by Fiona Stockard | Nov 28, 2014 | 12 Steps, Addiction Articles
Written By: Fiona Stockard
The Big Book Broken Down – Part Thirteen
Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who help each other to recover from alcohol and drug addiction. It was founded in June of 1935, just celebrated its seventy-ninth anniversary, and boasts over two million members.
AA’s central text is the Big Book. With a sponsor and a Big Book, AA members work the twelve steps, and “recover from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body” (title page).
Today, I’ll be breaking down a section of the chapter Working With Others.
Working With Others
Part of getting sober is learning how to deal with our families. By deal, I don’t mean begrudgingly exist with them! No, I’m talking about being helpful, kind, patient, and loving.
That’s new for most of us! It was for me anyway. Prior to sobering up, I was nothing but a drain on my family and loved ones. It was hard to start giving instead of taking. It was hard to start comforting instead of being comforted.
My new relationship with my family began after I’d made amends and shown them that I meant business. Working With Others echoes this idea. It reads,
“When your prospect has made such reparation as [s]he can to his [or her!] family, and has thoroughly explained to them the new principals by which [s]he is living, [s]he should proceed to put those principals into action at home” (p 98).
Before I cleared away the wreckage of my past, I wasn’t able to live on spiritual principals. Once I’d made amends and, more importantly, incorporated the ideas behind my amends into my life, well, that’s when things began to change. That’s when I stopped blaming my dad for all my mistakes. That’s when I stopped arguing with my mom about every little thing.
Again, Working With Others emphasis this. It says, “[S]he should concentrate on his own spiritual demonstration. Argument and fault-finding are to be avoided like the plague” (p 98).
That’s much easier said than done! For me, learning how to live in harmony, peace, and usefulness with my family was a trial and error process. After enough errors, I started to get it right!
Then there’s the idea of continued sobriety and spiritual growth. Simply telling my parents and brother I was sorry, then continuing to act on old behavior, wasn’t going to cut it. Nope. I had to live a completely new way of life. A.A. puts it like this,
“…the alcoholic continues to demonstrate that [s]he can be sober, considerate, and helpful, regardless of what anyone says or does. Of course, we all fall much below this standard many times. But we must try to repair the damage immediately…” (p 99).
What happens if we don’t get our family back, though? What happens if our drinking and drugging was so bad, took us to such a dark place, that our family wants nothing to do with us? Well, we can still get better!
Getting sober with the support and love of family is the easier path. Just because they may not want a relationship, though, doesn’t mean we can’t still heal. The only person we need a relationship with is God. Working With Others reads,
“Let no alcohol say [s]he cannot recover unless [s]he has his [or her!] family back. This just isn’t so…Remind the prospect that his [or her] recovery is not dependent upon people. It is dependent upon his [or her] relationship with God” (pp 99-100).
That’s the truth. I was lucky because, despite hurting them time and time again, my family gave me another chance. That’s not always the case. If they hadn’t wanted me in their life, I’d still have been okay as long as I had God in my life.
It’s that simple. God is or God isn’t. God is everything or God is nothing. You choose.
So, what happens once we have God in our lives? Well, A.A. says, “Both you and the new [wo]man must walk day by day in the path of spiritual progress. If you persist, remarkable things will happen” (p 100).
Remarkable things? Sounds good to me. Where do I sign up?
Tune in next week for another installment of Faith Facts Friday with Fiona!
by Sally Rosa | Nov 26, 2014 | 12 Steps, Addiction Articles
Written By: Fiona Stockard
What are the 10th Step Promises?
Much like the ninth step promises, the tenth step promises are a section of the Big Book where recovering alcoholics are promised peace and recovery from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body.
Sounds too goo to be true, right? Wrong! The tenth step promises are available for everyone who works for them. They’re guaranteed to you, to me, and to the broken woman who just walked through the door.
Of course, there’s a pretty big caveat here. We have to do the work! These promises don’t just magically happen in our lives. We have to sweat. We have to earn it. We have to earn recovery!
Bill Wilson Wrote –
And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone-even alcohol. For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality—safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition.
–(Big Book pp. 84-85)
Again, like the ninth step promises, I didn’t know what those words meant until I experienced them. It’s easy to read, “…the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us.” To experience that freedom firsthand, though? I can’t describe it. It’s simply freedom.
My Experience with the 10th Step Promises
I’m a tried and true alcoholic and addict. Before picking up a drink, I would use things like attention, controlling my weight, boys, and good grades to feel different. Then I got high. After that, all bets were off.
See, I have the three-part disease of alcoholism and addiction. My body processes alcohol and drugs differently than “a normie’s” body. Once I start, I can’t stop. Of course, stopping wouldn’t be a problem if I never started in the first place.
I always begin to drink again. I always begin to drink until I reached “a position of neutrality – safe and protected.” See, I had a mental obsession with drinking and drugging. Once I started to think about alcohol, I wouldn’t stop until the thought of drinking pushed out all else. I wouldn’t stop until a drink was in my hand.
That’s the heart of alcoholism – the bizarre mental obsession. Did you notice, though, that I wrote in past tense in the above paragraph? That’s because I’ve recovered. I’ve been granted safety from a God of my own understanding. I’ve been set free.
That’s my experience with the tenth step promises. They set me free. When I was newly sober, they offered me hope. My sponsor showed them to me almost immediately. I thank God she did. They showed me that recovery isn’t only possible, it’s promised if I do the work.
See, I have to complete the steps in order for these promises to manifest in my life. Even then, they don’t always occur during the tenth, eleventh, or twelfth step. It takes some women much longer to have them come true in their lives. For some lucky women, the obsession is lifted before they reach the tenth step. Like most of sobriety, these promises are an entirely subjective experience.
The bottom line, though, is if I do the work, if I search within myself and find God, the obsession to drink and drug will be removed. That’s all I can ask for and all I continue to ask for on a daily basis.
by Fiona Stockard | Nov 21, 2014 | 12 Steps, Addiction Articles
Written By: Fiona Stockard
The Big Book Broken Down – Part Twelve
Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who help each other to recover from alcohol and drug addiction. It was founded in June of 1935, just celebrated its seventy-ninth anniversary, and boasts over two million members.
AA’s central text is the Big Book. With a sponsor and a Big Book, AA members work the twelve steps, and “recover from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body” (title page).
Today, I’ll be breaking down a section of the chapter Working With Others.
Working With Others
This chapter makes clear that the desire to get sober must come from within. We can’t make a family member, friend, or sponsee want to quit drinking. If they don’t want to, we simply have to move on.
Working With Others reads, “To spend too much time on any one situation is to deny some other alcoholic an opportunity to live and be happy” (p 96).
That’s much easier said than done! Fortunately, we have prayer and meditation on our side. We have spiritual tools that allow us to deal with any situation.
When working with a new sponsee, it’s important to remember that we’re offering spiritual guidance only. To that end, this chapter says, “…that he is not trying to impose upon you for money, connections, or shelter. Permit that and you only harm him” (p 96).
I’m not a bank and I’m not a homeless shelter (although being both those things would be pretty rad!). I’m an alcoholic who has found a spiritual solution to the disease of alcoholism. That’s all I can offer a woman seeking help.
Working With Others goes on to list some of the ways that helping others can be inconvenient. Remember, life isn’t always sunshine and rainbows! The chapter talks about how working with a sponsee may mean losing sleep, interrupting personal activities and work, having to go to hospitals and jails, and my phone ringing at all hours.
That seems like a lot of negative consequences all from helping someone out! Guess what? They’re all worth it. Anyone who has seen light and life return to a sponsee’s eyes will tell you the same.
Is sponsorship sometimes a hassle? Absolutely. Do I really want to pick up the phone during the last five minutes of Scandal? Not even a little bit. But I do it anyway. I sponsor women because it’s the best feeling in the world to help someone else and expect nothing in return. It’s the closest I get to meeting God.
Working With Others then returns to the idea there are certain things we shouldn’t help newcomers with. It says,
“He clamors for this or that, claiming he cannot master alcohol until his material needs are cared for. Nonsense…we simply do not stop drinking so long as we place dependence upon other people ahead of dependence on God” (p 98).
Ain’t that the truth! I thought I needed to have a good job to get sober. I got that job and continued to drink. I thought I needed a cute guy to get sober. I got a cute guy and would drink in the bathroom after he fell asleep.
I needed God to get sober. That was it. End of story. Working With Others points this out, too. The chapter reads, “For the type of alcoholic who is able and willing to get well, little charity, in the ordinary sense of the word, is needed or wanted” (p 98).
That’s been my experience. When I was finally ready and willing to get sober, there wasn’t much I needed. I had a roof over my head and food in my stomach. Oh, and I had God in my life. Guess what? I got, and stayed, sober!
by Sally Rosa | Nov 19, 2014 | 12 Steps, Addiction Articles
Written By: Fiona Stockard
What are the 9th Step Promises?
The ninth step promises are a section of the Big Book where recovering alcoholics are promised certain things. I like the sound of that! Remember though, these promises only apply to alcoholics working the steps. Specifically, they only apply to those who’ve reached the ninth step.
So, what does the Big Book promise us? Red bottom heels and a hot guy? A Rolex and a smaller waist? Nope! It promises us emotional and spiritual health. It promises us that we’ll finally be okay.
Bill Wilson wrote –
If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us – sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.
(The Big Book, pp. 83-84).
Like many alcoholics, I’d heard the promises read at meetings. I’d seen them hanging on the wall of clubhouses. Hell, I even went to a meeting called “The Page Eighty-Three Promises Meeting.” I thought I knew the ninth step promises.
It turns out, like many blessings in sobriety, I knew these promises on paper, but had no idea what they looked like in real life.
My Experience with the 9th Step Promises
I got sober and I began to learn what these promises were really about.
See, things like “We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it” and “We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows” sound good. When they happen in your life though? The feeling is nothing short of amazing.
After completing my steps, I was stunned. I was, for the first time in my life, free. I was okay in my own skin. More importantly, I was able to show other women how to be free. I was able to be selfless, rather than selfish.
So, friends and dear readers, I’ll leave you with my personal take on the ninth step promises.
Fiona’s 9th Step Promises
If we complete the steps, we’re going to be amazing. Sometimes it’ll be halfway through, sometimes it’ll be afterwards, but it’ll always happen.
We’re going to know the freedom of sobriety and the happiness of recovery.
We won’t regret the past. In fact, we’ll embrace the past and use it to help other women recover.
We will live in serenity and we will practice peace, helpfulness, and love to others.
No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we’ll rise. We’ll rise because women lift us. We’ll then lift other women. Together, we’ll rise and never fall.
Uselessness will become useless. Self-pity will become useless. Service will become everything.
We will lose interest in our old lives and gain interest in God and other women.
Self-seeking will become uncomfortable. Selfishness will become uncomfortable.
Our attitude and outlook upon life will change and become whatever God wants it to be.
Fear of people, of economic insecurity, of being single, of gaining weight, of being rejected, of being embarrassed, of being anything other than exactly who and what we are – will leave us.
We will learn how to handle situations with grace and dignity.
We will suddenly realize God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves and that God has been with us, carrying and helping us, all along.
Are these extravagant promises? Hell no!
They’re being fulfilled among us – look around and see the beautiful healing power of sobriety.
They happen for everyone, always, if we do the work.
by Fiona Stockard | Nov 14, 2014 | 12 Steps, Addiction Articles
Written By: Fiona Stockard
The Big Book Broken Down – Part Eleven
Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who help each other to recover from alcohol and drug addiction. It was founded in June of 1935, just celebrated its seventy-ninth anniversary, and boasts over two million members.
AA’s central text is the Big Book. With a sponsor and a Big Book, AA members work the twelve steps, and “recover from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body” (title page).
Today, I’ll be breaking down a section of the chapter Working With Others.
Working With Others
Picking up from last week, Working with Others urges us to use simple language when working with sponsees. It reads, “…you had better use everyday language to describe spiritual principles. There is no use arousing any prejudice…” (p. 93).
Remember, the goal of sponsorship, of any service work, is to be helpful. We can’t be helpful if we’re using ten-dollar words! That’s only going to confuse people.
What about working with newcomers who have strong religious backgrounds? Don’t worry, the chapter has that covered too. It says –
“Your prospect may belong to a religious denomination. His religious education and training may be far superior to yours…But he will be curious to learn why his own convictions have no worked and why yours seem to work so well…To be vital, faith must be accompanied by self sacrifice and unselfish, constructive action” (p. 93).
This is absolutely true! I’ve worked with many women who know more about a particular religion than I do. Their knowledge didn’t keep them sober though. This goes back to one of the pillars of A.A. – knowledge isn’t enough to achieve and maintain sobriety.
Self-knowledge doesn’t work. Religious knowledge doesn’t work. Knowledge in any form isn’t enough. We need, as the Big Book says, “self sacrifice and unselfish, constructive action.”
How do we get to action? Simple. Working with Others says, “Outline the program of action, explaining how you made a self-appraisal, how you straightened out your past and why you are now endeavoring to be helpful to him” (p. 94).
There you have a very vague description of the twelve-steps. Our self-appraisal is the fourth step. Straightening out our past is the ninth step. Being helpful to others is the twelfth-step.
Through working these steps (and the other nine!), we have a spiritual experience. And that, my friends, is what sobriety is all about!
Getting back to helping newcomers, the chapter touches upon some common roadblocks we, as sponsors, experience. It says –
“Your candidate may give reasons why he need not follow all of the program. He may rebel at the thought of a drastic housecleaning which requires discussion with other people” (p. 94).
and –
“Tell him you once felt as he does, but you doubt whether you would have made much progress had you not taken action” (p. 94).
and –
“If he is not interested in your solution, if he expects you to act only as a banker for his financial difficulties or a nurse for his sprees, you may have to drop him until he changes his mind” (p. 95).
and finally –
“If he thinks he can do the job in some other way, or prefers some other spiritual approach, encourage him to follow his own conscience. We have no monopoly on God; we merely have an approach that worked with us” (p. 95).
I can’t overstate these enough! Not everyone who asks for our help will really want it. I’ve sponsored more than my share of women who call for a few weeks, maybe even work the first couple of steps, and then disappear.
On the flip side, I’ve been that woman! I pulled the disappearing act myself. I had quite a few sponsors before I actually worked the steps.
What made this last time different? I’m not sure. I think I was ready to commit to going through all of the steps. I didn’t pull the disappearing act. I stuck around.
Guess what? It’s led to a life beyond my wildest dreams!
