my shortcomings.  As I read again about my task in the Big Book, I also noticed that his use of the phrase “vigorous action” was neither by accident nor original.

            No longer could my procrastination or its partner in crime, Jose Cuervo, be a buffer between me and the task at hand. No longer could I use the excuse that I would “get to it” . . . some time, as the justification for avoiding the hard look that I needed to take of myself.  For years my approach to “solving problems” was accomplished while sitting at a bar, often presenting my side of the story to a listening ear behind the bar.  I would then come to conclusions about just how my problems would be solved tomorrow, especially after just one more drink today. Of course my problems not only would not get solved the next day, they often were never even addressed.  My “solutions” were just part of the sediment left in my dirty bar glasses or my empty bottles conveniently stashed in my neighbor’s recycling bin. 

            I knew the inventory was indispensable, I needed no proof of that beyond the circumstances of my own unmanageable life.  However, having my Higher Power now with me and able to help me in the process was icing on the cake. I now knew I was no longer alone, I was no longer feeling helpless.  I actually had a plan of vigorous action to go forward and to stay sober doing it. Only now, years later and in hindsight, can I see that this was the first of those Ninth Step Promises opening up for me.  It was doing so in a way I had never imagined and had never hoped could be in my future. 

            I had made my decision and I had vigorously turned to the Fourth Step with a plan, a sponsor and a Partner.  One of my mates likes to say we can either get busy living or be left to be busy dying.  I wanted to get busy living and Step Four was my rocket into that fourth dimension about which I had heard others marvel.  I discovered later that while I had indeed turned on to that broad Highway called Recovery, I had not then even realized it yet.  But as promised, the benefits of that Journey have kept me sober ever since and for that I am eternally grateful.

Emily
by Anonymous

A podcast helped this member discover she is not alone, to start down the path of recovery and—eventually—to give A.A. a real try.

1988 Secretary’s Letter from the Archives   

In celebration of Intergroup and Central Office turning 75 this year, The Point is sharing this letter from the Archives Committee, highlighting the history of the Intercounty Fellowship of A.A.   

This Secretary’s Letter from April 1988 offers a glimpse into the past and what was important to the fellowship at that time. Some things never change; we can see literature and the 7th Tradition have always been hot topics at the group level. There is also the introduction of the new Apple MacIntosh and the hopes of better communication and service to the fellowship. 

Ceased Fighting Anyone and Anything
By John W.

After struggling with high school chemistry and biology, I threw in the towel before entering the Realm of Physics.  Still, although I never truly appreciated what Newton meant, I was familiar with his Third Law: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.  I also had no clue how this principle applied to my disease alcoholism.  Quite the contrary, I thought I could get away with any number of actions while drinking and that none of them, in fact, actually caused any reaction anywhere else. That was the fantasy in which I had lived for decades indulging my disease and slowly killing myself in the process.

When my bottom left me no alternative and I was miraculously able to start on the Steps of recovery and stick to them, I like so many other lucky ones found things turning around for me.  My life was getting better, just as I had heard others describe had happened for them.  As I progressed in working my program and got to that point of considering what ironically were alternatively described as “extravagant promises,” my reflections at the time reminded me of just how far I had trudged in my journey.  Neither time spent, miles walked nor sober days achieved were the milestones of measure.  Rather the changes in me were the benchmarks of my progress and I had been warned at the outset of the changes I would need to make.  This warning was delivered when I had naively asked my new-found sponsor simply what things in me I would have to change to be as successful as he had been in the program.  The equally simple reply of “Everything!” was daunting to say the least.

However, I found that by the time I could honestly and heartily respond “We think not” to the question posed about the nature of those promises, I knew they were coming into my life.  They were becoming a vital part of me.  They were becoming the new milestones in my progress towards a new life, a sober life.  I discovered too that in my progress, while not perfect in my attempts, it seemed as if the fighter in me more often than not, did not come rushing forth when the bell of a “new round” rang.  Instead and with growing frequency, he would retire to a neutral corner, draped in a cooling towel comfortably around his neck, all the time longingly looking outside the ring, hoping he soon would be there.

Regardless of the phase of my development, I was still, like anyone else both above ground and breathing, dealing with life on life’s terms.  Thus it was with some surprise when, one morning after a particularly cantankerous meeting with a number of my local fellowship, I realized that I was still fighting some things and some bodies.  Even moi, spiritual giant that I was, had room for improvement—an honest assessment: a lot of room for much needed improvement.  Although that day’s lesson sank in hard, I found as I had learned it to so often happen, that with the dawn of the new day, came new hope.  That hope to live this new day successfully started at my 7:00 a.m. home group meeting where the selected reading could not have been more appropriate and spot on.

The reader shared about the observation that, as we came to this phase of our development, we had found that we had ceased fighting anyone and anything. There it was, the problem boldly laid out before me.  Of course so too was the solution, this being found in working the Steps and, on that day, my listening to others who had confronted the problem I was having and hearing how they had arrived at a solution to it. One solution offered was to remember, as the member said was their frequent practice, that because they had made a decision to turn their will and their life over to the care of a Higher Power, they were now able to report they had achieved some peace with one of their character demons and no longer needed to fight every one about every thing. They proclaimed that their action in making the decision had contributed greatly to this later experienced change in their attitude and outlook upon life.  This was a revelation which had until that point, completely eluded me.

It was then I remembered that long-ago high school lesson on Newton’s Third Law and saw how it now applied to my own action in making my decision.  If I was prepared, really prepared, to take the action to decide to turn my will and my life over to the care of my Higher Power, then the equal and opposite reaction was that I would cease fighting anything and anybody.  Talk about a change in my whole attitude and outlook, this was it.  The more I began to see the import of my action, the more I was comfortable with the effect of the reaction.  The magic of the moment, of the listening and hearing at my meeting, was that I was being challenged to broaden the scope of what my mind had accepted as truth for so long and allow my spirit to behold that truth in a manner previously unknown by me.  No longer was my decision, as I had made it to combat my disease, solely for that phase of my development.  Now I could see that decision as one permeating how I was to practice those principles by which I desired to live in all of my affairs.  Simply by the timely voice of one person in this fellowship who had shared at one of my meetings, so much more had been revealed and all I had needed to do was show up and be willing to listen.