The Point

Bringing Joy to the Less Fortunate

By Rick. R.

How appropriate it seems that there are twelve months in a year and we have twelve steps in the program. November is often referred to as the Gratitude month, due to the celebration of Thanksgiving. The joy of good living is the theme of Step Twelve, and it blends right in with the Christmas holiday season in December, ending with the New Year’s Eve celebration. This time of year brings joy to many of us but it also brings distress to some of the less fortunate ones who have yet to be blessed with the gift of sobriety and peace of mind, in and outside of A.A.

During my drinking days I used to be extremely uncomfortable about the holidays. I never knew how to act around normal people unless I was half smashed. When invited by one of my siblings to Thanksgiving dinner, I felt like a charity case and would rather just hang out at the bar where I felt safe. I never got into the spirit of reaching out to others. My family always celebrated the different holidays, especially Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I would always (due to my discomfort) put a damper on it by complaining about the tacky gifts  people bought for each other at Christmas and the mad rush to go shopping and the commercializing facade it had become. Any excuse was better than facing me and the miserable wretch I had become. 

 After being sober for several years it occurred to me I still had some of those same attitudes, and I was still holding on to them to some degree largely due to the inconvenience of it all. I explained this problem to a dear friend once, and he asked,” Does the rest of the family enjoy the holidays?” I said, “Yes.” He then said, “Why don’t you just take a back seat and just watch the joy in their eyes as they experience these things.”  I did exactly what he suggested and when I started to observe my wife and two adolescent girls and the childlike innocence and happiness it brought to them, it gave me a whole new appreciation for this time of year. It brought tears of Joy to my eyes. I no longer wanted to be the grouch, putting a damper on the oy that they were having. I have been following this line of thinking ever since and it  changed my whole perspective concerning these things.

This change of attitude has inspired me to apply the unselfish lessons I have come to understand and now I spend the holiday season filled with Joy. If it works like that for the holidays, then why can’t I bring it with me for the rest of the year? This has been my mission ever since my friend suggested it and I am always looking for the opportunity to brighten the lives of people less fortunate than myself. I try to do these things anonymously and without fanfare. I also try to consider the discomfort I used to feel when I was the one on the receiving end of a charitable gesture. I am careful to do these things in a way that preserves the dignity of that other person. I do not have to wait for the holidays to do these things. Every day is a holiday in and outside of my home, and you can believe me when I say: I reap more than my share of the joy. I hope this brings a new perspective to those who, like me, have trouble enjoying this time of year and I hope you all have a joyful Holiday Season and many more.      

By Anon.

I had completely bought into the deal that I was powerless over alcohol and that the unmanageability of my life was a direct result of that circumstance. Once admitted, without any action on my part except going to meetings, daily, sometimes more than once, I had managed to stop drinking. That was not a pretty time. With a few sober days strung together, I was able to find a sponsor and with my sponsor’s aid, had worked the steps and managed to stay stopped. I always knew I had not stayed stopped or stopped in the first place, on my own. I always knew He had helped me. I did not know how but I had a pretty good guess as to why [my Catholic upbringing about a loving, forgiving and merciful God had helped me a lot there, others with the same background not so much I have heard]. Once sober, time began to pass.

Time I have found has a wonderful way of passing in the AA Program – It passes: One Day At A Time. But I had been warned my disease was not only cunning, baffling and powerful, it was also patient. Thus, after days had passed, becoming years, I was faced with a series of events, crises, which seemed to pile up, one upon another and in rapid succession. It was like one time as a young teen, while out trying to body surf, when I was caught in a big set of waves after a wipe out. Each time my head came above water, wham, there was another wave crashing down upon me. The waves did not seem to want to stop and I did not know if I could keep afloat – I thought in that brief moment I was about to drown. I did not of course, but the hopelessness of the circumstances seemed almost too much – almost.

That experience in the surf never left me. As the new circumstances a lifetime later befell me, I almost felt un-equipped to confront them – almost. Unlike that day in the surf, or those days earlier getting sober, this time I had help, this time I had a Higher Power in my life. At no time like before, I was now able to recall the affirmative reply I had given to my sponsor when asked the question: Are you willing to go to any length? Now the rubber was really meeting the road, I was being asked if I had meant what I had said those many years before when I wanted so much to just stay stopped.  As suggested, I had sought to improve that conscious contact. But what would that mean, now when events were upon me and I needed it the most. Lo and behold, as I was told would be the case, my Higher Power was there for me. I had read “There is One Who has all power” and was desirous of the urging “May You find Him now” but that had been to get sober.  

Now I was confronted with how that reality would play out in my life beyond sobriety. “May You find Him now” spoke to me in terms anew, as to feelings abounding, as to solutions that seemed, at least, unconventional. May You find Him now – if I did, what would He do for me? That obviously was the wrong point of view. May You find Him now – if I did, what would I do to enhance that discovery, that relationship? This seemed to be the question. As the effort to confront this question in another unconventional manner, through meditation, presented itself, I sensed more doors starting to open.

“Hope” in a strange way had taken on a new light. Surely I had “hoped” that the crises I faced would each, in their own time subside and hopefully work out in my favor. Now after a time, it seemed that “Hope” had become a goal I sought to achieve with my Higher Power. That, regardless of the outcome, I would indulge that relationship with a greater fervor, with a more conscious sense of gratitude and the “Hope” that I would succeed in demonstrating that fervor and gratitude, daily, one day at a time became the goal. To those who are painstaking comes the promise of a whole new attitude and outlook upon life. I thought that meant I would be happy with a used car or satisfied even if I had not gotten that well-deserved raise. I had not expected that new attitude would be the enhancement of my relationship with a Higher Power with Whom I thought I already had a pretty good thing going. Yet I found that the limits to that rapport were only in my head, only in my thinking.  So that if I were only to further seek, I would surely find. I had but to push upon that door opened so long ago, to the certainty – May You Find Him Now, and I did again, to a still even newer happiness. 

By Christine R.

“Lord!  Grant me patience!” Later you find yourself in the longest line in the post office. You get to practice patience, and you get your wish! More patience. My sponsor prayed for more money. The response from On High was to send an exorbitant IRS tax bill. Forced to go out and get another job, she got more money. Yep! She got what she prayed for. 

From page 552 of our Big Book comes what some gals call the “Pray for the Bastard” prayer. “May he get what he deserves.” Actually, the text reads, “Pray for the person or thing you resent, and you will be free. Ask for their health, prosperity and happiness, and you will be free.” “Do it every day for two weeks, and you will find you have come to mean it…” Sometimes I have to pray for the willingness to pray. At times such a resentment arises, I have to pray for the willingness to be willing to be willing. It can start from the back 10-yard line. But willingness comes if I am to stay sober. 

My best example comes from a home group member who was always late, noisy, and argumentative. With a folding chaise lounge and two dogs, knowing dogs were not allowed on the property, she clattered on through. Four steering committee meetings later, we got the dogs out – outside the door that is, nosing around, in and out on occasion. Verbal altercations erupted. Not liking her became a pastime, ‘til my sponsor got a-hold of me. If I were a puppy, she’d have been shaking me by the scruff of my neck. “Where is your compassion?” she demanded. She continued with, “You’re just a garden variety drunk. No better or worse than anyone else here.” Then, she put me on the two-week plan of praying for the woman.  

Willing to be willing. And willing to take action. Trusting my sponsor, praying to be willing and acting, got my hubs turned and I was free from the muck of my discontent. The “emotional rearrangement” of old ideas for new ones came through. It worked! Eventually, this woman and I became friends. She attended all my speech competitions (without her chaise) and was welcome support right up until the day she died. 

As long as there are suffering alcoholics, there will be prayers. Prayers like: 

• Pray for a slow recovery.
• Pray for joy and victory. Why? Because you haven’t had much of these.
• Grant me the serenity.
• Thy will be done.
• Or the alcoholics’ simple prayer, “God Help Me!”  

Another prayer story comes from my friend Elan, from the Apache Nation. As most Native Americans I’ve known, he dearly loves his family. But the Booze loved him more. Elan lost access to his daughter and his granddaughter to our disease. The daughter refused to see him and would not allow her daughter anywhere near him. Anguish, sorrow, and rage were his keepers by day and night. Frantic to see them but powerless to do so. His sponsor told him to pray this prayer, “I pray my family is safe and warm and well fed.” “Who could argue that?” he told me.

Fast forward a few years praying this prayer came the day when Elan is at a tribal gathering. From out of the blue appears a little girl swirling around his legs crying, “Grandpa!” His daughter was only a few feet away. Safe and warm and well-fed, they came of their own volition, not through his struggling to have his way. They came by prayer and the powerful Hand of God.  

Thank God for AA and Thank AA for God.

By John W.

Alone and Deep in Thought
                         I was Behind Enemy Lines

My cartridge belt held nothing, my clips
Were all exhausted, the ammo cans were empty.
Comrades had long ago fallen too, or had
They just stopped being there for me?

The loneliness was too much to bear – almost.
The fear hung like a cape worn always – almost.
The frustration of uncertainty was daunting – almost.
The anger at my predicament was overwhelming – almost.

Alone and Deep in Thought
                         I was Behind Enemy Lines

I could do nothing and die,
Of this I was sure, convinced. 
I was certain of the fate before
Me to which inaction would lead.

The carrot of Recovery on the Stick
Of the Steps seemed too good to be true – almost.
The Rarity of Failure to those who
Thoroughly followed the Path, unbelievable – almost.

Alone and Deep in Thought
                         I was Behind Enemy Lines

Huddled amongst mossy burls
Below shields of camouflaging greens at
First I wept for Joy I was alive, still
Above Ground and Breathing one more day.

And with each day of continued success 
I found my once wayward comrades returning.
As I trudged, first so terribly alone
But then no longer so, my steps lightened.

Alone and Deep in Thought
                         I was Behind Enemy Lines

How “The Shift” came about to this
Moment I do not know, but as clearly
As a hot round piercing flesh it stung
Me, it instantly commanded my full attention.

As those days of attention too began to number
With them came a hitherto unknown calm,
A sense of belonging whose location had no map
Coordinates, yet whose course my attention charted.

Deep in Thought – But No Longer Alone
                      No Longer was I Behind Enemy Lines

*   *   *   *   *

By David L.

When I first thought of Step 10, I immediately pictured the face of a co-worker. The scenario that came to mind wasn’t my fault and it wasn’t his fault. But the feeling of guilt still hovered over my mind. 

I’m a taxi driver, and on this day, I had a wife jump into my cab. At the same time, her husband jumped into his cab. Now, in this situation, the husband, not wanting to get into a fight, chose the wife’s cab, mine.

I know the co-worker was disappointed, so after I dropped them off, I searched for him to make a 10th Step amends by splitting the payment in half. His eyes lit up and we both laughed about it. Our bond with one another became closer. But most important, I rid myself of the feeling of guilt and slept well that night.

By Justin W.

A daily Eleven Step practice has changed my life and my recovery. I believe this daily practice has enhanced every single one of the Twelve Steps in my life. I was oblivious to most of what I was thinking my whole life. Now that I meditate daily for forty-five minutes, I am always aware of what I am thinking, which is the key to the progress of my recovery because everything makes me reflect. 

I tell anyone if you want to see how truly powerless you are try to do what I do on a daily basis: single pointed concentration meditation. I try to keep one thought in my head for forty-five minutes every day: I am. I am is the only thing I truly know. Everything else is inference suspect to doubt. When I first started this practice seven years ago, I would come to without being able to focus on those words at all with my ADHD. This practice has been the only treatment for my ADHD that has ever worked for me. I can read pages off a book today without my mind wandering all over the place because of it. When I first started, I was amazed at how powerless I was over both the thoughts that arose in my mind as well as how they made me feel; it is how we feel about what we think that controls our actions. I tell anyone when they first start: Ask yourself if you have any control over the thoughts that rise in your mind and how you feel about them. Or “does nothing, absolutely nothing, happen in God’s world by mistake?”

If anyone is truly struggling with God, I tell them to look within, and a daily Eleven Step of any kind will help someone look within. I hated God when I got to recovery, but I made the words “I don’t know” my higher power, which is what Bill tells us to be willing to say in We Agnostics. “I don’t know” can honestly answer every question except “I am,” and God has all the answers. 

If anyone wants to do a true searching and fearless moral inventory, I tell them to sit in silence and just watch where your mind takes you. Everything that controls you will be shown to you. Your character defects will be revealed to you because you will always be aware of all that you are thinking. Because I meditate so much, everything about my behavior is reflected to me in the actions I take. Even the ones I need to make amends for. 

As it says in Step Ten: “It is a spiritual axiom that no matter what the cause, if I am disturbed the problem is with me.” Before daily meditation, I was oblivious when I was disturbed because I was never aware of what I was thinking. Before I meditated daily, I found my biggest problem with doing “the next right thing” was because I was never aware of my true motivations. 

As stated above, everything makes me reflect, which makes me so grateful I have this daily practice. A daily Eleventh Step has solved so many of my problems and allows me to continue to grow in a positive manner and carry the message to the next sufferer who crosses my path. So yes, every single Step is enhanced by Step Eleven.

By Dede H.

How do I know you?  
I’m certain we’ve met before
There’s something very familiar 
Something is ancient yet new 
I’ll think of who you are soon 

You want to tell me the answer
I’m just not ready to hear 
I know I’ve always known
you I have felt you draw very
near I often hear you in the
bushes 

I’ve sensed you were in the
rooms Sang of you in the
churches Felt a longing in empty
tombs There is no space
between us No time is like the
present

One Pebble At A Time

By Rick R.

When entering AA for the first time, looking at the steps, getting a sponsor, going to meetings, doing service work, and all the other suggestions we hear in the meetings, it can seem like an impossible undertaking, and that is not unusual. A sponsor might say, “Slow down, life isn’t passing you by near as fast as you think it is. These things take time.” Those of us who have thoroughly followed this path can testify to the fact that this process works perfectly if we meet the requirements suggested in each of the twelve steps. We get a slow and steady reprieve as we resolve these issues.

When people say this is a simple program for complicated people, they are not far off. Telling a new member that if it weren’t for the wreckage of the past, and those tormenting memories left in its wake, we would simply have to stop doing the thing we are ashamed of and after a while, time would heal everything. However it’s our past guilt and shame that are the things causing us to seek relief via the bottle. Deep down inside we feel unworthy. Does this mean that we can’t do anything about things unless we are at that particular step? 

I often hear people talking about carrying around a sack of rocks and I know getting through inventories and amends may take years for some of us. What can we do to get the ball rolling? I have come to realize the sack of rocks turns out to be a few rocks and a million pebbles. (Little selfish things I do, or did, in my daily life of which I’m not proud). Gossip, criticism, sloth, lying, and character assassination to name a few. If I am to live well today, I must identify these things and my motives for doing them and rid myself of them, one pebble at a time. 

I can even speed up the process by replacing those behaviors with unselfish deeds such as  minding my own business, letting someone ahead in traffic, having a smile for everyone, putting the cart back at the grocery store, and making my bed each day. These types of gestures, I call my spiritual pebbles. I get a warm feeling inside when I do them without fanfare. I have never gotten a warm feeling from doing a selfish deed. However, I have gotten a feeling of unworthiness from them. I can start with my family, my loved ones, my friends, my fellow workers and continue to spiral outward to everyone I encounter during the day. These unselfish things cost me nothing. As time passes, they become part of who I am. Today I have nothing to be ashamed of. Life is good.

By Anon.

No A.A. group or member should ever, in such a way as to implicate A.A., express any opinion on outside controversial issues – particularly those of politics, alcohol reform, or sectarian religion. The Alcoholics Anonymous group opposes no one. Concerning such matters they can express no views whatsoever.

As George Santayana once said: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” and thankfully, as the “Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions” recites, our Founders took heed of this advice. They learned from the failed Washingtonian Society that peril lies in the path that permits politicians to use their society for their own purposes, regardless of the apparent righteousness of the cause or controversy. Thus, having already committed to having one primary purpose, a logical ‘next step’ would be to avoid controversy¹ by steering clear of it, supporting no one, opposing no one, staying focused on the primary purpose, to help the alcoholic who still suffers.

But how does such a highfalutin principle come into play for the average drunk like me just trying to stay sober? I was surprised to see how that simple question and answer could play out in real terms. I happened to attend a regular meeting and in the course of small talk before the opening bell with a member whom I admire greatly, the topic turned to a news item of current prominence. With my legal background it was easy to have an opinion on point to satisfy the innocent inquiry, it was the follow-up that was not anticipated. My colleague took my point and applied it to an equally prominent news item, but took a tack quite different from my feelings on the subject. Here I was, right where I did not want to be, in an escalating discussion on the pros and cons of a question about which there were two distinctly different and discordant views. Fortunately the opening bell rang to commence the meeting and the distinctions and differences were lost in the Serenity Prayer.  

In the sober time that followed that exchange, I saw too many times the opportunity to repeat the same type of conversation, with one or another colleague, and always, initially, with the best of intentions. While, like Santayana, I have tried to learn from that past experience, no saint am I and too often the bait was taken before I realized the hook hidden within was set. I could only imagine the reaction of any group in a public setting where, with the best intentions of espousing the good AA has to offer, in that promotion slipping into one or more of my human defects, losing not only the listeners at the time, but any hope they would be attracted by the carrier of that message to relay it to someone who might really need to hear it.  

I have been one of the fortunate ones to get an opportunity to speak for the Public Information and the Cooperation with Professional Community (PI/CPC) service group and here particularly it is important for me to remember this is not a soapbox for my version of AA.  I have had the benefit of working with a number of more experienced members and have been able to learn from them how to “Talk the talk” in a manner that carries the message effectively and, at the same time, does not have me sounding off on controversial “outside issues,” but keeping my mouth shut on such things there is no chance I can say the wrong thing while trying to say the right thing. This knack is not one which comes easily or normally to me, it might to others, but it does not to me. So the years of experience I have had learning how to restrain my tongue in meetings has carried over well to the service groups at which I have had an opportunity to share my experience, strength and hope.

True to the observation that “more will be revealed,” the importance of this tradition started to grow on me at meetings and that growth blossomed during service opportunities when the lesson learned could be put into practice in real time. What I had learned first-hand at meetings, thereafter, was a valuable insight into the wisdom of the principles behind Tradition 10. In simple terms which I had learned when a youngster: “Remain silent and be considered a fool, open your mouth and remove all doubt.” 

1. Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 178. ↩︎