The Point

A member shares their experience moving from “restless, irritable, and discontent” to joy and victory. 

By: John W.

This particular winter had seemed long in the making
Even longer in leaving. . .like an end that never came
The awaited package which never arrived
A Nordic darkness bereft of light or hope. . .only isolation

A day’s sun seemed measured in minutes, not hours
The frigid cold of being alone was itself numbing
Sapping even the latent desire to live
Eviscerating the last hope of a new life, of change

But change would happen, there was no stopping it now
Except a slip of course, a relapse into “before”
It was clear one of those always lurked just out-of-sight
But not as far out-of-mind, so change was the only treatment

Another slip was certainly possible, another recovery against Big Odds
The Decision had been made, the only requirement clearly met
So being fear-less was possible. . .Without Fear, Fearless-so very doable
No false evidence appearing real, the Decision would overrule it!

The suggestion was to take stock, an inventory, a thorough one though.
No longer could I take the inventory of another and blame me on them
I had to take my inventory, all about me, a personal inventory
With a clear head I could be thorough and fearlessly cross the portal to change

The clarity induced by “without” helped me to be searching
I could more easily see the before, through the clear eyes of today
To be no longer afraid of what I would see
Promised I could not regret it or shut the door upon it

The task thus presented clear, likewise the goal,
For tales of those who avoided the task or missed the goal were gruesome
The lore was steeped in hearsay and anonymity, but ever present:
Be thorough and fearless, do the best you can with what you have or die

No “ifs”, “ands” or “buts” about this fork in the road, just the black and white
Starkness of choice, facing newcomers and old-timers alike, who
With the resolve of those in foxholes as the whistle to attack sounds
Engage daily this life and death struggle, where no quarter is given or expected

“You do not have to do this alone” this Army’s motto
My captain, my sponsor, issued the suggestions
These the same he had received as he this task had faced
My battle was his too, that is why he made so much sense to me.

One by one the resentments were sighted and mapped
My part in their making brought them closer, now well within range.
As each was then catalogued, recorded, a sense of progress becalmed me
“You need not be perfect “ I was told, just be the best you can now!

Only now I was not set up for failure, as had always been true before,
This was different, this change was a new outlook, a new attitude
How easy before it had been to blame them or it
Now the mirror of this process always kept me in focus too

The new day was dawning, I could feel it, as no feeling I had ever had,
I knew too I could admit to it, for I was no longer alone.
In the doing I was changing, in the admission
I had hope the change would really come – today.

By: Anon.

The cerebral Mr. Spock tells Captain James Kirk in a time clothed in the fantasy of the future, that “Change is the one essential principle of the Universe.” Of course this alien also did not consume alcohol. To one blessed with neither that insight nor that physical constraint, change came hard. This was so even when the circumstances of change had been thrust upon me by a doctor’s medical warning and a Divorce Court’s “Kick Out Order.” Undaunted, I would lie in my tub of blissful denial that the test was a “false positive” that the doc has simply mis-read it and wallow in the legalities that would prevent me from being thrown out of a residence which I alone owned, just check the deed.

When the tsunami of these changes broke upon me and I finally stopped drinking and started trudging the road, I began to accept all of them and the new reality that had come with them – almost.  Of course there had been the admission followed swiftly with a coming to believe. I had become convinced of my insanity and knew I alone had no defense, mental or otherwise, against it. Thus The Decision had made much sense. Only then did my Sponsor begin to discuss the real change that I was now to confront. My old way wasn’t working and hadn’t been working for a long, long time. So it seemed like my sponsor had the rather easy task of convincing me of the obvious, one pretty simple proposition: Be prepared to change or it is likely you will drink again and, if you drink, you will die.  Simple, straightforward – his laughter, as I seemed to actually be pondering this proposition, was the dose of reality I needed to accept it too. With Decision made and inventory done, the admission thrice had then opened the door to a new way of thinking, I hoped for a new way of living.  But as to this, I was admonished that only time would tell. As the days went by, I then came to find out that time passed for A.A.ers in a very wonderful way, it passed “One Day At A Time.”

As the days passed and life happened, most of those things about which I had then been so worried, never even happened. Those that did, in some instances struck with harsh consequences and even cruel efficiency, but the Steps I had taken had prepared me. I dealt with them as best I could, with all the honesty and integrity I could muster, for I had not then been alone. I found to my surprise and comfort, that with each disaster, someone in my groups, at my meetings, had been there before, had survived that calamity, had weathered that storm. They told me they had done so – sober, and thus I could too, if I didn’t drink and I went to the meetings.

But those who are not busy living are often busy dying, so it was I discovered that life being lived, sober, was still living on life’s terms, not on mine. I found that even in sobriety, calamities can happen, the floor upon which you are so comfortably standing one minute can suddenly vanish and leave only the abyss. Where then does one turn? What rope does one grasp to shinny up to safety? As my newest abyss loomed, my sponsor’s words began to ring in my ears “With any problem I must confront, I first ask myself-Which step applies?” How do I bring the steps to bear to address this new problem or, as seems to be so with me now, these new disasters?

Step 4 was the answer. For while I was so prepared to exhaustively take the inventory of those with whom my relationships were now souring, I had to then ask myself, what was my part in all of this? The difficulty of asking myself these questions quickly became dwarfed by the answers honesty compelled me to give to them. Then the kicker: I had to forgive these ill doers also. It was then an echo of this Step once taken so many years before now began to reverberate. Forgiveness, better to give it than to seek it. But I had not done so then and was not ready to do so now over a decade later, still the anger had patiently lingered. So where was this “change” about which I had been so confident, about which I wanted to be so proud? Taking my inventory today about new problems had revealed this omission of my prior effort, and had displayed how that effort had not been completely thorough, despite my best intentions. “Do not be Discouraged” a good friend extolled. So I was not. I asked to be shown the next right thing and be given the courage to do it. More will surely be revealed if I just don’t drink and go to the meetings.

By: Dede H.

Undertaking a courageous inventory
Of myself and my previous actions,
An attraction foolhardy for glory,
What could possibly be the reason?
Certainly it’s not in the name of fame!
I’ve been very angry with the patriarchy
Blamed my stupid husband for everything 
I’ve really resented rich corporate America 
Thought my parents should’ve let me sing
Was an underserved growing little thing 
So I had to fight for my right to party
Took a position so my voice was heard
Shouted how things were supposed to be!
Was misinformed my opinion mattered 
Nobody gave a damn but me…
Folks are entitled to their own reality

By Anon.

Long before I became a Grateful Alcoholic (“no” I never thought I would describe myself in that way), in another dimension of life I had heard the gift of Courage described as Fortitude. I had an intellectual sense of what “fox-hole courage” was intended to mean, but having never been in the military, much less in battle, I had no literal reality in which to frame the term. When I began losing with increased intensity and consequences my battle with the disease of alcoholism, my fruitless, solitary struggle, my Bottom, led me to the AA program and there I experienced the miracle which allowed me to achieve a daily reprieve from my disease. In that awakening, with the help of others, I worked on The 12 Steps, sought to live The 12 Traditions and even learned of The 12 Concepts.

But as I trudged and strove to practice these Principles in all of my affairs, I had to ask myself what on earth did that really mean? Dearest Maggie, a darling octogenarian with over half of that time sober, occasionally would drive my Home Group to tears of laughter, when sharing about how she thought at first that compliance with this suggestion meant she needed to increase her liaisons with different members of the male gender. But when the laughter subsided, she would put the joke aside and burn into your consciousness as only she could what it had been like when she drank, how she had come to AA, and what her life was like now because of AA. She would put flesh on bones of the Skeleton of The Principles, but never a name to them.

Although he had pointed to no particular location in the literature, as if only by virtue of the oral tradition of AA, my sponsor had conveyed to me The 12 Principles: Honesty, Hope, Faith, Courage, Integrity, Willingness, Humility, Brotherly Love, Justice, Perseverance, Spirituality and Service. As I had then worked the Steps and continued to do so in the many days that have followed, each Principle had become so easily recognizable in each Step, yet their collection in one place as elusive as a finger of fog ‘neath the Bridge on a blossoming October morn in The City. They were like a good friend who timely arrives with help when trouble is afoot, always there to shed light on the problem at hand or to guide to the next right thing when doubt or fear permeates the senses.

So it is no surprise to me now, as I Zoom from one virtual meeting to the next in these shuttered times, in a March that had come in like one lion and was exiting into April as a Pride of them, with not a lamb to be seen, that The Principle of Courage is on the nearing horizon.

Born from a Faith which embodies the awareness, to paraphrase FDR that “The only thing to Fear is Fear itself,” Fortitude needs now to be summoned to carry this alcoholic through these troubled times. This too is The Principle of Courage, the knowledge and belief that no difficulty need be so great as to preclude the ability to confront it with Integrity. I was hearing The Principle of Courage expressed by those sharing their experience, strength and hope in my Zoom Rooms and I needed to hear it. Whether I attended a Zoomer in my home town to strike back at the feeling of loneliness the Shelter In Place mandates had fostered or tuned in elsewhere just for a change of pace, the response in the end was always the same – Have Courage, You Are Not Alone in this Battle. I saw in my Zoomers how vital and necessary it was to have been Searching and Fearless when I had taken that inventory. That tool in my spiritual kit, that Fourth Principle, Courage, was now being put to use in ways I had never confronted, ways I had never contemplated, ways I had not a mere few weeks before even imagined possible. Courage, the Principle of Step Four, honed so many days passed in the inventory’s making, today was confronting the fears of the pandemic, this was in real time for me Practicing These Principles in All My Affairs. This was me in real time practicing the principles in all my affairs to build “the arch through which we passed to freedom” (Big Book, p. 62).

The Point, San Francisco.

A member shares their experience finding joy in fellowship. 

By Anon.

That we are to learn from history so as to avoid repeating it may help in many facets of life, but it certainly did not help with my history of drinking. The embarrassing moments in high school, which were cute or funny, transformed into embarrassing moments in college which ranged from badges of dubious honor to moments best tolerated by friends just looking the other way. After graduation this proclivity to imbibe translated into a wrecked car [my first] and arrests, more than I care to acknowledge even after over a decade sober. Like so many I was later to hear also describe, I arrived at the doors of AA, not on the Wings of Victory. My stop, like it had been for these others, was at the last house on the block, literally the end of the line. 

Before I could comprehend that there indeed was a solution, I needed to cross the threshold of unmanageability. In my case, as heard from more and more when the sober days began to mount, this I could do by accepting I was powerless over alcohol. My lack of power was my dilemma. I was not a moral weakling. I was just suffering from a disease that was out to kill me and, while performing its treachery, was bent on telling me I was fine. This message was like a wave breaking off the sea wall at Ocean Beach. It rolled in every morning when I showed up at my 7:00 a.m. meeting, hung over, and it hit that sea wall. It then receded as the day progressed, taking the oath to make this Day One of never, ever drinking again with it.As the next swell built, I consumed my daily swill and history dutifully repeated itself.

Praying alone did not seem to work for me. The luster of swearing had paled with those to whom I offered it to replace the trust lost in the downward spiral of dishonesty and betrayal my drinking had spawned. Yet the conversations I began to hear at my morning meetings were different. Even though I certainly was not an alcoholic and was just as surely more successful in business than almost everyone in the room [My fantasy world in “Hi Gear,”] they were each doing that which I could not. They had stopped drinking and were staying stopped. This was a new frontier for me.    

As my days at meetings began to pile up, even though my continued drinking was to take me to still new lows, the gift of Faith which I had somehow been given began to become unwrapped. I began to believe that if these men and women could do it, then maybe, just maybe, so could I. As the days became weeks and then months I heard how they did it – One Day at a Time. So too I heard the horror stories of those who slipped and managed to make it back – sadly  I also heard the reports of those who did not.

I realized once I experienced that miracle of a sober day, that day the Obsession actually vanished, that I was either in it for the long haul or the end would soon be upon me. A member of our program was asked to read one day, and they turned to Bill’s story: “But just underneath there is a deadly earnestness. Faith has to work twenty-four hours a day in and through us, or we perish.” (Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 16)  Faith not only in the admission that my life was unmanageable because I was powerless over alcohol, but Faith that I could be restored to sanity. Faith that if I was painstaking, I would comprehend the word serenity and I would know peace. With each passing sober day this new frontier upon which I had embarked revealed a new and wondrous landscape.  While I had heard these wonders described, to actually have them become a part of my life, I see now was entirely a product of my gift of Faith continuing to be unwrapped as I followed the suggestions set forth in the Big Book.

My sponsor told me many times, “Faith without works is dead.” (Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 88)  His actions and those I witnessed in the other members of my group each day, personified what it meant to lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. As I tried to follow their lead, which thankfully asked me to focus upon progress, not perfection, my Faith grew too. I cannot say how it happened, nor when it happened, only that it happened. I heard the words “We know that when we turn to Him, all will be well with us, here and hereafter.” (Twelve and Twelve, pg. 105.) I do not know what these words mean to others who might hear them, I can only say what they have come to mean for me. Simply, I have Faith that all will be well when I turn to Him.  Finally, bare of all its wrapping, I can freely partake in this gift of Faith our Program has given to me. 

By John. W

The comic’s skit at this point was simply hilarious.
One hardly needed to juxtapose the alternatives to see
That the choice between letting one eat cake could be
On one hand with death on the other so bluntly obvious.

I could hear in my mind’s recesses the audience laughter
As a soon to be headless French Queen lost to reality.
The comic’s revised order to soldiers the option of civility:
Offer them Cake or Death, a treat now or the eternal everafter.

Who would ever choose to die, with another selection so attractive?
There of course was the innate humor in the comic’s query.
Yet I had faced that liquid choice daily, choosing death and misery.
The sweetness of Cake rejected, the result so self-destructive.

The gauntlet to my guillotine marked by taverns and recycling.
The stats to my block, papered with broken promises and lies.
In the end, alone, only myself to thank, only myself to despise.
Abandoned hope accelerating my relentless downward spiraling.

From whence the whisper came, I doubt I shall ever know.
But clear and definite it was, like a long lost, dear friend.
Breathing in silent earnestness, “This is not your end.”
Cajoling me to listen and in my veins let this spirit flow.

Once again the Decision was upon me, I had to make a choice.
Though the battle was again joined, something had changed in me.
I had abandoned myself to this Power Greater than Me to be free
Of the booze and its trappings, to seek instead that new Voice.

By Anon.

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 of 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 member 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 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 everyone about everything. 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.

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