A recovery thought
archie
Part 2 of 3
We should go to meetings to share, not impress.
We should learn that it is not enough just to feel better in sobriety; we should learn to think better and to act better.
The medium approach had--and still has--a real, constructive place in the A.A. recovery scheme, in that it can be used as a temporary platform for reluctant beginners. The medium-cup-of-coffee option enables many who initially are not up to the strong approach to gain a foothold in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous.
But medium A.A. can, and often does, become a trap. It is no place for an A.A. member to try to settle out permanently. People who stick too long in medium A.A. pass the point where they might be encouraged to step up to strong A.A. and end up sliding back into weak A.A.
Weak A.A. has none of the redeeming features of medium A.A. It is clearly at odds with the Program as outlined in the Big Book. It bases itself on a flat and nonnegotiable refusal to work with vital recovery principles. Weak A.A.'s cop out and stay copped out on most of the Twelve Steps. They water down the Program to the point where there really is no Program in the sense that the first members of A.A. understood the Program. A more inclusive, more accurate, and more descriptive term than "weak A.A." for this practice is "copped-out and watered-down A.A.", or COWD A.A. for short. With the passage of time, a definite evolution has taken place in A.A. in the respective popularity and acceptability of the strong and COWD approaches.
In the first years of their existence, the COWD A.A.'s tended to feel obligated to defend and sing the praises of their "heterodox" approaches and even to chide the strong A.A.'s a bit for being rigid and holier-than-thou. The strong A.A.'s, for their part, tended to be more relaxed and tolerant, less strident, less defensive. After all, their method was obviously safer since it involved taking more of the medicine. And it was obviously the original and genuine article as the Big Book eloquently attested.
But this juxtaposition of attitudes came to have a peculiar effect in a movement which prided itself on its good-natured inclination to let all kinds of maverick opinions and practices have their say and their way. The loudest voices came to be the voices of heterodoxy, and these came in time to have the greatest impact on newcomers. Copped-out and watered-down A.A. came to be the "in" thing, the wave of the future; strong A.A. came to be regarded--not universally, but widely--as a bit stodgy and a bit passé.
The COWD A.A.'s had in a sense proven Bill and the first one hundred A.A.'s wrong. In the introduction to the Twelve Steps, the statement: "...we thought we could find an easier, softer way, but we could not..."was an unequivocal assertion that it was necessary to practice all the Steps. But the COWD A.A.'s did not practice all the Steps, and they were staying sober. They had found an easier, softer way. Human nature being what it is, it was inevitable that the less demanding, medium-to-weak approach would grow in popularity while the older, more rigorous approach would decline. Who wants to do things the hard way when they do not have to? Who wants to drive a car with standard shift when the model with automatic is a hundred dollars more?
A.A. has been in existence now more than seventy four years. There is still widespread lip service in the movement to the importance of working all the Steps and practicing rigorous honesty in all one's affairs. But as a matter of fact, precious few A.A.'s continue to attempt seriously and consistently to do these things on a daily basis--not after their first months of sobriety in the fellowship.
Reversion to a lower, more "normal" level of aspiration is the order of the day. Those who do continue to practice strong A.A. have to be careful how they talk about what they are doing in A.A. meetings. In many places, too much or too serious talk about God is considered bad form. The same is true about talk on the subjects of confession, restitution, and rigorous honesty--especially where they affect such difficult and sensitive life areas as job applications, tax returns, business dealings, and sex relations.
But if weak A.A. works--if it produces recovery--what fault is there to find with it? Maybe this is a case where heterodoxy turns out to be superior to orthodoxy. Why should anyone go to the extra bother of practicing strong A.A.? The opening paragraphs of Chapter Six afford one very good reason. Weak A.A. brings about a far less profound life alteration than strong A.A. does. In many cases that relatively superficial change is not enough to crack the alcoholic pattern. In many other cases, it results in an apparent recovery, which does not last, but sooner or later eventuates in a relapse into drinking.
What the original A.A.'s were shooting for--and what they aimed their Program at--was not mere sobriety. That would have been the "common-sense" approach, the way of worldly wisdom, the reasonable-level-of-aspiration gambit. But the founders of A.A. were men moved by inspiration. They were coming at the problem with the uncommon sense of men under guidance.
The common-sense approach had already been tried and it had failed. If you set a drunk's level of aspiration at mere abstinence--"'Why don't you be a good fellow, use your will power; and give the stuff up"--it did not work. The poor candidate for reform was back drinking again in short order. The discovery that launched A.A. in the first place was that if an alcoholic were somehow to be rocketed into a state way beyond abstinence, if he were to achieve a real spiritual conversion, an utterly new relationship with God, then permanent abstinence would automatically occur as a blessed and life-saving by-product. That was how it happened with Bill. That was how it happened with Dr. Bob. That was how it happened with most of the first one hundred members. That was how the authors of the Big Book thought it would have to happen with everyone.
Originally, the Twelfth Step read: "Having had a spiritual experience as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs". Two key phrases were "spiritual experience" and "as the result of these Steps". The assumption was: no spiritual experience--no recovery. It was also assumed that there were not a number of different results from working the Steps; there was one result--"the" result--and that was spiritual experience. To the first members, spiritual experience meant that God had touched your life--directly, tangibly--and turned it around.
Sometime between 1939, when the "Plain Dealer" article was published, and 1941, when the Alexander piece ran in the "Post", a major shift in philosophy occurred. No one in A.A. was much aware that it was taking place at the time, and to this day the process that went on remains almost totally unacknowledged throughout the fellowship. What changed was the importance of the roles assigned respectively to the recovery principles and the recovery fellowship in A.A.
Up until 1939, A.A. was a small, unknown organization whose success record, though excellent, applied only over a tiny group of cases, and had not yet stood the test of time. Recovering alcoholics in the young movement relied upon each other and worked closely with one another. But the principles were the primary life transformers. The movement as such was not large enough or well enough established that it could be leaned on in lieu of faithful work with the Steps.
After A.A. became big, after it gained national recognition as a success, a new relationship became possible with it, one which had not previously been an option, and which the founders had not really foreseen. It became possible for an alcoholic to come to meetings and get sober without undergoing a real spiritual conversion, simply by the process of mimesis, or imitation--by the practice of something no more spiritual than the principle of when-in-Rome-do-as-the-Romans-do.
Here is how A.A. by-mimesis worked. The newcomer was joining himself to a big, successful organization, like the Elks or the Kiwanis. One of the customs of this particular club was that you did not drink; so if the newcomer liked the people he had met in A.A. and wanted to stay associated with them, he gave up drinking. He made A.A. meetings and A.A. people the focus of his social life and his leisure-time activities and stayed sober, more off the power of the pack than anything else.
The true nature of this quite other, and quite non-spiritual, recovery option was never clearly faced and admitted within the fellowship. Instead, an attempt was made to broaden the meaning of the term "spiritual" to include both kinds of recovered alcoholics: the sober-by-conversion alcoholics--those who as the result of working the Steps had had a spiritual experience and become transformed human beings, seriously involved with regenerative life and ideas--and the sober-by-imitation alcoholics--those who had remained essentially the same type of people they had been before coming into A.A., except that they had joined a new organization, made a new set of friends, and given up drinking in conformity to their new social setup.
There is only one term in the Twelve Steps that has been changed since the Big Book was first published in 1939. That term is "spiritual experience" in the Twelfth Step. A member of my home A.A. group, who first came into the fellowship in 1941, tells it this way: "When I first came in, they were still talking about 'spiritual experience'. A year or two later they started calling it 'spiritual awakening'." It was at this time that the official version of the Twelfth Step was changed to read: "Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps. "The term spiritual experience, which had been perfectly acceptable in the early years when the fellowship was small and explicitly conversion-oriented, came to be viewed as too narrow and prejudicial against the less-profound life changes resulting from mimesis oriented A.A., which were coming to be the majority recovery pattern in Alcoholics Anonymous. An explanatory note was added to the Big Book, as follows:
"The terms "spiritual experience" and "spiritual awakening" are used many times in this book, which upon careful reading, shows that the personality change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism has manifested itself among us in many different forms.
"Yet it is true that our first printing gave many readers the impression that these personality changes, or religious experiences, must be in the nature of sudden and spectacular upheavals. Happily for everyone, this conclusion is erroneous.
"In the first few chapters a number of sudden revolutionary changes are described. Though it was not our intention to create such an impression many alcoholics have nevertheless concluded that in order to recover they must acquire an immediate and overwhelming "God-consciousness" followed at once by a vast change in feeling and outlook.
"Among our rapidly growing membership of thousands of alcoholics such transformations, though frequent, are by no means the rule. Most of our experiences are what the psychologist William James calls the "educational variety" because they develop slowly over a period of time. Quite often friends of the newcomer are aware of the difference long before he is himself. He finally realizes that he has undergone a profound alteration in his reaction to life; that such a change could hardly have been brought about by himself alone. What often takes place in a few months could seldom have been accomplished by years of self-discipline. With few exceptions our members find that they have tapped an unsuspected inner resource, which they presently identify with their own conception of a Power greater than themselves.
"Most of us think this awareness of a Power greater than ourselves is the essence of spiritual experience. Our more religious members call it "God consciousness."
"Most emphatically we wish to say that any alcoholic capable of honestly facing his problems in the light of our experience can recover, provided he does not close his mind to all spiritual concepts. He can only be defeated by an attitude of intolerance or belligerent denial.
"We find that no one need have difficulty with the spirituality of the Program. Willingness, honesty and open mindedness are the essentials of recovery. But these are indispensable."
Early in recovery, a mother took her 6-year old son to visit a friend at work. As one of the employees went to make coffee, her son followed her and asked, “What are you doing?” “I’m making your mom’s favorite drink,” she replied. “Wow!” said the boy. “You know how to make beer?”
Always Say A Prayer
archie
Part 3 of 3
We should listen at least as much as we talk.
We should live the 12 Step Program so others will want to live it too.
When you compare this statement to that which introduced the Twelve Steps in Chapter Five, the difference in tone is astonishing. Chapter Five rings with a series of booming affirmations that the goal of the Program is a life given to God and the way is an uncompromisingly spiritual one. In the later-added appendix there is virtually a full retreat from the earlier vigor and un-self-conscious joy in God-commitment. The stated purpose of this appendix is to reassure people that the spiritual change accompanying an A.A. recovery need not be in the form of a sudden upheaval. The point needed making and was well made.
But a further point was also made--not directly, but by implication--in the defensive, back-pedaling, almost apologetic treatment of the whole subject of religious experience. That point was the following: the authors and publishers of the Big Book, unofficial spokesmen for the movement, were responding to a change in the A.A. recovery pattern by lowering the spiritual level of aspiration of the society, a move they would not have dared to make in the early days but could, and even felt they must, make now that the society had become large and gained a reputation for respectability and reasonableness. The facts of the situation in A.A. which prompted the rewording of the Twelfth Step and the adding of the explanatory appendix to the Big Book could have been summarized in this way:
"It is now possible to recover in one of two ways in A.A. Option one is the original, spiritual experience way which follows from working all of the Steps. Option two is the way of partial practice of the Steps, and primary dependence on the social, fellowship-related aspects of life in A.A. This second approach generally does not produce a spiritual experience as strong, full Program A.A. practice does. It also violates our Tradition that we should always place principles before personalities. But in its favor, it requires less commitment and less work; it involves less in the way of life rearrangement; and it has proven itself sufficient in many cases to produce lasting abstinence from drinking." But no such statement was ever made, and the switch in terms from spiritual experience to spiritual awakening had the net effect of clouding in everyone's mind the real nature of the change, which had come about.
It was not a matter of conscious deception on anyone's part. It was just a failure to see a dividing into two camps when it had occurred. This would have been an easy mistake in any case for those living through that period in A.A.'s history, a quite understandable failure to see a trend developing, comparable to a mother's inability to notice growth changes in her own child. But in a movement committed almost before all else to the avoidance of controversy, blindness to this split was all but inevitable.
The drawback to the original, rigorous, strong-cup-of-coffee approach to the A.A. Program was that it required new members to plunge into a drastic program of spiritual transformation, a course which has never in history had appeal with large masses of people. Had the original approach remained the only approach, it is doubtful that A.A. would have reached anything like its present size of eight hundred and fifty thousand members. 1976)
But the weak-cup-of-coffee practice had even more serious flaws built into it. The relatively superficial life change, which it produces, is sufficient to get some alcoholics sober. It is not adequate--it is not effective--it simply doesn't work--for a very large number of others. This is particularly evident with the "hard" cases--the alcoholics who have been badly beat up physically and mentally before they arrive at their first A.A. meeting; the people whose alcoholism is complicated with drug abuse, perversion, criminal or psychotic tendencies, or a streak of psychopathology; and the "slippers," those who have developed a pattern of hanging around A.A., staying sober for periods, but relapsing repeatedly into drinking. Generally, the slippers are alcoholics with psychopathic tendencies who keep coming back to A.A. but are unwilling or unable to work with root principles, notably rigorous honesty.) Weak A.A. does not touch most of these people. They cannot stay sober that way.
Yet if these hard cases find their way into an environment where strong A.A., and nothing but strong A.A., is being practiced, many of them are able to achieve lasting sobriety. The East Ridge Community in upstate New York has worked with hundreds of these tough drunks over the past twelve years. Strong A.A. is the standard fare at East Ridge, and they have a recovery rate of over seventy percent with these so-called A.A. failures. No success turns to success for the lion's share of them when weak A.A. is replaced with strong A.A.
There is another, more insidious, danger built into weak A.A. In many cases the "recovery" produced by watered-down approaches to the Twelve Steps fails to hold up over the long haul. What looked in the beginning like an easier, softer way to maintain happy sobriety yields progressively less and less contentment, finally ending in a complete reversal of momentum and a relapse into serious personal misery. The end result may be a return to active alcoholism; or, short of that total disaster, it may be a sinking out into a life of discontented abstinence, marred by some combination of tension, resentment, depression, compulsive sick sex, and an overall sense of meaninglessness. Either way, it is a final failure to reap the benefits of the A.A. Program; it is, in the last analysis, a failure to recover.
Two disturbing tendencies are noticeable in contemporary A.A. One is toward a lower recovery rate overall. For the first twenty years, the standard A.A. recovery estimate was seventy percent. An experience was that fifty percent of the alcoholics who came to A.A. got sober right away and stayed sober. Another twenty five percent had trouble for a while but eventually got sober for good, and the remaining twenty five percent never made a recovery. Then there was a period of some years when A.A. headquarters stopped making the seventy five percent recovery claim in their official literature. In 1968, A.A.'s General Service Organization published a survey indicating an overall recovery rate of about sixty seven percent. The net of all this seems to be that as A.A. has gotten bigger and older, its effectiveness has dropped from about three in four to about two in three. Note: two in three was in 1976--our data shows numbers much less in 1997--one in fifteen).
The second unhealthy trend movement-wise is not backed by figures, but it is clear enough to any careful observer of the A.A. scene. As the fellowship grows older in time, its class of old-timers, alcoholics sober ten years and longer, grows. And the question of the staying power of an A.A. recovery looms even larger. It is an unhappy fact that growing numbers of these old-timers find the joy going out of their sobriety, that many of them search around frantically for ways to recapture the old zest for booze-free living, often ending up in such blind alleys as lunatic religions, dangerous pop psychological fads, or chemical alternatives like acid, pot, tranquilizers, and mood elevators. And far too many end up either back drinking or, what is almost as sad, sunk in despondency, hostility, bizarre acting-out patterns of one sort or another, or just plain, devastating boredom.
All of this is unnecessary. The gradually shrinking recovery rate and the old-timer blues do not require a complex or an innovative solution. The answer lies in a return to original, strong A.A. The men who wrote the Big Book were, as it turns out, right after all. There is no easier, softer way. The extra work and commitment required by the full Program approach pay enormous dividends. They make sobriety fun because they do not make sobriety an end in itself. Mere non-drinking is a very negative kind of life goal. Even the power of a world-scale society of non-drinkers can be in and of itself only a temporary and limited deterrent for most alcoholics.
The majority of those who become addicted are people with a mystical streak, an appetite for inexhaustible bliss. We sought in bottles what can only be found in spiritual experience. A.A. worked in the first place because its Twelve Steps were a workable set of guidelines to spiritual experience. Growth of the movement made possible for a time a kind of parasitism in which partial practitioners and non-practitioners of the spiritual principles were able to feed off the strength of those who had undergone real spiritual experiences. But at this point in time, 1976) the parasites have already drained the host organism of a considerable portion of its life force.
It is late in the day to be sounding a call for a return to the original way, the way of faithful practice of the full Program. Still, a great deal of life is left in the fellowship, and a major revival is possible if enough of us see our dangerous situation, personally and as a fellowship, in time. What we need to do is clear enough. It is spelled out in the first seven chapters of the Big Book. What it all boils down to--especially for us old-timers--is a willingness to continue practicing all the principles in all our affairs today, rather than resting on our laurels, taking our stand on what we did way back when, in our first weeks and months of sobriety.
But we must not fail to face squarely the need for change, the need for re-dedication. Complacency, smugness in our record of success, is our greatest enemy. If we, as a recovered-alcoholic society, are unwilling to reverse our present course, the outlook is clear enough. We stand to recapitulate in less than a century what the Christian church has spent the last two thousand years demonstrating: that even the best of human institutions tend to deteriorate in time; and that size in spiritual organizations is all too often achieved at the expense of compromise of basic principles and the progressive abandonment of original goals and practices.
Author unknown
We should look for similarities and not differences in others stories and suggest to newcomers they do the same.
We should love each other enough to make each uncomfortable and risk anger by stating the truth to each other so we may grow.
archie
We should not tell them but show them.
We should pass on our Program by example.
WHAT HAVE I GOT TO LOSE BY NOT GOING TO A MEETING
During this morning’s quiet time, I started wondering if I need to go to last night’s meeting. I’m almost thirteen years sober, have some serenity in my life, am active in district and area service work, have a wonderful family and a great job. I know with certainly that I owe all of this to A.A.
My wife made a promise to me early in sobriety, when I was doing what my sponsor said and going to a meeting every day, that she saw the change in me and would never ask me to stay home from a meeting. But this morning, I started wondering: Did I need to go to last night’s meeting? If I had not gone to that meeting what would have happened? Would I have drunk? Probably not. Would I have lost some degree of serenity? Probably not. Would I have quit doing service work? Probably not. Would I have lost my family or my job? Again, probably not. Then what would have happened if I had missed last night’s meeting? I would have missed Dianne, three weeks out of jail and newly sober, celebrating her fortieth “belly button” birthday with a call from her mother. I would have missed Wade and Les, driving one hundred and seventy miles to the meeting because they hadn’t been there for a while. I would have missed Jim talk about relapsing after twenty eight years when he’d stopped going to meetings. I would have missed Joe realize the promise of losing the fear of economic insecurity. I would have missed Bill share how he was able to hand-make gifts for his grandchildren, something that they will always have to remember him by. I would have missed John share forty five years of sobriety, one day at a time.
I have learned that I have only today. I can’t live in yesterday, nor can I worry about tomorrow. God has given this day as a gift to me. What I do with it is my gift to Him.
So I think I’ll go to tonight’s meeting. Maybe I’ll hear West Bill share about the love of his kids. Maybe I’ll hear Marty and Patty share about their three years in recovery that started with Alcoholics Anonymous being brought into their prison. Maybe I’ll hear Steve, with his old Big Book, share about the wonders of a God of his understanding.
Maybe I’ll finally hear that new woman share for the very first time, I certainly don’t want to miss that! Maybe I’ll hear you. And I’ll be able to stay sober one more day listening to experience, strength, and hope being shared, because that’s what happened when I went to last night’s meeting!
In Your Own Words, Stories of Young A.A.’s in Recovery
As the speaker droned on past the 30 minute mark and showed no sign of winding up, the room steadily began to empty. With only 1 listener left, the bore finally snapped out of it and told the loner, “I’m very grateful that there’s at least 1 soul open and willing enough to listen to my message.” “Listen?!” snapped the other. “I’m the next speaker.”
Finally, an answer to the age-old question: How do you tell the difference between a normal drinker, a social drinker, and an alcoholic? It seems a behavioral scientist decided to solve the riddle, and his knowledgeable friend advised him to head for the local watering hole for some 1st hand research. So 1 night he and his friend planted themselves firmly at the bar and began a watching brief. Well, right away, a guy came in and ordered a drink, then headed for the men’s room. While he was gone, the 2 researchers dropped a fly in his drink. When he returned, he looked at the fly, frowned, and summoned the bartender. "There’s a fly in my drink, get me a fresh 1.” Now that," said the scientist’s friend, "He is a normal drinker.” The next fellow came in and the 2 played the same trick. When he returned, he immediately plucked the fly out of the drink and drained the glass to the bottom. "That’s a problem drinker," was the analysis. The 3rd drinker walked in, ordered a drink, left it on the bar, and returned a few moments later. When he saw the fly he picked it up, turned it upside down, shook it, and shouted: "Spit it out! Spit it out!” "And that,” said our expert, "is an alcoholic."
archie
We need to shallow our pride instead of alcohol, result, better sobriety
We need to share our joys with other people, and we need even more to share our fears and our grief.
WHY LOW RECOVERY RATES
There is a widely held belief in A.A. that if a newcomer will simply continue to attend meetings, "Something will finally rub off on you.” And the implication, of course, is that something which rubs off will be this so-called miracle of A.A. Now, there is no doubt in my mind that many people in A.A. accept this statement quite literally. I have observed them over the years. They faithfully attend meetings, faithfully waiting for "something to rub off.” The funny part about it is that "something" is rubbing off on them. Death. They sit there--week after month after year--while mental, spiritual, and physical rigor mortis slowly sets in.
Source unknown
Group Leader: "All those here who are alcoholic will raise their hands.” 100 hands shoot up. Group Leader: "Now those who do not feel they are alcoholic.” 1 hand goes up. Group Leader: "How would you classify yourself, sir?” Voice: "I’m the janitor here."
archie
We should put action behind our gratitude.
We should put as much energy into our sobriety as we put into our drinking.
MEETING MAKERS MAKE IT
I attempted to go to a meeting today,
But other things got in the way.
Like grocery shopping or a trip to the mall,
It’s only one meeting after all.
I’ve been to a meeting most every day,
I know what to do, and I know what they say,
About taking it easy, and First Things First.
If I miss one meeting, how much could it hurt.
Months have passed and I’m ok.
See--I don’t need a meeting every day.
One or two meetings, here or there,
Is enough to keep me sober and aware.
I guess after awhile,
It just didn’t seem,
There was anything left.
In those meetings for me.
So now here I lie
Six feet underground,
Can’t tell you my story,
I can’t make a sound.
Alcohol kills!
It’s cold, but it’s true,
If you don’t go to meetings,
It will happen to you.
Regina M. Poulillo
Hardened drinkers at a downtown saloon blanched the other day when a young woman said, "I want a bull moose.” The bartender produced a pint of milk, poured a glass 2/3 full and added a jigger of bourbon. When she downed it and departed, 1 of them gasped, "What’s the idea?” "Oh," explained the bartender, "she’s got an ulcer and has to take care of it."
archie
We need to take the Program seriously, not ourselves.
We need to trade dependence on our puny selves for dependence on God if we are to stay sober.
WHY LOW RECOVERY RATES
What Happened? That question is being asked by a lot of alcoholics lately. What happened to our high success rate? Thirty and forty years ago, we were keeping seventy five percent or more of the alcoholics who came to us for help. Today, we aren’t keeping even five percent. What happened? What happened to that wonderful A.A. Group that was around for twenty, thirty or forty years? There used to be fifty, seventy five, one hundred or more at every meeting. It is now a matter of history, gone!
More and more groups are folding every day. What happened? We hear a lot of ideas, opinions and excuses as to what happened but things are not improving. They continue to get worse. What is happening? Bill W. wrote: "In the years ahead A.A. will, of course, make mistakes. Experience has taught us that we need have no fear of doing this, providing that we always remain willing to admit our faults and to correct them promptly.
Our growth as individuals has depended upon this healthy process of trial and error. So will our growth as a Fellowship. Let us always remember that any society of men and women that cannot freely correct its own faults must surely fall into decay if not into collapse. Such is the universal penalty for the failure to go on growing. Just as each A.A. must continue to take his moral inventory and act upon it, so must our whole Society if we are to survive and if we are to serve usefully and well.
A.A. Comes of Age, page 231
Harry was having trouble getting up in the morning, so his doctor prescribed a drink before bed time. Harry took 1 and a few more and slept well and was awake before the alarm clock buzzed. He took his time getting to the office, strolled in and said to his boss, "I didn’t have a bit of trouble getting up this morning.” "That’s fine," said the boss, "but where were you Monday and Tuesday?"
archie
We should read the Big Book again and see what has been added since the last time we read it.
We should refrain from sharing in meetings on subjects not related to alcoholism and recovery.
WHY LOW RECOVERY RATES?
With so very few finding lasting sobriety and the continued demise of A.A. groups, it is obvious that we have not remained willing to admit our faults and to correct them promptly. It appears to me that the Delegate of the Northeast Ohio Area, Bob Bacon, identified our mistakes and our faults when he talked to a group of A.A.’s in 1976. He said, in essence, we are no longer showing the newcomer that we have a solution for alcoholism. We are not telling them about the Big Book and how very important that Book is to our long-term sobriety. We are not telling them about our Traditions and how very important they are to the individual groups and to Alcoholics Anonymous as a whole.
Rather, we are using our meeting time for drunk-a-logs, a discussion of our problems, ideas and opinions or "my day" or "my way". Having been around for a few years, and reflecting on what Bob Bacon had to say, it would appear that we have permitted newcomers to convince the old-timers that they have a better idea. They had just spent thirty or more days in a treatment facility where they had been impressed with the need to talk about their problems in group therapy sessions. They had been told that it didn’t make any difference what their real problem was; A.A. had the "best Program". They were told that they should go to an A.A. meeting every day for the first ninety days out of treatment. They were told that they shouldn’t make any major decisions for the first year of their sobriety. And what they were told goes on and on, most of which are contrary to the Program of Alcoholics Anonymous!
Apparently, what they were told sounded pretty good to the A.A. members who were here when the treatment center clients started showing up at our meetings. And a lot of the A.A. members liked the idea of the treatment centers because the centers provided a place where they could drop off a serious drinker, if he had insurance. That eliminated some of the inconveniences we had been plagued with before; having to pour orange juice and honey or a shot of booze down a vibrating alky to help them "detox."
When A.A. was very successful, the folks who did the talking in meetings were recovered alcoholics. The suffering and untreated alcoholics listened. After hearing what it takes to recover, the newcomer was faced with a decision; "Are you going to take the Steps and recover or are you going to get back out there and finish the job?” If they said they "were willing to go to any length", they were given a sponsor, a Big Book and began the process of recovery by taking the Steps and experiencing the Promises that result from that course of action. This process kept the newcomer involved in working with others and continued the growth of our Fellowship.
Our growth rate was approximately seven percent and the number of sober members of Alcoholics Anonymous doubled every ten years. With the advent of the rapid growth of the treatment industry, the acceptance of our success with alcoholics by the judicial system and endorsement of physicians, psychiatrist, psychologist, etc. all kinds of people were pouring into A.A. at a rate greater than we had ever dreamed possible. Almost without realizing what was happening, our meetings began changing from ones that focused on recovery from alcoholism to "discussion or participation" types of meetings that invited everyone to talk about whatever was on their mind. The meetings evolved from a program of spiritual development to the group therapy type of meeting where we heard more and more about "our problems" and less and less about the Program of Recovery by the Big Book and the preservation of our Fellowship by adhering to our Traditions.
What has been the result of all this? Well, never have we had so many coming to us for help. But never have we had such a slow growth rate which has now started to decline. For the first time in our history, Alcoholics Anonymous is losing members faster than they are coming in and our success rate is unbelievably low. (Statistics from the Intergroup Offices of some major cities indicate less than five percent of those expressing a desire to stop drinking are successful for more than one year; a far cry from the seventy five percent reported by Bill W. in the Forward to the second edition).
The change in the content of our meetings is proving to be misery-traps for the newcomer and in turn, misery-traps for the groups that depend on the "discussion or participation" type meetings. Why is this? The answer is very simple. When meetings were opened so that untreated alcoholics and non-alcoholics were given the opportunity to express their ideas, their opinions, air their problems and tell how they were told to do it where they came from, the confused newcomer became more confused with the diversity of information that was being presented. More and more they were encouraged to "just go to meetings and don’t drink" or worse yet, "go to ninety meetings in ninety days". The newcomer no longer was told to take the Steps or get back out there and finish the job. In fact, they are often told, "Don’t rush into taking the Steps. Take your time.” The alcoholics who participated in the writing of the Big Book didn’t wait. They took the Steps in the first few days following their last drink. Thank God, there are those in our Fellowship, like Joe and Charlie, Wally, etc., who have recognized the problem and have started doing something about it. They are placing the focus back on the Big Book. There have always been a few groups that would not yield to the group therapy trend. They stayed firm to their commitment to try to carry a single message to the suffering alcoholic. That is to tell the newcomer "we have had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps and if you want to recover, we will see that you have a sponsor who has recovered and will lead you along the path the first one hundred laid down for us".
Recovered alcoholics have begun founding groups that have a single purpose and inform the newcomer that until they have taken the Steps and recovered, they will not be permitted to say anything in meetings. They will listen to recovered alcoholics, they will take the Steps, they will recover and then they will try to pass their experience and knowledge on to the ones who are seeking the kind of help we provide in Alcoholics Anonymous.
As this movement spreads, as it is beginning to, Alcoholics Anonymous will again be very successful in doing the one thing God intended for us to do and that is to help the suffering alcoholic recover, if he has decided he wants what we have and his willing to go to any length to recover, to take and apply our Twelve Steps to their lives and protect our Fellowship by honoring our Twelve Traditions.
There is a tendency to want to place the blame for our predicament on the treatment industry and professionals. They do what they do and it has nothing to do with what we in Alcoholics Anonymous do. That is their business. That is not where to place the blame and also is in violation of our Tenth Tradition. The real problem is that the members of Alcoholics Anonymous, who were here when the "clients" began coming to our Fellowship did not help the "clients" understand that our Program had been firmly established since April 1939, and that the guidelines for the preservation and growth of our Fellowship were adopted in 1950. That they must get rid of their new "old ideas" and start practicing the Twelve Step Program of Alcoholics Anonymous as it was given to us. That until they had taken the Steps and recovered, they had nothing to say that needed to be heard except by their sponsor. But that didn’t happen. To the contrary, the old timers failed in their responsibility to the newcomer to remind them of a vital truth, "Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program."
We have permitted untreated alcoholics and non-alcoholics to sit in our meetings and lay out their problems, ideas and opinions. We have gone from, "Rarely have we seen a person fail" to "Seldom do we see a person recover". So there we are. We have had thirty years of unbelievable success by following the directions in the Big Book. We have had thirty years of disappointing failure by wanting to hear from everyone. We now have something to compare. We now know what the problem is and we know what the solution is. Unfortunately, we have not been prompt to correct the faults and mistakes, which have been created by what would appear to be large doses of apathy and complacency. The problem we are trying to live with is needlessly killing alcoholics. The solution? The Power, greater than ourselves, that we find through our Twelve Steps promises recovery for those who are willing to follow the clear-cut directions in the Big Book.
Source unknown
How come if alcohol kills millions of brain cells, it never killed the 1’s that made me want to drink?
archie
We should share our experience, strength and hope in order to stay sober, not our philosophy.
We should stand on Step 11, not sit on Step 3.
WHY LOW RECOVERY RATES?
With so many failing in sobriety and so many groups becoming history, one must ask, What is going on? Maybe a better question would be, What is not going on? And what is not going on is the newcomer is no longer getting the same opportunity to survive alcoholism as was offered by the authors of our Big Book.
While we do not have a clear picture of Ebby’s recovery, we do have one of Bill’s. We know that he entered Towns Hospital on December 11, 1934 and left the hospital on December 18, 1934 having had a spiritual experience, while hospitalized, as the result of following the directions that Ebby outlined for him and he lived another thirty six years without taking another drink.
We know that once Dr. Bob surrendered to the whole Program of Action that Bill laid out for him after his failed sobriety of three weeks, he asked Bill, “Don’t you think we better find a another alcoholic to try to help?” That question was asked on June 11, 1935, the day following Dr. Bob’s last drink.
Before another three weeks was out, they had talked with an attorney who was hospitalized for his drinking. It was not their first effort but it was their first success. To quote the Big Book on A.A. Number Three. On the third day the lawyer gave his life to the care and direction of his Creator, and said he was perfectly willing to do anything necessary. He never had another drink.
One of the things about alcoholism that was well understood but no longer given serious thought is the message that is given on p. 24 of the basic text: The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Our so-called will power becomes nonexistent. We are unable at certain times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink.
That procedure is clearly outlined in the chapter on sponsorship; chapter seven, Working With Others. With the problem (Step One); powerlessness of body and mind over alcohol established and the solution (Step Two); the hope of a Power greater than ourselves or alcohol that could remove the insidious insanity, the prospect was given a Big Book and told to read it. And then the Big Book reads: Suppose now you are making your second visit to a man. He has read this volume and says he is prepared to go through with the Twelve Steps of the Program of Recovery. Having had the experience yourself, you can give him much practical advice. Let him know you are available if he wishes to make a decision (Step Three) and tell his story (Step Five), but do not insist upon it if he prefers to consult with someone else. You mean on the second visit? Yep, Take it or leave it! Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path.
And when we had that type of sponsorship, Alcoholics Anonymous was very successful in helping newcomers find lasting sobriety. But is that the opportunity the newcomer is offered today? Unfortunately, not very often. What the newcomer hears most often is, Don’t drink and go to meetings. Think about that one for a minute. If they knew how to not drink, they would have no reason to go to those meetings. Or, how about this one, Just keep coming back and you’ll be ok. That, of course, is a lie. The only hope for a chronic alcoholic is a spiritual experience. So how long or how many meetings is the newcomer faced with to have a spiritual experience? What has happened to rigorous honesty?
One more time look at the statements that were made by those who were so very successful: These are the Steps we took which are suggested as a Program of Recovery. Or Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and practice these principles in all our affairs.
There is no reference to ninety meetings in ninety days in those two statements. So, why do we hear such misleading advice being given to newcomers? Twelve Steps in twelve days was much closer to the common practice during the days of great success.
When anyone, anywhere reaches for help, I want the hand of A.A. to always be there and for that, I am responsible. The Big Book gives us the experience and knowledge that has not failed those who take advantage of that wisdom so we can be responsible.
Dr. Bob said: “If you think you are an atheist, an agnostic, a skeptic, or have any other form of intellectual pride which keeps you from accepting what is in this book (Alcoholics Anonymous), I feel sorry for you. If you still think you are strong enough to beat the game alone, that is your affair. But if you really and truly want to quit drinking for good and all, and sincerely feel that you must have some help, we know that we have an answer for you. It never fails, if you go about it with half the zeal you have been in the habit of showing when you were getting another drink.
Your Heavenly Father will never let you down!”
Source unknown
How an Al-Alon changes oil. She pulls up to Jiffy Lube, drinks a cup of coffee and 15 minutes later, she writes a check and leaves. Money spent: Oil Change $25, Coffee $1, total $26. How an alcoholic changes oil. He waits until Saturday and goes to a 7/11 and buys a case of beer and writes a check for $20 and drinks a beer on the way to the auto parts store. At the auto parts store he buys a case of oil, a filter, kitty litter and hand cleaner. He writes a check for $50. He then drives home while drinking a beer. Arriving home and he jacks up the car and drinks a beer. After looking for 10 minutes for jack stands he puts them in place and drinks a beer. He places a drain pan under the engine and looks for a 9/16 box end wrench. Not finding 1, he gives up and decides to use a crescent wrench to unscrew the drain plug which drops into a pan of hot oil splashing hot oil on him in the process. He crawls out from under car to wipe the hot oil off his face and arms and throws kitty litter on the spilled oil and then has another beer. After looking for another 10 minutes for an oil filter wrench he gives up and decides to use a hammer and a screwdriver to remove the oil filter. He crawls out from under car with a dripping oil filter splashing oil everywhere which he puts in the trash can because he is an environmentalist. He now stops and drinks a beer. He installs the new oil filter and dumps a quart of fresh oil into the engine and realizes he did not put the drain plug back in. He hurry’s to the find drain plug in the drain pan and realizes that the quart of oil he put in is now on the floor so he throws kitty litter on the oil spill and gets the drain plug back in which calls for a beer. He got oil on his face so he wipes his face with the oily rag used to clean the drain plug. While using the crescent wrench it slipped while he was tightening the drain plug and he banged his knuckles on the frame removing the skin between the knuckles and frame and in frustration he pitched the stupid crescent wrench in a fit and hit and broke his prized bowling trophy which is reason for a beer. He cleans up his hands and applies bandages to his wounds while drinking a beer. He puts in 5 fresh quarts of oil, lowers the car from the jack stands, moves car back to apply more kitty litter on the floor and slips and falls on his behind and due to this embarrassment, he drinks a beer. He then test drives the car and drinks a beer while doing so. A cop pulls him over and arrests him for DUI and impounds the car. He calls his loving and understanding wife to make bail and tells her how he was falsely arrested and mistreated and how he is going to sue the cops. 12 hours later he gets his car from the impound yard and drives home and while drinking a beer. Money spent: Parts $50. DUI $2,500. Impound fee $75. Bail $1,500. Beer $20. Total $4,145.
archie
We should take our A.A. bumper stickers off our bumpers and put them on our dash boards to remind us to practice them.
We should thank God for a daily reprieve which is contingent on our spirituality.
GUIDELINES FOR WRITING AAGRAPEVINE ARTICLES
With these guidelines, we’d like to welcome you to the pages of the A.A. Grapevine, where we hope you will feel at home. The Grapevine is your magazine, and nearly half of every issue is written by A.A. members who have never written for the Grapevine before.
With a little willingness and a desire to share, A.A. members around the world have been submitting their personal stories, their sorrows and joys, their ups, downs, and in betweens to the A.A. Grapevine since 1944. So why stop now?
Without your written experience and opinions, the magazine cannot continue to be an effective tool for sober living and a vital, accurate picture of the Fellowship as a whole. So, if you’ve hesitated--thinking you can’t do it--why not consider joining A.A.’s meeting in print? You might just keep coming back!
As you plan your article, keeping in mind A.A.’s singleness of purpose, you might want to leaf through a few old issues to get an idea of the sort of articles most often published. Then close the magazine, and do your own thing! Say what you want to say, not what you think we’ll publish. And don’t be timid about branching out; we’re always looking for a change of pace, as long as it relates to A.A. experience.
Format. If possible, manuscripts should be typed, double-spaced, with generous margins. If you don’t have a typewriter or word processor, though, don’t worry about it. Just write clearly and legibly, on one side of the paper only. If you quote from A.A. literature (or another source) in your manuscript, please give the correct name of the source, along with the page number.
Length. Maybe you heard a one liner in a meeting that you’d like to pass along, or maybe you just want to relate one short but sweet incident, or maybe you really want to go in-depth on a particular subject--no matter how short or long, the important thing is that you say what you want to say. The average contribution varies from one to five or six typed pages, but if the editorial staff feels that much cutting is needed, we will seek your permission. Normally our editing is very-slight.
What we do not publish. Poems, personal prayers, tributes to individual A.A.s, drama, anything not related to Alcoholics Anonymous (such as articles about the field of alcoholism treatment, legislation, medical advances, etc.).
Where to send it: Send your completed manuscript to The Grapevine, Editorial Department, P.O. Box 1980. Grand Central Station, New York. NY 10163-1980. You will be notified whether or not the piece will be published, but since we work several months in advance, the length of time between acceptance and publication can vary from a couple of months to over a year. Your notification of publication will be a complimentary advance copy of the issue in which your article appears. Good luck, and welcome home!
Author unknown
"How on earth did you come to be so completely intoxicated?" asked the judge. "Well, I got into bad company, Your Honor," replied the drunk. "You see, there were 4 of us. I had a bottle of whiskey and, well, the other 3 just wouldn’t touch the stuff.
I knew you’d had enough to drink," the bartender told the newly-arrived customer, "when I saw you walk in through that closed window."
archie
When we are lonely, confused, uncertain, pray.
We should write down all the gifts we got from sobriety and if we drink again, we can reverse the pencil and erase each gift, one by one.
THE FIRST DRINK
You know how in A.A. they tell you, "Stay away from the first drink. It's the first drink that gets you drunk." Well, I've done a little experimenting and I found out something. It isn't the first drink at all!
A few weeks ago, I was walking to our regular Thursday-night meeting (that real hot Thursday, remember?). Just had another skirmish in the war with my old lady, so I left the house a little early. I got to thinking about that first drink bit. I wondered. So I stopped at Benny's Bar and Grill and had a beer. One beer. Just one. Nice. Very refreshing.
Nothing happened. Went on to the meeting and enjoyed it fine. Even told my sponsor, Walt, about the beer. I thought he was upset 'way out of proportion. Anyhow, I sure proved one drink didn't get me drunk.
Two beers didn't, either. I upped it to two simply to prove the point. Some deal! Nothing big. Gave me a little more time to relax before the meetings. I didn't say anything about it--it made folks so damn upset.
Anyhow, I continued to experiment. Very controlled. Cut it off sharp at four beers. Made every meeting. Found that if I left the house a little earlier I had time for six, and a little talk with the boys at the bar, too.
Did me no harm at all, none at all. Missed one or two A.A. meetings when the discussion got real profound at Benny's. But definitely made the Thursday-night group. Absolutely sober, too.
Found that eight or ten just loosened me up enough to get the real meat out of the A.A. talks, without spending every night there.
Well, anyhow, to make a long story short, I got a little fed up with the way Walt shook his head, and the rest of the A.A. gang. I just quit going to the meetings.
Hung right in there at ten beers, no more. Of course, I had a shot once in a while. Spaced out the evening a little better. But counting a shot and a beer--no more than ten drinks a night.
Once in a while, a splash or two before work. Generally needed something in the morning. And things were fine, until I lost my job--the good one at the plant. Had a couple other jobs since then. Never minded losing them. They were lousy.
The old lady left. Bum sport. Couldn't tighten her belt a little when things got tough.
Everything seems a little fuzzy after that. But I'm sure I never had more than ten or twelve at Benny's--boilermakers, that is. But what I'm getting at--they never made me drunk--not the first twelve.
But the thirteenth. Watch out for that one! It was after the thirteenth I got into that fight. Which I don't remember much of, but, boy, it must have been a beaut.
After that I was invited to stay out of Benny's. So I had to drink at home. Better there, anyhow. Safer. If you don't mind those heads in the wallpaper yelling all night.
A few days later--or maybe it was weeks--I called the old lady. I didn't like the way she talked to me--cold, you know--so I hacked my wrists a couple of times with a razor--just to show her, understand. I'm not nuts.
But they put me here anyhow. And it looks like a long haul if I have to wait till that screwball doctor says, "Okay, go." It isn't really the doc that keeps me here, anyhow. It’s those little dwarfs outside the door. I know they're waiting for me. But I'll find a way.
Meanwhile, I'm glad' I got straightened out on that first drink business.
Bill G., New York
"He insulted me by offering me a drink.” "What did you do?” "I swallowed the insult."