The great mystery to me is "How come there are so few people in Al-Anon." So many qualify, alcoholism affects to many people. The 12 Steps are applicable to all areas of our life. So bad that the stigma is still so strong in today.

I know why know one wants to go to AA or Al-Anon, yet it mystifies me how people can be shown a way to get help and still they say, "No!" The nature of the disease and the nature of the human race.

I have always been fascinated by the Egyptian architect. I know how it was done, the blood, sweat and tears of thousands upon thousands of slaves. It is sad when you think how far back people have been using people to get what they want. You give to me and when I don't need you any more, you are out of here!

I like anything to do with the settling of the old west, yet again it was Native Indians, Chinese, and what they call White Trash that did a lot of the labour. It doesn't take much for a person to get full of themselves and think they are better than others.

http://www.iihs.com/images/prayer3.gif

What a marvellous thought. I have seen so many people leave the fellowship when they hear people talk about God, Jesus, and religious beliefs.

They can't seem to grasp that this is a spiritual program and all religions are included, along with those who don't believe in any type or concept of God.

It is God as I understand Him, not as you understand Him. Not how you understand Him and it is your duty to tell me that I should believe in your God too.

I found that spirituality enhanced my religious beliefs. My religious beliefs enhanced my spiritual beliefs. I felt that I was doubly blessed. My God is so much bigger than I ever thought He could be. I call my God Him because it is much easier to say that then He/She/It. My God is as He/She/It reveals themselves to me in today.

I left God and the church many years ago. I returned to the church and left again. It was in AA and Al-Anon that I found the answers. Before going there, I could stop, but couldn't stay stopped. As a result of finding a spiritual way of life, I have been able to stop one day at a time for several 24 hours.

If you bring the body, the mind and soul will follow.

Posted on another site in 2012.

You can't outrun God! He is there whether you don't see or believe in Him. There is someone or some thing that makes the world go round and I am not the Source.

Don't leave someone outside the circle. This is a we program and not for the selected few. Many people need the program, but it works best for those who want it.

It is a Spiritual Program, based on no particular form of religion or concept. As my service sponsor said to me, "I don't care who your God is as long as it is not You!

http://briannedrouhard.com/blog2008/moocowmoo.gif

The reading I posted today about a Hot Tub for the Mind has stayed with mey.

I would like one for my whole body. Yet never thought of my mind as needing a good 'soak' too.

It doesn't matter what our choices were in the past or in the future. When we meet a roadblock, come up to a wall, or the end of a road, we often need to stop, connect with our Higher Power as ask for help.

In order to do that, we need to clear our mind, let go of all the chatter and inner dialogue. I need to get out of my own way so my God can work through me. In order to do that, I need to cleanse my mind of anything that gets in the way.

Easy to say, but not always easy to do. It takes practice, practice, practice.

www.meditationcenter.com/healing/color.html

This was posted on another site in 2011.

Glad that this link still works. I know certain things, but senility and seniority often makes me forget. I do this in short form some times, but don't always give it much thought unless I go to the Holistic center for a treatment.

May the White Light heal you and cleanse you of all things that are not in your best interest in your life, just for today.

http://zbit.blox.pl/resource/mysz_1_animowana.gif

It is nice to have a thought in today, only to go back and look at an old post and have your thoughts affirmed. It doesn't matter if it is 2004 or 2016, the program still work when I work it.

http://angelwinks.ca/images/generalp...ralpod1292.jpg

Something I posted on another site in 2009

Without true honesty, I can't find acceptance, willingness, forgiveness, and other spiritual principles of the program.

Step One
 

The following are posts I made on another site in June 2005

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol/alcoholics-that our lives had become unmanageable.


As I have grown in the program, I have come to realize that my powerlessness is over many things, not just alcohol, but my self-admitted alcoholic son, my habits, my thought patterns, and life as a whole.

I am not the power; although for many years' I thought I was. What I have come to find out is that when I surrender, turn it over and ask for help, then I am 'empowered' to do what I need to do for myself.

The problem is but a symptom of my disease, often it is my thinking along with my actions, that I need to change.

Part of what kept me from doing this Step 100% was my denial. Assuming I had the power to change or that I was in control. Control is an illusion which only keeps me sick.

During the next week I invite you all to share on what this Step has meant to you in your recovery, how you apply it to your life. How you apply this Step into your life today and share how it was in 'yesteryear' for the newcomers on the board.

Topics and spiritual principles which apply to this Step:

- powerlessness
-unmanageability
-honesty
-surrender
-acceptance
-control
- denial

This Step was the beginning of a new life and a new awareness for me. I often think they put the '-' into this Step because there isn't enough space to list all the things that I am powerless over, and all the things that I used to search for that something outside of myself to make me happy, content, and regain 'control' of my life.

I had no concept of the word 'powerless' until I substituted it for the word control. When I looked back on my life I realized that it was all an illusion. No matter how much I tried to control my drinking, there was always more. I could stop, but I couldn't stay stopped. When I picked up, I wasn't sure how much picking I would end up doing or where it would take me or what would happen.

Everytime I picked up, I gave away a piece of me. My self-will, my self-esteem, my self-respect, etc. I lost my values, my principles and my determination, everything went out the window, my life was always centered around the alcohol or the alcoholic. The person (son, father, mother, husbands, boyfriends, neighbors, sponsees, friends and family memembers), place (my bed, the bar, the Legion, the kitchen, the stores, the work place, the church, the gym, etc.), and things (drugs (prescription and street), alcohol (a drug too), computer, cards, food, and more.... took over my life and my thinking, and governed my thoughts.

I become obsessive compulsive, and when I have a taste be it thought, physical and emotionally, I always want more, unless I surrender the situation over to the God of my understanding. When I came in, I didn't have much concept of letting go, let alone a belife in God which was to follow as a result of working the Steps.

The first five Stpes of change for me are:

Awareness of my problem (challenge)
Admittance of that problem
Acceptance of the problem
Action to change the problem
Attitude adjustment that I am "powerless" and my life is unmanageable or I need to change my attitude so I can take action to bring about change.

My sponsor told me that the word problem is negative and that if I use the word challenge, it could be overcome. The substance isn't the problem, I am. It is about changing me and my attitude to bring about change.

P. 569 (Third Edition) Big Book of Alcoholic Anonymous

In the Al-Anon's Twelve and Twelve, I changed the wording so others could identify from alcohol to people, places and things.

There is a difference that some people don't recognize. l) That once the alcoholic has picked up, he is no longer in control and is acting out in his disese.
2) That even though he is not actively using, he is still under the influence and has the thinking patterns unless he has experienced the spiritual changes in his life.
3) That alcohol is a killer and no respector of persons and it is a disease that affects the whole family.

I only saw my father drunk twice. Once when I was eight years old and again when I was fourteen, yet his disease affected my whole life. I didn't know he was an alcoholic until my mother died when I was twenty, and he no longer had to hide his drinking.

My 'isms' came from my mother, my father was never there, so how could he have passed much onto me. It was my mother's use of food and her 'bed' (isolation) that affect my thinking and actions. I never had a sit down conversaton with my father until I was twenty-six years old; then I made the decision to become his drinking buddy.

My sponsor told me that I could only do the first half of the first Step 100% and it needed to be 100% or I would pick up again. If I didn't have the honesty and acceptance of my disease and the willingness to surrender it to the program, then I would not stay clean and sober (soundness of mind).

This has been a big truth for me. When I get caught up in life, my life can again become unmanageable. It isn't the drinking and drugging, I have been clean for 13 years, 9 months, and 11 days; it is my thinking, my actions, my attitude that can slip into old behaviors and I can find myself with unmanageability. A friendship gone astray, a relationship broken, a job gone, a bill that has accumulated, etc. which can take me back into the obsessive compulsiveness of active addiction.

I firmly believe we slip (you can only slip if you have something to lose) into these old ways because we have had lapses long before we pick up. Like stopping going to meetings (need to go for attitude adjustments), picking up the phone (isolation is unhealthy, me alone with me tells me I am just 'fine'), and no spirutal connection of the fellowship leaves me without the "good orderly direction" that I need to stay clean and sober. This is a program of reflection. I was told that for every finger I pointed at someone else, I had three coming back at me. When I become judgmental, and think I know and start looking at others, then my own life is unmanageable, because 3 pointers lead to 12 issues of my own that I need to deal with. After awhile, I get tired I don't know about you, but this happened to me at 7 years sober when I got into a relationship in recovery for the first time. It got so bad that I was willing to count the pieces of toilet paper that he used on each roll in my apartment and charge him accordingly for rent on the use of my chair, my TV, my time and energies for cooking his meals (he said he liked sitting down in my restaurant).

In today, I can look back and laugh at myself. Believe me it was not a healthy place to be.

Thank you for letting me share.

Honesty was a biggy for me. I thought I got honest first, and realized it was what came last to me.

I was cash register honest mainly because of the spiritual principles taught to me growing up and for the most part when it came to monetary things.

When I got true honesty, I realized that I stole time, affection, ideas, and was very selfish and self-centered. It was all about me and what I wanted.

I had to get honest about my own disease. Not my father's, my mother's, my husband's, my son's, my friends and coworkers, but be honest about me.

I lived my life through other people. I had a lot of sick people in my life that I tried to help and find acceptance through because of my own low self-worth and self-esteem. I was always looking for validation and affirmation from others and unable to honestly like myself. I was so busy caretaking others that I didn't have time for me. I didn't know how to give to me and didn't think I was worthy and deserving of respect.

I not only found courage and fortitude in the bottle and pills but through people. I think the using of people caused more hurt than that when I was drinking. When I was drinking, there was always the bottle, but it took me to other people and I always wanted to belong and be a part of. This is the nice part of finding recovery, I finally found like I had come home and truly belonged, not feeling like I was on the outside looking in and not participating in my own life.

How many times I was told to 'do' and 'did' whether I wanted to or not. I had to get honest and find out what I truly liked, loved, accepted, and believed in not what my spouses, my son, my parents, my clergy, my friends, my co-workers, etc. told me was truth. I had to find my own. I no longer had to say, "How high?" when I was told to jump. I was able to get honest and say, "Do I realy want to jump?"

I am powerless, when I give up my power. Until I could get truly honest, I didn't know that I couldn't make anyone do anything, I didn't know that I wasn't responsible for other people's actions, I didn't know that I could say "No!"

My immediate thought when I see 'surrender' is "No Never!" And so it should be, I should never give up, what I need to do is give over.

Surrender to win! When I give up the power by saying, "God I can't do this any more, I need your help!" I am empowered to do what I need to do for myself. God doesn't do for me what I can do for myself. The best part is that when I turn it over to Him, He gives me the courage, the strength, the willingness (sometimes I have to pray for the willingness to be willing), the guidance, the motivation and encouragement for me to move on and make changes in my life. When life is the same old, same old, there is a very good chance that I am not growing in the fellowship of the Spirit and if I get really honest, there have been some doors have opened and I was too caught up in self to walk through. I was not willing to take a risk and get out of the old enemy complacency and instead of surrendering each day daily, I just give over what is comfortable for me.

Like the old pair of running shoes I like talking about. They are just so comfortable and seem to just fit my feet, yet they do look a little shabby and worse for wear. When I give in and buy a new pair, the new ones are stiff and not very pliable in the moment, feel awkward and strange and often I develop a blister or two. Yet in the long run, they become comfortable, they look good and I start feeling better and able to handle life as it comes much better. I can walk taller, walk faster, and walk proud.

Acceptance is the key to Serenity. The answer to all chaos and when I can accept that things are as they should be in the moment, then I can live a much more peaceful life.

I didn't think I was an alcoholic because I compared instead of indentifying. I didn't pass out, and I could walk a straight line, and I didn't have black outs, and I didn't drink beer (didn't like the taste), and then I asked myself, if I am not an alcoholic, what am I? As I went to meetings, I stayed sober and I opened my mind and listened and slowly but surely, I recognized old thinking and action patterns. I was glad that I went to AA first before I went to Adult Children of Alcoholics because I would have stayed in my denial longer and continued to play the blame game. It was always someone or something else that I blamed for my problems instead of taking responsibility for myself and my choices.

I had a lot of high expectations which stood in the way of my total acceptance of my disease. A lot of them were projected onto me, and when I couldn't live up to them, which was often because they were so high, I used. I always felt less than and thought I was a failure and the lowest of the low and figured that God didn't accept me. Like everything else, it had to come from within me. Today I am grateful to be an alcoholic because it led me to the 12 Steps of recovery.

I learned to accept the fact that I couldn't handle life and that I used people, places and things to validate me, to give me courage, to help me escape my reality and when I focused on something or someone else then I didn't have to look at me.

When I accept that nothing happens in the world by mistake, I can be at peace. As a friend use to say, "That's not odd, that's God." I had to go through what I had to go through to get to the doors of recovery and once there, I could share my experience, strength and hope with others. I have a story to tell, and to keep my sobriety, to continue to grow, I must share it. What is important is that I have something to give, and in order to obtain that I had to work the Step and continue to work them as I grew in awareness because life is forever changing.

I needed to accept the fact that my disease is in remission one day at a time, and when I stop doing the do things, it will make itself known to me. I will always be an alcoholic, and can't drink safely. This is a progressive disease and it is really scarey to think what would happen to me if I picked up after 13 years and where I would end up. I have no doubt that I would die.

The next word that I would like to examine is - unmanageable. To understand what unmanageable is we must first look at the antonym manage.

Which is defined by Webster's as:-
1 : to handle or direct with a degree of skill: as a : to make and keep compliant ( b) : to treat with care : (c) : to exercise executive, administrative, and supervisory direction of.

Control is what I call the "C" word. Not only because it is part of the three "Cs" but because I couldn't comprehend the word powerlessness until I substituted this word.

All my life I tried to control, to be in control, and all my life no matter what I did, I got hurt anyway.

Control is an illusion. The one it hurts the most is me, yet like my days of using, it hurts those around me. My intentions were good, I thought my motives were good, I didn't know I was trying to play God with other people's lives, including my own.

I tried controlled drinking for many years. It didn't work. Even if I didn't have more, I always thought more, and I was never at peace. In my relationships, I was always looking for love and attention, and there just never seemed to be enough. Today I know that what ever I took, it couldn't have possibly filled up the emptiness within me. I was empty, with no self-love and all I took fell on fallow ground.

When I try to control my life, it leads me back to insanity. It takes me away from God and back into active addiction. Even if I don't physically pick up my drug of choice, my thinking can go before me.

Denial gets in the way of my full recovery. It keeps me sick and prevents me from finding the total acceptance of my disease. Unless I can take the first half of this step 100% I open myself to relapse.

Many say relapse is part of recovery. Relapse is part of my disease. You have to have something in order to have laspes or slips in your thinking which takes you back drinking.

Denial allowed me to keep an open door with one foot in recovery and the option of putting the other one back to living on the edge, back to the caretaking of others and not taking care of myself, back to looking for some person, place or things to blame for my life and my decisions.

Recovery is all about me. When I deny that fact, I stay sick. It doesn't matter how many people around me are using or what they are using; it is my reaction and how I deal with these people that is the problem, unless I can find the solution. The soluton for me was the Steps. Learning how to apply them to my life. To heal, to grow, to find the real me, and not live through other people's concept, ideas, projections, identities and find my own truth.

In today, I am an addict. I used people, places and things to escape reality and to help me cope with life. One day at a time, I do get better. I am a recovering addict whose drug of choice can still be more....

Each morning I have to take this Step. I am powerless over people, places and things and my life is unmanageable when managed by me.

Feel the truth In every moment, in every circumstance there is a new truth to be discovered. Life is rich with possibilities for deeper, more profound understanding.

You are, at the same time, all-encompassing essence and also a particular momentary expression of that essence. You live in this moment and you live beyond it.

Discovering truth is a matter of confirming in experience what you already know in your essence. The way you know it is truth is because it resonates so perfectly within the depth of who you are.

Truth is not something you must be told. Truth is truth because you recognize it so completely.

Living successfully in this moment and in this world is a matter of connecting your outer life to your inner truth. The most effective, fulfilling choice in any situation is to live the truth of who you are.

In pure truth there is no fear, no worry, no anxiety or anger. Feel the truth that is within you, and let it guide your every choice.

-- Ralph Marston

Just last night was sharing with someone about this. It is about finding our truth. Experiencing our own life and no longer living it through others.

For me, it is about not playing old tapes, but making new ones in living colour!

What do I believe in? What do I want for my life? What do I need for my own health and wel being so that I can be there for others? When I am focusing on others and not on my own recovery, the well runs dry. I need to remember that I need food for the body, mind and spirit.

Can't fault the last statement. If I am living in those feeling, I am not working my program or not working it to the best of my ability. When fear is near, God is here. I need to have faith in that. That is my truth.

There is negative in life. That is a given. It is what I can do to change it into a positive that matters. Turning a blind eye and pretending that it isn't there isn't the solution.

This was posted at Recovery Inn in 2010

In today, I see the disease through my son. He thinks I don't understand, because he used my drugs of choice and moved onto other things. He things because he uses other drugs, it makes him different. He doesn't want to admit the problem is him not me. It is not the substance, it is the dis-ease.

Often what I thought was my truth was self-justification.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8...7jcso1_400.gif

All my life it seems that I have been in competition. I always wanted to be number one, I wanted to be the center of attention, and my whole attitude was "Feast your eyes upon me, I'm here, I'm here, it's too good to be true, but I'm here, I'm here!" It was a name of a song way back when, and I took it as my theme song.

When I came into recovery, there wasn't much of that bravado left. I was an empty shell. I looked at everyone and I compared instead of identify and I stayed sick. I had to stay away from open speaker meetings because I would walk away and say I didn't do that, or I would shut down and I wouldn't listen, and I wouldn't be open to anything the speaker said.

Today thanks to recovery that is no longer true. I use to look around the rooms and say, "I want what they have!" Today, I go into the rooms, and there are few people who have what I haven't already been given or made aware of. That is not bragging, it is fact. I have worked very, very hard on my recovery for the past twelve years. I have had people come up to me and say, "I want what you have!" I respond with, "Well unless you are prepared to work really really hard and do lots and lot of service, you won't get it." They generally end up walking away.

Many times in recovery it has been lonely, because I have joined groups and women have left. Ironically, I am not in competition. I am not out to run a race. I don't want anyone's man. For most of my recovery, I wouldn't have taken him in a lucky bag, I had a lot of anger issues around men and my past. I had some with women too and that is why I joined a Woman's Group for the first three years of my recovery, and why I am in a CA Women's Group today.

The fellowship is small, it need support, and I have been give many gifts in recovery, much awareness, and a spiritual connection with my God, who has granted me a lot of blessings. I believe those blessing were a result of service, nothing more, nothing less.

I am not bad looking for an old lady, and I find it rather humorous to have women draw their men away from talking to me, I have had women leave the room when I started to share, and I never had a black out when I was drinking but I have in sobriety. I have had at least four relationships that I don't remember feeling a thing.

I was anxious last night when I went to detox that the newcomers may not identify and would shut down and shut off because I was there for CA and I have never used Cocaine or Crack in my life. But the substance doesn't matter, and thankfully I was able to put that message across. The problem is me, and the Twelve Steps are to fix me not my addiction because I have a thinking problem, not a drinking and drug problem, the man one God and I are still working on, although the new relationship is coming up to one year.

Alcohol and drug cause a soul sickness. It is a family disease and affects not just the addict and alcoholic, it affects those around them.

I have been given so much, that at two years I wanted to tell the world. At twelve years, I have been given the opportunity. At three years I quesitoned my existance, my reason for being. I went to two meetings a day for two years and at least once a day I heard, "Give back what was given to you!"

My tongue was a weapon for many years, I tore strips off of people, I took them apart and forgot to put them back together again. My way of making amends to these people is to share the knowledge that has been given to me, that comes my way from great spiritual teachers, from the newest of newcomers, to the oldest long-timer. Up until two years ago when I took sick, I was still doing seven to 10 face to face meetings a week because of service.

I was told if you aren't in a relationship, get involved in service. If you are having difficulty in your own life, get out of yourself by helping others. If you want to keep it, you have to give it away, but the key is, you have to have it to give.

My spiritual advisor told me that I can learn two things in recovery. How to work it and how not to work it. Take what you need and put the rest on the shelf, although for the first few years it was 'forget' the rest.

Please, don't compare identify. I don't want your recovery and I hope you don't want mine because you may get drunk or go out and use if you do. Please find your own.

Posted on another site in 2004.

It is something I still need to remember. We didn't all travel the same path to get to the doors of recovery. We don't always follow the same ideas as to what we need for our recovery in today. I just know that I am on a journey and I hope you will share your journey with me. Hopefully, we have one goal. To stay clean and sober in today.

http://caccioppoli.com/gif%20animate...anipier_e0.gif

Love this, it reminds me that I can't allow things to rent space in my head.

Worry can be such a worrisome thing! It is not easy to let it go.

http://i.123g.us/c/cute_hugs/card/111283.gif

Balance

Tonight at the meeting I attended, I was glad that it was a woman speaker. As I said earlier, I felt like I needed a meeting where I could sit back, shut up and listen.

The speaker mentioned the word balance only once. She said she had a problem with it. I could so identify. For me, it is an Aries thing. Our opposite sign is Libra, which is balance personified. I went over to thank her for sharing and I said, "You wouldn't happen to be an Aries would you?" She said, "Yes!" Her birthday is a day after mine. I gave her my definition of an Aries, "The left foot is moving forward and the right food doesn't know it has to move yet." It can cause you to stumble and lose balance.

I need to get out of the way so I don't stumble over my own feet that can take me in the wrong direction.

http://s14052.storage.proboards.com/...Kmntd2cxBs.gif