What Is It?

I get asked often enough "How do I know if I am an alcoholic?" It depends on whose description you want to use. It seems there is no shortage of differing opinions and descriptions of alcoholism out here in the trenches. If you want to adopt Dr. Phil's description or Oprah's description or Dr. Drew's description or even my family doctor's description we may or may not end up on the same page as the grand-daddy of ALL descriptions and the one for which a Twelve Step Program for recovery is taught and practiced by the wonderful Fellowship called Alcoholics Anonymous.

AA's "Our description of the alcoholic" which they painstakingly delineate in the first forty three pages of their book tells us that alcoholism has nothing to do with how many or when you drink. Too bad- because that means that we have no way of telling whether or not someone is alcoholic simply based upon our casual judgement of their drinking habits. What it does have to do with how someone’s body reacts to alcohol and then if that is an abnormal reaction, whether or not they drink anyway - despite it - and that means a deeper look into the history and experience of the problem drinker than even most doctors or so-called "Addictions" counselors are capable of - let alone family, clergymen, friends or employers.

There are plenty of real alcoholics who drink less than you or I and plenty who drink more - so a diagnosis cannot be made by comparing quantity or frequency. Bill W one of the co-founders of AA used to approach candidates for the Twelve Step 'treatment' by walking up to them outside of AA meetings and asking them "So . . . you think you're 'one of us', eh?"

Then he would let them tell him what their description of their alcoholism was. Guess what? Not everyone qualified.

I do the same thing - and I have to tell you that it took a while to get over the shock of learning that so many folks have absolutly no idea what AA's "our description of the alcoholic" is - a description for which they proposes a solution - a common solution for a common problem. It just blew my mind that so many people would be willing to raise their hands in an AA meeting and chant, "I am an alcoholic" yet have absolutely no idea what it was that they were admitting to.

Drinking a lot and often, more often than not, is an indication of "Problem" with alcohol - but this alone does not describe a real alcoholic.

A real alcoholic must have these two conditions present simultaneously:

1) Obsession of the mind - Cannot resist taking a drink even though he/she knows once they start they cannot stop.

PLUS

2) Allergy of the body - Once any alcohol whatever is taken into his/her system, something happens in a physical sense that is without comparable effect on the average individual - a physical phenomenon of "Craving" develops - which makes it virtually impossible for him to stop, even if he/she wants and/or needs to stop.

This is an abnormal reaction and hence sometimes refered to as an "allergic" reaction. Call it what you will - allergy or not - it is abnormal and only real alcoholics experience it once they ingest alcohol.

The existence of neither or only ONE of the above may result in problem drinking (Drinking too much - too often - even to the point of damage to one's health and livelihood) BUT does not qualify as a real alcoholic.

I am sorry but I just have to say it again - both conditions must be present – and only ten percent of the world’s population has both of these conditions simultaneously. Do you see the vicious cycle?

"If, when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely, or if when drinking, you have little control over the amount you take, you are probably alcoholic." (Alcoholics Anonymous, 44:1)

Some people erroneously think that alcoholism is a Three-Fold disease. They even think that this is an AA principle. It is not. It is is an idea foreign to AA's "description of the alcoholic" that has somehow leached into the meeting rooms from treatment centers - which do not teach or embrace AA's solution. Unpopularly, according to the book "Alcoholic’s Anonymous" alcoholism not actually a disease but a malady and it is only Two-Fold: mental AND physical - characterized by (i) an obsession of the mind coupled with (ii) an allergy of the body.

The obsession - a strange insanity that occurs as a “mental blank spot” immediately preceding the taking of a drink, guarantees that the person afflicted will take the drink even with the full knowledge that it will result in a craving for more (allergy) or even though he may not have intended to drink.

This is strangely supplanted for the idea that it is safe to drink despite experience that it may not be safe to drink without experiencing the phenomenon of craving (allergy).

"No matter how intelligent we alcoholics may have been in other areas of our lives, where alcohol has been involved, we have been strangely insane. We allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all; and once having formed the habit and found we cannot break it, once having lost our self-confidence, our reliance upon things human, our problems pile up on us and become astonishingly difficult to solve." ("Alcoholics Anonymous - The Doctor's Opinion)

Recovery from the obsession (mental) component is possible but there is no known cure for the physical allergy portion. However breaking that one aspect is enough to sever the vicious cycle and allow us to live normal lives – as long as we never put alcohol into out bodies thereby setting off the physical allergy (craving). Alcoholism is distinct from "hard", "heavy" or "problem" drinking or other "addictions" including "drug addiction" in that the two components of mental, alcoholic obsession and physical allergy to ETOH (ethyl alcohol) in some form must be simultaneously present in the individual.

I would never suggest to someone that they either ARE or ARE NOT alcoholic - only the individual knows their personal history well enough and so completely as to make that decision. Many people who abuse alcohol for entire lifetimes NEVER even become alkies – just heavy alcohol abusers - although both lifestyles suck!

Then some with a genetic predisposition start off slowly and eventually DO “cross the line”. Until they do, they are what is known as “potential alcoholics” and if they continue will eventually “cross the line” and develop the physical allergy due to the overtaxing of their pancreas and liver. Once that occurs, and we know not when it does, there is no going back.

For those who abhor the idea of being able to tell an alcoholic from a non-alcoholic, please don’t worry. Recovered alcoholics are supposed to be able to differentiate. If we couldn't do that how then could we be useful? By being "pals' ? We'd be working with anybody and anyone alcoholic or not, asking them to take steps and follow some rules that only an alcoholic would be desperate enough to take and to follow. Refusing to learn how to distinguish alcoholics from non-alcoholics is the reason that some many meeting going folks are not able to effectively sponsor others and why the AA meeting fellowship is so top-heavy with non-alcoholic albeit 'alcohol abusing' 'membership.

But fear not. Knowing the distinction - alcoholic vs non-alcoholic- is our job:

In the preceding chapters you have learned something of alcoholism. We hope we have made clear the distinction between the alcoholic and the nonalcoholic. (44:0)

Peace and Love,

Danny S

^{This Blog and its content is not in any way affiliated or associated with Alcoholics Anonymous World Services (AA) and content herein expresses the sole experience or opinions of the author. Anything posted here concerning alcoholism or recovery from alcoholism that cannot be reconciled with the AA book, "Alcoholics Anonymous" with regard to comments about AA or it's Twelve Step Program should be ignored. This blog is not a form of Twelve Step work for the author nor does the author claim to be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous since if he were a member of AA he would violate AAs traditions in saying so publicly and he would also be lying if he were a member and denied it. Accordingly in order to respect that organizations traditions he does not admit or deny membership in the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous}

The Eyes Have It

Someone posed an interesting idea today. ”Danny, I know that the answer is in the book, but… let’s say that you were stranded on a deserted island with a guy who’s sitting in a tree eating fermented fruit all day — and you had no big book — what would you say to this guy to help him determine whether or not he’s a real alcoholic?”

I am always just saying what is in the book – but what if I am lying or whacked and revising it to fit? Anything I say that cannot be reconciled with what is in that book is bullshale. I do an excellent job conveying it exactly as it is, but I should be checked too and corrected if wrong so I don’t kill somebody. This is a life and death deal here.

I rarely use the book on the first approach anyway. For the guy on the island - I wouldn't teach him how to make that determination unless he wanted to stop drinking. I would simply ask him, "Do you want to stop drinking, forever?"

If he said something stooopit like he just wanted to stop “for one day”, or “just for today” or something like that -

then I would consider him full of crapola and probably in need of deprogramming from the Treatment Center indoctrination and foreign recovery lingo he has picked up from his own rehab stays -- or from other former rehab 'clients' in “the rooms” who carried it into the fellowship.

It is amazing what gets said in AA meetings these days that has NO foundation in AA recovery yet is so ubiquitous that newcomers don’t realize they are hearing outside slogans, methods and concepts of recovery that NEVER work for alcoholics of our type and that are actually counterproductive to the Twelve Steps in the Big Book, “Alcoholics Anonymous.”

But if he said he wanted to stop drinking for good and for all I would proceed to related to him incidents in my past that clearly illustrate the same symptoms illustrated in those first forty three pages as they applied to my drinking history - and let he himself determine if he identifies with those in my background which means that he matches mental and physical symptoms with how EtOH was with him.

Usually he has never heard anyone "qualify" the way he is hearing me do it and is astonished even if he has been attending AA meetings - for years - sometimes decades.Can you imagine?

Can you imagine being in multiple treatment facilitates purporting to be AA friendly and Twelve Stepped based and going to AA meetings for years and no one EVER explaining to him what AA's description of the alcoholic is. Disgraceful.

Many times my prospect does not identify. Sometimes they do. In the final analysis I have to be satisfied that he is a real alcoholic before I would continue - the onus falls on him to convince me. Of course I don’t place him in that position consciously - as far as he knows we are just two guys talking. But I am really working. I have taken many through the first two steps without them even knowing it was happening.

You ought to see though eyes light up on the alcoholic who hears alcoholism talked about sometimes for the first time ever!! Even after studying being in Treatment, going to hundreds or thousands of meetings, double digit detoxes and thirty day stints, reading the Big Book, getting on his knees and praying for sobriety every day, being a good little AA zombie -- none of it ever working - no one ever coming close enough to gain his full trust before now. It is priceless! And a joy to be involved with these people. What an avocation!

Then I would light a flare and get the hell off that island. I have a flare, right?

Peace,

Danny S - RLRA

Well . . . . I Do Declare!

DECLARATION

I am a FREE from King Alcohol.

_{I, therefore, a member of the minority of humanity called “Alcoholic”, in humble servitude to a Power greater than myself, who is God,}

_{Assembled upon planet earth, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of my intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of a Power greater than myself, solemnly publish and declare,}

_{That this child of God is, and of Right ought to be a Free and Independent member of humanity in service to Him, that I have been Absolved through the Power of the loving Father from all Allegiance to King Alcohol, and that all unholy connection between it and me, is and ought to be totally dissolved for good and for all; and that as a Free and Independent Employee of the Supreme Being of my own understanding, who has lovingly transformed in me a new personality; and through continuous improvement of a conscious contact with Him, has been granted to have full Power to help others, do His will, initiate and conclude restitutions, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, carry the message brought forth in the divinely inspired work titled “Alcoholics Anonymous”, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent and free thinking citizens of God’s universe may of right do.}

_{And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, I unilaterally on my own behalf and mutually with respect to my willing recovered fellows and yet to recover brethren, pledge to God, to my fellows and especially to the alcoholic who still suffers, my Life, my fortune and my sacred Honor."}

Happy Independence Day to all my fellow recovered alcoholics - and "Still recovering" friends.

Peace,

Danny S

Oh James!

Tolerance. What a trait to possess. What a promise too. The co-authors of the Big Book, “Alcoholics Anonymous” claim that once we are practicing the Step Ten procedure – all five parts – that "love and tolerance of others is our code." (84:2)

Can you imagine that? Can you imagine not hating and not being overly sensitive to the injustices real or imaged of others? Someone steps on our toes and we are like, “Ho hum . . .yaaawn ”. Cool as a cuke. Real life James Bond types. Cool! The felt top of the baccarat table blushes green and bright like just cut grass while hot women in bikinis one hanging on each of our arms fawn over our . . . . . . . . . . sorry. I went over the top. Again.

What the hell is tolerance anyway? We sometime love to point to someone’s ‘intolerance’ when they have the audacity to disagree with us. But isn’t that showing how intolerant we are of others too – the every same “crime” of which we are now judging of having committed against us? Is tolerance the ability to “put up with” something that irritates us? Yeah fine, but might that mean that we still can be irritated? That doesn’t sound too cool.

007 doesn’t harbor ill will and grudges against his enemies, does he? Heck no. He takes care of business with only a tiniest bead of sweat, calmly steps over the bloody bodies and returns downstairs to the casino for one more game and a nightcap.

Let’s see what Miriam Webster says about tolerance:

<sup>1: capacity to endure pain or hardship : endurance, fortitude, stamina

2 a: sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one's own b: the act of allowing something.</sup>

That means that if I disagree with your view and get upset with you over it because I am overly sensitive to people places and things but I bite my tongue about it and manage to avoid a confrontation with you – that I am a “tolerant” person? Uh, no. Not if I am secretly upset with you – resentful , really. It also probably means that I am a pussy.

Being a pushover and a doormat is not tolerance – no matter how many times we pat ourselves on the back and feel superior to our enemy for “keeping the peace”.

If you cut me off on the highway and my first inclination is to road-rage your ass off onto the shoulder or at least get up close enough to you so you can see my middle finger but don’t do it because I am afraid and I let you go without further incident ----- that is showing tolerance, right?

No. Sorry. I don’t think so.

Even if I manage to dot it it doesn't. Both show exactly the same thing; that I am out of control - that my emotions rule me and that I am overly sensitive to you and so therefor you control me.

True tolerance is synonymous with forgiveness. As a fourth step promise, the Big Book informs us that as the result of praying and asking for tolerance, pity and patience toward those we resent that Go d will show us how to “take a tolerant view” – see things from a new perspective. That perspective is that others are perhaps sick – as we were or maybe ‘are’ sick. They show symptoms and we do not like those symptom. We resent them. They piss us off – annoy us. So we ask God to show us how to be kind – how to be tolerant. Notice that we don’t ask him to install tolerance or kindliness or even patience.

"So we clean house with the family, asking each morning in meditation that our Creator show us the way of patience, tolerance, kindliness and love." (83:0)

We ask him to “show us how” to be that way. We are going to have to take action in order to get it. Shit. More work. Right? Yup!

Making allowances for others -- because our view of them no longer disregards the injustices committed upon them and their own badly affected psyches. We take into consideration that they once had an innocence that has been stolen and so we experience this as a "giving before" or 'forgiveness'. It is the absence of judgment. It is not playing God. When we stop playing God because we have turned our lives and wills over to God then tolerance follows. The evidence of having "let go" is a tolerant view – which is love - and a higher threshold for not hating them for their trespasses. Instead we are forearmed with forethought in the form of this awareness and we automatically forgive those who trespass against us.

007 is not interested in getting even with those who have stepped on his toes. He is interested in executing his primary purpose today and moving on to the next one tomorrow - without prejudice. Without negative emotions mucking up the works. Now that is true love – true tolerance. What a code.

Love and tolerance of others is our code. (84:2)

Peace,
Danny S - RLRA

How Can Atheists Ever Hope to Recover Through The Twelve Steps?

It isn't true. It is not in AA literature and the co-founders of AA never conveyed such an experience. It confuses folks who think it is and flies in the face the very language of the Twelve Steps as bulletized, summarized and often used to hypnotize - on 'da shades'.

Talking about the fallacy that atheists can recover from alcoholism using AA’ s Twelve Steps and STILL remain an atheist.

It is true that atheist alcoholics can call themselves members of AA. That alone doe snot guarantee that they recover - that the steps achieve their intended objective.

What we are told is that even atheists can recover using the steps – but there is NEVER a promise that he can remain atheist. Big Difference. Once an atheist successfully identifies with AAs description of the kind of problem for which AA is designed - what the Big Book, "Alcoholics Anonymous" refers to as "our description of the alcoholic" - he now sees that there is no human aid available to him. He realizes that a physical change has taken place in his very body and that if even if the 'mental' part of the AA Big Book "description" that plagues the thinking of the real alcoholic could be unlocked through some psychiatric wizardry the physical aspect would still stand.

He would still crave alcohol once any whatever entered his system. It could enter through an undercooked cheesecake containing vanilla extract. it could enter because the chef at Jean George lied and refused tell his sous chefs to omit the wine from his Cheeseburger Marsala. They are fucked.

Under most circumstance the men with whom I have had the honor of doing this work - who already believe in God or are at least willing to believe - are forced – by merit of simply running out of alternative choices - to go the spiritual, miracle seeking route.

We see this frequently with cancer patients right? They begin to accept that the disease they have is going to kill them real soon. They start going out with friends who drag them around to occultists, psychics, magical religious "healers" - even priests who have cleverly figured out a way to bring a little 'Santaria meets Criss Angel' into their craft without being thrown out of the church on their reverend and robed rears -- all out of desperation and realization of the utter hopelessness of their condition. These are last ditch efforts. Then we attend the funeral.

The agnostic or atheist guy who identifies with the AA description in backed into in inescapable corner. He has run completely out of ditches. If he is to still not consider the supernatural solution then he must now die of alcoholism, period -- or else open his mind to what he previously would never have even considered. Or as it is termed 'become willing'. He'll need proof - yes - but at least he will go once he is shown.

His proof is coming. Oh BOY is it coming.

He might go for a man in the sky who can take away the problem. Or a light in outer space that has intelligence. Or a vibration in the cosmos that controls destiny. WHATEVER the concept is - it doesn’t matter. As long as he calls it his God, it makes sense to him, and he believes It can remove the problem by fracturing the AA description of the alcoholic that he now see himself fitting - for real - based on his own intimate memory of his drinking experiences - thereby breaking the cycle.

So he does it. He embraces the twelve step lifestyle and practice. The result is that he has a spiritual awakening that blows his mind! He recovers from alcoholism and becomes an entirely new being.

Now he has no choice but to believe because he has experienced a miracle firsthand - himself. It s just like if you didn’t believe in alien UFOs and being abducted by an alien UFO. If happened to YOU would be convinced and no longer deny the existence of aliens from space aliens.

One byproduct of the awakening - the spiritual experience as the result of the Twelve Steps -- which of course the card carrying kind of atheist will not like to hear -- is that atheist or agnostic is no longer one. That is what is meant when we say 'No belief in God is needed' because we know that will change once the protegee experiences it for himself.

It means that no one need accept God in order to "start" the process of the Program - the Twelve Steps. In the finish - they all come around.

Miracles are very compelling proof of the formerly unknown or denied. There is no psychological trickery involved. We are talking real, visible, "feelable" miracles happening to those who follow the path. And that does not mean simply "go to meetings" or "read the Big Book".

It means "turning life and will over to God" by taking steps four through nine. It really is funny when you think about it with a clear understanding of the purpose of the steps - realizing that it is not to stop drinking - that it is to have an awakening of spirit.

It is sort of like saying that starving people can solve their nutritional deficiencies by going on the South Beach diet. Shyeah . . . .duh!

Peace,
Danny S

Movin' On Up

Can you drink OK at work? Driving around the The Peninsula of Doom here one just has to follow behind a landscaper pulling his trailer anytime after eleven AM on a Friday to know how many would answer "Sure" to that question - and good-God-almighty there are a lot of landscapers around here. I think its 3:1 on total population.

I just had to stop drinking during work hours. Damn! Only in my twenties too. I had been looking so forward to climbing out of the Bronx into that big Queens apartment in the sky and getting totally sloshed with the boys in the suits and the company cars. I had heard about the "three martini lunch" and think, How cool!

Yeah. Keep dreaming.

A mild hangover effect would kick in and the day would be finished. Getting a hangover without having had the benefits of a good drunk sucks. I would end up with my office door locked and my head down on the desk or else I would be sprawled out on my office Lazyboy chair. But money and power where still in the site of my gun and alcohol had not yet pulled its cruel punchline by rearranging the priority: Money, Sex, Power --- Alcohol. Later it would be: Alcohol - Money, Sex, Power. Impossible.

That was before I damaged my body into the irreparable state it is in today by working it like a fool. It like bending a wire coat-hanger back and forth repeatedly until it just heats up and pops into two pieces in your hands. Later just one beer or a single sweet slice of that drippy rum cake at "Il Boschetto" on Gun Hill Road and VAROOOOM! It would be

How can management manage the unmanageable alkie? The owner of a business is just as powerless over the powerless alcoholic as the alcoholic is powerless over alcohol. Of course he could just sack and replace the offending fellow or gal. Sometimes that is the only solution. It is never an easy task considering that alcoholics often possess extraordinary energy levels and exhibit suburb creative qualities that are valuable in the workplace - if only they could be harnessed.

In cases when the worker or associate is just a plain old self-absorbed, alcohol abusing, wife beating, dead beat who would not be interested in stopping if the solution were placed at his feet on a bed of golden straw -- well, what can one say then? Screw em'.

In the incredibly well organized book, "Alcoholics Anonymous" - or as it is called in the room of AA, "The Book", the chapter To Employers gives business managers a set of tools that are in essence the very same instructions that we alcoholics are given in the preceding chapters to follow when we are 'working with others.'

Management is being asked to begin the preliminary 'qualification' process of a standard twelve step call. We can be called in later to 'close the deal' and take him through the steps. It is quite detailed and specific. The employer is told what to say, when to say it even what not to say and do.

I have to know this stuff because when an employer or a business associate realizes that I have solved my own drinking problem they may come to me and ask how I did it and what should they do for the sick and suffering employee or even a business partner.

I must be of MAXIMUM service and this entire book is a valuable tool for education in these instances.

If my attitude is "Well, I'm not an employer so I'll just be aware of the chapter but I won't need any advice or to follow anyof the directions int it", then I probably haven't learned or adopted much about self-LESSness -- Have I?

If I skip a chapter because the title sounds like it might not apply to ME - "Oh wonderful ME" - well.........what else can be said?

On page 142-143, employers are told to make a determination as to whether or not he is a real alcoholic who wants give up alcoholic sickness. They want the employer to ask him whether or not he is willing to submit to anything in order to get well.

Is he willing to make a commitment to NEVER-EVER drink for the REST OF HIS LIFE and beyond -- otherwise be prepared to fire his butt the very next time he relapses.

They are told how if a guy just wants to go to rehab to dry out and then expects to be able to drink like a gentlemen - not to waste time with him.

If someone comes up to me in my business and says "What should we do about ol drunken Joe", and my best shot is "Tell him to go to an AA meeting"; or if I all I know is to offer to take him to one myself and then see if he "keeps coming back" -- then I am not following what worked for the co-founders in this area and I am definitely do some balking on this Program of clear-cut directions.

I'll go to meetings, speak in the jails, make the coffee, put away not one but TWO - by God - folding chairs at each meeting and pat myself on the back for being a good little AA-Bot and still I am not at maximum service.

Peace,

Danny S - RLRA

Depression Recovery and Meds

After you attend meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous for a while you begin to realize that very many of us alkies have a few other . . . . . uh . . . mental issues besides the "mental obsession" characteristic of alcoholism. We seem to have a skewed share of depression, anxiety - some bi-polar disorder - to name the most common ones.

A number of years ago, a few years after having recovered from alcoholism, I experienced a bad bout of depression.

This was the real deal - following on the heels of 911. It was real, clinically diagnosed depression - not just feeling blue and full of self-pity for not being able to get laid, a job, a car or whatever reason it seems that so many of get into our internal whining funks - blaming 'Demon EtOH" when all we really need is a counselor to unlock us. Nothing to do with alcoholism. Everything to do with self pity.

I had recovered from alcoholism and was yet "young" in spiritual growth and had "practice" living the new way of life we call the "12 steps" - you know. . . . beginning each day with a set of certain prayers and meditation, praying particular prayers and meditating and inventorying all throughout the day - and before bed - the typical 12 step lifestyle - - - - all that stuff that the folks so often seem to never learned is actually the AA Program - --- and I sought help from a doctor whose care included Effexor.

It worked fine.

After becoming more and more disciplined spiritually and growing in that spirituality - I then, again under my doctors' direction, slowly weaned off -the meds and find that the new-found and continually growing spiritually eradicates depression even better than the drugs. WAY BETTER!


There was no involvement of AA with my depression. No sponsors or members were consulted - NO ONE human except my doctor even knew. If some asshole takes medical advice from another asshole sitting in a folding chair in a church basement - instead of picking up the spiritual toolkit that is laid out in the Big Book - that ought not be a reflection on my own relationship with my own creator and my life - it s got no bearing on me, my sobriety, my concept of spirituality or practice of the AA Program.

AA doesn’t claim to have a 'fix' for stupid and taking medical advice from a sponsor who is not a doctor is just plain idiotic. Unfortunately the fellowship also is not short on kookie Deputy Dogs flashing sobriety “badges” feeding their already bursting-at-the-seams egos by feeling ill-conceived direction to folks ill prepared to use the God given balls with which they were born.

The Book specifically tells us that we alcoholics following the path of the book should see doctors if and when we need. It does not say go see ol' fish-breath sitting in the back of the room by the coffee machine where he can ogle the young 'chicks” with lower-lumbar tattoos and purple thongs pulled way up their wazzoos who just rolled in from the NA meeting across town, the courthouse or the local wind-up joint and have him tell us what to do with our medications.

Peace,

Danny S - RLRA

Cannot Separate Resentment from Playing God

They are one in the same.

Thank God there is a Step Ten because the horrible truth is that our own imagined goodness and wonderfulness is not so omnipresent as we had hoped or imagined - not even after we stop drinking.

We are still human still subject to human frailties and what the world has to hit us over the head with. If it is not hitting us over the head we sometimes run headlong into it ourselves. We are still smacked in the face with the daily relentless waves of events and people that bring up that unholy and vile emotion called resentment. It is hatred entered the world and we are the portal for it.

It is part of Gods world and He allows it. Yet when we resent we are judging - condemning someone or proclaiming something as “bad”. That act is claiming to have the knowledge of “good and evil” and deciding who is guilty and who is innocent in the courtroom of life. That is a judges job, not ours. In the scheme of the universe it is the prerogative of a God, not us.

Therefor when we resent we are PLAYING GOD and effectively separating ourselves from Him. Isn't that the original separation from God? Could it also be the legacy of man and the cause of all his problems including alcoholics. What is spiritual illness but a separation of each of us from God so we can become gods?

We are little gods - little control freaks - little pissants and bitchy girlie men and girlie girls who want to run the show. We're pissed of so we have to go piss off everyone else too with out little hissy fits or brutish bouts of anger and violence that cannot be mastered by sheer will.

Fuck or get fucked - then fucked and fuck back. What kind of a life is that? Its living like animals - that is what it is. All fueled by resentment.

The pandemic of spiritual illness runs its never ending course.

It is no wonder that resentment - that kills more alcoholics than anything else. It is like leaping head first into the bottomless pit - abyss - the debris and body strewn sick world where we have all lived and from where we all crawl out from the wreckage on bloody hands and mangled bone-bared knees -- if we are can see that all we have to do is ask for the escape and to commit to our to our rescuer.

Until and even after then how can we stop playing God in the way we do - in the way we take on the role of "Judge" with our resentments sparking and fanning the flames of annoyance, soreness, feeling threatened and hurt and being then full of real hatred? Why do we continue to say God is my Director, Employer and yet still fall try to take His place - like the first fallen angle, like Adam and like every human being since that ancient garden? Why would He allow such a force to exist and to plague and beleaguer his world and to contaminate and destroy his children?

Like a body builds muscle which protect the man by tearing and damaging and then repairing itself so does our protections against the forces that would kill us. We venture onto the battlefield of life and face the daily stress of daily forces - some earthly and others unearthly. Using the very stress that is out to destroy us to achieve victory over it - is like going to the gym and working out - intentionally subjecting ourselves to pain and stress we might really rather not encounter. So we wake up each morning placing the soles of our feet on the floor next to our beds and move on and out into the world to become stronger by the end of each day. The catch is that these stresses have to be properly met. Wieghts lifted improperly will damage and weaken the body until the body can no longer lift against it. The Gym wins - in a way.

Similarly resentment, fear, dishonesty and selfishness indulged in and embraced without a defense overcomes the spirit and kills us. The world wins. We lose.

Resentment is not only the killer of alcoholics but if we look, if we are observant, if we have understanding then we can see the killer force that propels resentment at work in the people we love too - people all around us - our associates, friends and others who are also reacting to the world and often defenseless against the forces or resentful motives and action against them and in turn against us. What is resentment but a form of hate - the negative force expressed as emotion that wants to destroy everything good.

Forgive them - they know not what they are doing, right? Do you think your crazy sister and that bitch at work has any idea who they are really working for when they get YOU to share in their illness by getting you to resent them?

Forgive us "as" - at the same time - that we forgive them. And knowing what they too are up against - and perhaps for which they are unarmed and ill equipped to endure - perhaps we can not judge and blame anymore. Step Step Ten is an ideal way to accomplish this. It is our procedural armor to have the forces that would enter and destroy us and the world get sent back where it came from. Hell.

We don't run from it. We meet it. We grow from it and Step Ten is a gift to alcoholics - to any Twelve Step practitioner that allow him to "work out" in a way builds strength and moves more and more toward being of maximum service to God and man.

Yeah it's a little heavy. But this site has been going now for almost seven years. It' s time for this to get more down to brass tacks once in a while. You can always skip it. There are plenty of spiritual poetry, recovery affirmations and "What recovery means to me" blogs out there to read. But I hope you stay here so we can share this journey together.

Peace,

Danny S - RLRA

Getting Rid of God

Rejecting God - or someone elses' concept of God. That is how the AA spore was germinated in the first place - when Bill Wilson rejected Ebby's Thacher's Oxford God.

He wanted nothing to do with it!

It was after Ebby told him to use his own concept o God instead - in order for Ebby could continue his Oxford sales 'routine' on him that Bill saw that he was free to accept his own concept of God as long as it was God - however right or wrong that concept was.

Ebby closed Bill and Billy was 'off to the spiritual races' and Alcoholics Anonymous later got born -- not as a religion but as a spiritual fellowship - big difference - that some people don't get.

The Oxfords - a real religion - would have been happy to have Bill (and everyone else) accept their concept of God but if he had done that AA probably would not be here today. Not as is anyway. It would probably be know as the "Latter Day Saints of Bill Wilson" or "The Wilsonians" or something. Bill might be getting a 'spiritual-chubby' right now in his grave -- just me mentioning it.

So most of us end up riding with Bill W. on that liberal idea and NOT the Holy Rolling Oxford idea of God!

Besides, everyone knows that God is a Big Old Fat Guy with a white beard sitting on a giant purple velvet lined throne with Jesus bouncing on one knee and Elvis on His other knee --- and he calls everyone "Cuz". You know that, right? RIGHT?

"Hey Cuz! Welcome to Heaven, man"

Peace,
Danny S - RLRA

A Whole Lot Of Bloody Bull

Sometimes, perhaps oftentimes, things that seem negative - aren't really. When I worked on Wall Street we had a term - "healthy paranoia". It meant keeping a certain discretionary posture with regard to inside information having to do with clients.

It also meant avoiding regulatory SNAFUs with loose lips or pens. Big Brother - the NASD and the SEC - could be watching. In the case of my Broker-Dealer firms they were watching - taking names and kicking pinstripped pleated-trousered ass. Man, they made movies and wrote books about us! Another story altogether.

There are healthy and beneficial ways to issue certain judgments, sarcasm and cynicism. One can be smarmy without being unctuous - critical without being offensive - even if certain types of oversensitive folks tend to get their panties into a pickle anyway. It' s usually just to cast further aspersions anyway.

Heck, lots of folks believe that chocolate is healthy and that so is wine.

The trick is to eliminate the "SELF-SERVING" element - putting forth to be helpful instead and VIOLA! It is positive. What others can seem only to express as negative, emotional and downright harmful barbs is now on a new positive plane. AA is all about grabbing hold of what was once vile ugly yes even obscene and using it for good by helping others with it - like having a machine that turns skat into gold. You become rich beyond your wildest dreams and no one knows how you manage to live so well since you don't apparently work as hard as they.

So right now, howz about a little 'healthy skepticism'. Such a large portion of the stuff we hear in AA meetings can be described in two words:

Bloody Bullshit - more quantity and better quality than has ever been shoveled out of la "Plaza de toros de Acho"

It might include everything from medical advice and or marriage and financial counseling – to tons and tons of opinions about the AA fellowship itself, recovery, The Big Book, Traditions, The Steps, AA History – so much of it just hot steaming, stinking red-streaked crap. My friend Mickey Bush out in California calls it “Lip flappin’ party line BULLSHIT!” and that is an accurate description of it - for sure.

You would think you could trust folks with “time under the belt” or who have “a few twenty fours” flashing sobriety medallions like they are AA Deputies. Fuhgetaboutit! You learn to give these Fellowship “experts” one big fish-eye because the reality is that they not actually be 'members' - and when you listen to folks like these you could do your own internal intelligence bank a great disservice.

Only those fitting AA's "description of the alcoholic" - detailed so eloquently described in the first forty three pages of the Big Book, "Alcoholics Anonymous" - can become members. Not everyone who says they are members actually qualify.

Before you go flaming me and this site - because that's what some of you do - God bless you - just know that no one, certainly not your humble narrator, is deciding who is a member and who is not. This is only a laymens acknowledgment of what AA itself acknowledges and that is that ONLY the individual is capable deciding whether or not he is alcoholic and hence eligible for membership.

What this is - and this is what pisses people off - isa reminder to folks that not YOU, ME, not your sponsor, not even the guy in the back with the red nose, the grey hair, the scowl and the AA Deputy Dog badge with his "sober-time" engraved on it - no ONE - gets to say who is and who is NOT an alcoholic - not for membership purposes - and hence a member. This includes whenever it is said that ANYONE can be a member just because they “showed up”-- it happens to be a Friday night, and "No one gets here by accident". BULLSHIT!

They must qualify themselves but qualify none-the-less. No one else can qualify for another. It is not possible. No one has the intimate knowledge of their past as indelibly inscribed in their heads - in their souls. Qualifying as "alcoholic" is about as intimate an experience as a human being can have - more visceral and delicate than sex - and we have folks raising their hands and throwing around the term like it were nothing more than a bad case of genital herpes. Genital Herpes does not even approach the of intimacy and dereliction of spirit experienced by a real alcoholic truly in 'admission mode'.

If someone saw you wading into the surf and called you a Bluefish - it would not mean that you are. You might be a Stripped Bass or just another guy wading into the surf thinking he's a Bluefish because some asshole told him so.

I can stand in front of my house and declare to all that "I am hungry" - because I am the only one with the intimate knowledge of how I truly hungry I am - who can know for sure whether or not my body has gone into ‘starvation mode’ experiencing real ‘hunger’ - but if I do not understand the how "hunger" is described, what it means in terms of language and human understanding then I could be wrong. Someone who thinks that "hunger" means 'a rumbling stomach' - might think that they are being smart and know what they are saying yet full stomachs rumble as noisily as do empty ones. So they Sometimes more.

Likewise, what if "alcoholic" doesn't mean simply 'someone who drinks too much'? What if it is more than that and if there are specific qualifiers involved in the actual description. Guess what? There is!

'Real' Alcoholism – the kind described in the Big Book, "Alcoholics Anonymous" is just like this.

Except not all of us are on the same page in our learning. We are too egotistical to be “taught” We say stupid shit like, “There are no teachers in AA” and then go to a meeting and tell the newcomer “I had to become teachable” in pretending to have acquired humility.

God almighty ! Is there any group of people on the face of the Earth who are more full of shit than we AAs are? If there are – please tell me where they are so I can stay away from that quadrant of the planet.

Some people or so zombified and hypnotized by other AA zombies that they desperately want to be AA members and although they cannot be, continue to call themselves such. Only alcoholics can become a members. "Those who suffer from alcoholism"

Peace,

Danny S - RLRA