The Bright Spot Of Our Lives

As sponsors in Alcoholics Anonymous we must live the principles of the program if we are to have the integrity it takes to present the principles of AA to others.  We have come to understand that our very lives as ex-problem drinkers are dependent upon the lives we are called to help.  Our lives take on a purpose and meaning that we have not experienced before.

    In the "Big Book" of Alcoholics Anonymous in the chapter "Working With Others" it states, "Practical experience shows that nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics... You can help when no one else can... Remember  they are very ill.  Life will take on a new meaning.  To watch people recover, to see them help others, to watch loneliness vanish, to see a fellowship grow up about you, to have a host of friends - this is an experience you must not miss.  We know you will not want to miss it.  Frequent contact with newcomers and with each other is the bright spot of our  lives."

        There is nothing that we can do with ourselves that is more important then helping someone else recover from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. Nothing. In order for this recovery to occur for them in its purest form, those we are helping must develop a personal relationship with God. It is through such a relationship with Him that they will recover. It is through this relationship that they will know serenity, peace and joy, maybe even for the first time in their lives.

        Obviously none of this can possibly occur for others if it has not occurred for us - as we cannot give away that which we don't have. Live this life through Him and in helping others do the same, you will be living within the bright spot of your life.

Written by Armand

Another Way To Look At Step Ten

 I like to think of the Tenth Step of the AA program as a hallway - a hallway that I must walk down in order to come into the room in which I can live with God. This hallway needs daily repair as the ceiling is leaking, there are holes in the walls and the floor is buckled. Fortunately, the program of Alcoholics Anonymous has given us an instructional manual so that we can pass through, although we may be encumbered at first.
         Another way to look at this is as if God is the light and my human defects are a clouded glass which no light can shine through.  As I begin to incorporate the program of AA into my life and begin to develop a relationship with God, some of the glass clears and some of the light shines through.  As I continue to incorporate the Twelve Steps into my life, the glass clears even more and even more of the light shines through.  Finally, the day arrives when the glass is transparent and all of the light shines through and it is in this moment that I am one with God and free of the manifestation of my character defects.
          Incorporate the Tenth Step into your daily existence and, eventually, into all your waking moments. We must be persistent. Persistence is the time between the promise of God and the provision of God. Thereafter, a life free of anxiety, fear and resentment can be experienced; cloaked in harmony, peace and serenity.

Written by Armand

The Genesis

 In 1930 a member of the Oxford Group and an alcoholic, Roland Hazzard, visited on more than one occasion with the noted psychiatrist Dr. Carl Jung. After Roland failed to cease drinking multiple times Dr. Jung gave to him the solution for alcoholism -- a vital spiritual experience. Spiritual defined as "of or pertaining to God" and vital as "life giving".  We have to give life to our experience with God. This is accomplished by surrendering our nature to the will of God.

          During what became a historic visit Dr Jung said to Roland, "You have the mind of a chronic alcoholic. I have never seen one single case recover where the state of mind existed to the extent that it does in you."  Our friend felt as though the gates of hell had closed on him with a clang. He said to the doctor, "Is there no exception?" "Yes," replied the doctor, "there is. Exceptions to cases such as yours have been occurring since early times. Here and there, once in a while, alcoholics have had what are called vital spiritual experiences."

           I recant these passages from the chapter There Is A Solution in the "Big Book" of Alcoholics Anonymous to make clear that we do know there is a solution to our alcoholism and that solution is indeed a vital spiritual experience. THE GENESIS of that life-giving experience is God. May you find him now.

          If you are alcoholic or suffer from the disease of addiction and you wish to recover from the seemingly hopeless state of mind and body, surrender your will to the will of God and you will live in this solution to your alcoholism.

Written by Armand

What Was Our Choice To Be?

I had admitted I was alcoholic. I believed in God. I drank twice while a member of Alcoholics Anonymous - once for thirteen months and once for ninety days. Only after the second relapse did I fully realize that I had to make a choice. As the "Big Book" of Alcoholics Anonymous says, "When we became alcoholics, crushed by a self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or evade, we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing. God either is or He isn't. WHAT WAS OUR CHOICE TO BE?"

Early on I chose - God is everything. When I made that choice I had no idea of the power of the human instinct, how pervasive it is and how difficult it would be to turn from my nature and to live in the will of God. The second relapse brought me to a state of reasonableness in which I clearly saw that the surrender had to be absolute. In Bill's Story in the "Big Book" it says "Simple, but not easy; a price had to be paid. It meant destruction of self-centeredness. I must turn in all things to the Father of Light who presides over us all." What will you chose - He is and He is everything or the nothingness which envelops one in the darkness? 

Written by Armand

No Need To Create A Past

 The program of Alcoholics Anonymous has in place the fabric necessary to weave through and heal our character defects - whether they surface in our daily or our spot check inventories.  If and when necessary we use the Ninth Step which is, "Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others."  If we decide that an amend is necessary we immediately make it in an effort to live in the present. Only in the present can we be in the will of God, where His grace saves us from creating another past which we will need to extricate ourselves from. Once performed, we thread into the necessary fabric The Seventh Step, "Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings."  If our actions cause us to have any shame or guilt, we then use the Fifth Step of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, "Admitted to God, to ourselves and another human being the exact nature of our wrongs" so that we may be living in the present with a clean slate and a serene mind.

          If we are willing to take our inventories, make our amends, ask God to remove our defects, and share our wrongs with ourselves, God and another human being there will be NO NEED TO CREATE A PAST.  We will have the freedom to exist in the present - in the will of God.

          As alcoholics we have worked hard to free ourselves from our past. If we are willing to weave the program of Alcoholics Anonymous into our lives in such a way that it becomes our life than the creation of a past that, at least subconsciously, is having a negative effect on our present consciousness, will not occur. This is a critical tool in permanent recovery.

Written by Armand

Reliance Not Defiance

    In the Big Book of  Alcoholics Anonymous it says, "When we  encountered A.A., the fallacy of our defiance was revealed.  At no time had we asked what God's will was for us; instead we had been telling Him what it ought to be. No man, we saw, could believe in God and defy Him, too. Belief meant RELIANCE, NOT DEFIANCE. In A.A. we saw the fruits of this belief: men and women spared from alcohol's final catastrophe. We saw them meet and transcend their other pains and trials. We saw them calmly accept impossible situations, seeking neither to run nor to recriminate.  This was not only faith; it was faith that worked under all conditions. We soon concluded that whatever price in humility we must pay, we would pay."

           Reliance upon God is the basis of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous; humility is the key which unlocks the door to the grace of God.  The Twelve Steps of A.A. move us from developing a faith in God to trusting in God and finally a true reliance upon God in every area of our life.  This relationship with Him allows us to transcend the travails of life in such a way that we are not self-centered and caught in our own needs and problems. Rather, we are trusting in the will of God as it unfolds in our life - freeing us to be open to the world around us and sensitive to the needs of others.   

Written by Armand

The Foundation For Progress

   Alcoholics Anonymous states, "the idea that somehow, someday, the alcoholic will control their drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker.  The persistence of this illusion is astonishing.  Many pursue it to the gates of insanity and death.  We learned, some of us through relapse, that we had to fully concede to our innermost self that we are alcoholic...The delusion that we are like other people has to be smashed."

                We learn through the program of Alcoholics Anonymous that we must admit powerlessness over alcohol and that our lives are unmanageable. We must concede to our innermost self that we are alcoholic and, yes, we must admit complete defeat. Once we have done this we have THE FOUNDATION FOR PROGRESS, in the actual program of Alcoholics Anonymous, upon which we can build a real and honest life.  This life of pure contribution allows us to be who we were created to be, thus restoring our self-esteem and allowing others to be themselves around us without any judgement on our part.  Our real and honest life will be ours to live, measured in and by the love we give away.

Written By Armand

Powerlessness Understood

Once much has been accomplished and an ample portion of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous completed, the personal relationship with and the dependence upon God take on much deeper and all-encompassing meanings.
               In the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous in the chapter "How It Works" it says, "We are in the world to play the role God assigns."  We, who have learned through our experience,  know this can be accomplished through the practice of the Twelve Steps.  Specifically it is in the Tenth Step, through daily examination, through which we uncover our character defects and their continuous manifestation in our behavior. Despite this action and reaction to life not being how and what we want it is still powerfully prevalent.  It is here, in the conflict of not wanting to manifest our character defects in our behavior but POWERLESS over such occurrences that we are thrown back into Step One. There, in the midst of Step One we can see so very clearly how we are not only powerless over our use of alcohol and drugs but powerless over every single aspect of our lives.  We had previously learned at a cognitive level that our lives must be given to the care and direction of God - but now, through our personal experiences, we can perceive this with more clarity and at a much deeper and consequential level.
               It is in the taking of the daily inventory that we begin to fully understand the power and pervasiveness of our character defects encoded into our human nature.  To overcome the manifestation of our character defects in our behavior we must subrogate our human nature and utterly abandon ourselves to the will of God. For it is in the infinite power and love of Him that we are healed.

Written by Armand

Self Will Or God's Will?

The importance of Step Three is that a decision is made (in fact it is a final choice) for our thought process to no longer be propelled by our human instincts (our self will) but rather by the will of God through inspiration.  Inspiration is defined as, "the thoughts of God implanted in the mind and soul of man."
            The Third Step is, "We mad  e a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him."  In the Big Book Alcoholics Anonymous in the chapter "How It Works" it states, "The first requirement (in taking the Third Step) is that we be convinced that any life run on self will can hardly be a success." As stated prior to this, "Remember that we deal with alcohol, cunning, baffling, powerful.  Without help it is to much for us.  But there is One who has all power -that One is God. May you find Him now!"  The chapter goes further in stating, "Selfishness - self-centerednes! That, we think, is the root of our troubles... So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of  self will run riot..."  Self will is our thought process propelled by our human instincts. In the Big Book it says "above everything we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness and there seems no way of entirely getting rid of self without His aid."

                 I learned in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous that we have three basic instincts, a social, sexual and security instinct.  These instincts are God given and necessary for life but in us we can never get enough of what it is we think we need .  The great psychiatrist Sigmund Freud defines an instinct as "a bodily need manifested in our thought process."  It is there that our character defects exist - but these same defects, which will always exist to some extent in our human nature, cannot possibly be manifested in our behavior when our thought process is propelled by God's will, through inspiration.

Written By Armand