thepoint_202410

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. ↩︎

By John. W

As his head hit the pillow this night
Knowing this day he had fought the good fight,
He paused to reflect the discipline it required
To see the triggers and not by them get mired.

On Awakening he turned to his daily ritual
So different from the Before and now habitual.
His requests for help with his day’s tasks unspoken,
Their hearing, not granting, witnessed by another annual token.

Each day he found his token, just by the door.
Each day he was sober, now, each day since Before.
No small price to pay on The Toll Road called life,
The fare for his passage, a sober reply to joy or strife.

*   *   *   *   *

By Anon.

At a speaker meeting early in my sobriety I was to hear a claim that puzzled me greatly at the time, because I was on no “pink cloud” and the wreckage of my present lay strewn about me. The speaker had observed that: “You can take the alcohol out of the alcoholic, but you can’t take the alcoholism out of the alcoholic.”  

I had wanted so desperately of course to not be an “alcoholic,” you know what I mean, one of those falling-downers, wearing a trench coat on a hot summer day, slumped over in dark places, trying to bum spare change. That was an alcoholic and that sure wasn’t me. I had some trouble with the law, that crashed car in my history was never an easy memory, but I lived in a nice house, had a wife and kids, and a good job. I may have had trouble with booze every once and a while, but nothing I could not handle, nothing I could not fix.

The rude awakening of my bottom replaced my fantasy of life with reality. While the spiritual awakening which I was to find as a result of working the Steps was on the horizon, it was still quite a distance off when I heard this speaker’s comments. These words had dashed my hope of the “miracle cure” I had been expecting and caused me to wonder if I would ever be OK again. As the sober days began to mount, I was graced with a sponsor who has managed to stick with me through thick and thin. But at our first meeting, after my affirmation that I was willing to go to any lengths, he asked me what I thought things would look like in 365 days. Ruling out a PowerBall winning ticket or Bill Gates giving me his fortune, he asked for my realistic future outlook.

After some reflection I gave my reply. To this he responded that I had underestimated the benefits of the program on which I was beginning to embark. He then guaranteed me that things would be so much better than I had just declared I would consider it fantastic if they materialized in the next year.  In the days and with the work that followed, when my reticence to do the next right thing confronted me, he would remind me of the affirmative reply I had given him before. These reminders became the antidote for my fear when it reared its ugly head, disguised as uncertainty or “wrong place, wrong time.” So although our journey was indeed painstaking, his guarantee to me proved no idle ploy, he made good on his promise. Though my play had not followed the script I had written, I had won a personal Tony nonetheless.  

As we had then moved to Step Ten, my question to him was “Now what?”  His reply was as if set to a familiar lilt: “Keep on Trudgin’!”  What I had started to integrate into my daily life with his help, would be with me for the rest of it he said, there was nothing I needed but to Keep On Trudgin’.  

However, because I am the kind of person I am, always in search of the easier, softer way, I sought a second opinion. I asked a fellow with time and who “had what I wanted” how he kept on trudging over the years despite the hurdles in his sobriety. I wondered and asked him what the key to Step Ten was for him: “Discipline” was the one-word reply. After he let that sink in, he said I would never be cured of alcoholism (Oh where had I heard that before) and that my best hope was for a daily reprieve. But he said that for him, an atheist, his focus on the spiritual challenges of this task required him to stick to it in a rigorous, disciplined way. As a result, he said he had found that regardless of one’s concept of a Higher Power, in his time he saw that those people who “worked the steps” and did not just “talk the steps” seemed to persevere. He said that I was likely to find, as has proven to be the case, that the traits I exhibited when I was drinking were still behind that face I saw each day in the mirror. My demons were there, ready to ensnare me in sobriety if I failed to stay focused on the program that had brought me that gift in the first place.

My sponsor, my “second opinion” and now so many others too, have all echoed the words of that speaker from my past. Those comments however were now no longer a puzzle to me, they had become an insight into my disease. They bespoke too that the Spiritual Awakening of which they had been a harbinger could and would be achieved, today, as long as I was willing to Keep On Trudgin’.   

///

By Dede. H

Everyone is all gone now
I’ve made certain of that
People are forgiving too 
But I’m a particular brat
Cloven hooves often lose
I scan, scrimp and cheat
Never satisfied with you
I stomp and cry and bleat
I can’t even please myself 
Fair weather friendly deceit
Angrily returned to the shelf
Love’s sweet breast is tough
God forbid I should find fault
Mother’s milk is never enough
Life’s lessons assaulted me
It is none of my business 
What people do or seem to see
To what they say I only witness 
Not guessing what they think 
This thing that I am learning is:
I’m successful without a drink

Examine My Motives for All That I Do

By Rick. R

If someone were to ask me what brought me to the doors of AA, my answer would be: “Alcohol had got the best of me. I was desperately circling the drain and I didn’t want to die young.” Not everyone who comes to AA has that degree of desperation. I got sober on October 15, 1969, just before alcoholics were offered rehabilitation clinics. Up to that point most of our members who came there were looking for answers. The success rate at that time, according to the Foreword of the Second Edition of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, says: 50% of those who came looking for answers got sober and never drank again. 25% got sober after a few relapses and stayed that way. The rest 25% showed improvement. To me, 75% sounds like a surprisingly good ratio of success. 

The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking. (Tradition Three) Not everyone who came to AA from the court system or from a rehab environment has the same amount of desperation as those original members had. This does not mean they were not invited back, for we treat them with respect. But a significant percentage of them relapsed and we welcome them back with open arms so as not to be considered an AA failure and eventually many of them did stay sober. 

The amount of desperation is often consistent with the depth of thoroughness a person is willing to go through as he takes the steps, and when I was faced with the suggestion that I do a fearless and thorough moral inventory, in the Fourth Step, I began to resist and did what I would call a shallow facade just to get my ticket punched. 

Being in the Navy at the time, I was abruptly flown out to the Western Pacific during the Vietnam War and assigned to a tanker replenishing fuel on ships in the Tonkin Gulf Fleet and I had four months to think about what I was going to do on my return home. My conscience told me to discard my original inventory and do it right the second time around. That is, I think, what made the rest of this program easy for me. Accepting accountabilities for all those disgusting behaviors of the past and to make restitution has been the answer to all those alcoholic behaviors in the past. If we have completed a good Fourth and Fifth Step and again in the Eighth and Ninth Step, how do we approach the Tenth Step, which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it?

Early in my sobriety, my wife came home from an Al-Anon meeting excited about the topic they shared. She said, “We should examine our motives for all the things we do,” and that made perfect sense to me. I have been living a life based on Unselfish Principles and never finished examining my motives. All my outside behaviors (short-comings) are the result of my thinking (motives). So long as I am willing to continue this path it has taken all the fight out of me.

“Selfishness – Self-Centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity we step on the toes of our fellows, and they retaliate.” (BB pg. 62) What a profound statement! Living a life based upon unselfish motives has restored my self-esteem. The final and most important result is peace of mind. Never thought that would happen!!! This is my understanding of Step Ten.