Weekly Topics 2019
Mar 3: We admitted we were alcoholic and our lives had become unmanageable.
As always -I love looking up definitions. When I walked into AA, I came in with two kids, a marriage, a good job, I was and still am self employed. I hadn't lost anything other than my self respect, my health, and my sanity. My daily mantra was " Is this all there is" It took 6 months of therapy, after I stopped drinking to get me to see how unmanageable my life truly was. I am listing the synonyms below to help you identify with the word.
Synonyms of unmanageable
froward, headstrong, incontrollable, intractable, recalcitrant, refractory, uncontrollable, ungovernable, unruly, untoward, wayward, willful (or wilful)
Words related to unmanageable
bullheaded, contrary, difficult, hardheaded, incorrigible, intransigent, mulish, obdurate, obstinate, opinionated,perverse, pigheaded, self-willed, stiff, stiff-necked, stubborn, undisciplined, unpunished, uncontrolled, wild, boisterous, irrepressible, rambunctious, rowdy, disobedient, indocile, insubordinate, rebellious, misbehaving, naughty
(hmm now I thought those were mostly fun) Much to my chagrin, I still enjoy being boisterous, wild, rowdy and uncontrolled... well they say it's progress. So I am also listing the replacements for unmanageability. These are the words I am working on including into my life, today.
Near Antonyms of unmanageable
docile, obedient, well-behaved, compliant, placable, pliable, submissive, yielding, accepting, persuadable, receptive, responsive, willing, reasonable, temperate, trainable
By replacing the former with the latter, I am learning that I can have the life I have always wanted. Which words resonate with you, and which ones are you working at replacing in your life? As always, If theres something you need to share, please do.
Thanks for the opportunity to be of service.
Laurie
Feb 24: Online AA
My name is Nancy C and I am a very grateful alcoholic. It is an honor for me to Chair the GROW Meeting this week. It was February 17, 1997 that I first found online AA and my gratitude is eternal.
I sent a message to join the online group then got drunk and sent another message with just HELP in the Subject line. When I got up the next morning, there were messages from so many dear sober ladies telling me their stories and encouraging me to join them in sober living.
At first, I thought that this was my answer, not going to meetings in my town but instead doing my sober journey online. There were many ladies who pointed out that I needed to get to face-to-face meetings so people could look me in the eye and give me real hugs. It took me 2 weeks but I finally attended my first meeting on a Sunday morning and another one that night. Attended 90 meetings in 90 days and this gave me a great start on my sober journey. Met so many wonderful, helpful people who have been an important part of my life the past 22 years.
I still stayed in the online group and joined GROW when it started and found it so helpful to have a meeting and sharing available 24/7. On sleepless nights, I would get online and straighten out my stinking thinking! For four years, I was so fortunate to meet face-to-face many members of the online group at a retreat in Georgia. Awesome memories from those gatherings.
I had a sponsor here in my town who helped me immensely and had an online sponsor who I became very close to and would visit each year for my AA Birthday. She sadly passed away 2 1/2 years ago, just 5 weeks after my husband of 51 years suddenly passed away.
I have always had a very special connection to online AA and was privileged to volunteer at the OIAA (Online Intergroup Alcoholics Anonymous)Hospitality Suite at the 70th International AA Conference in Toronto ON Canada in 2005. It was fun to introduce my local AA friends to my online friends!
Both face-to-face AA and online AA mean the world to me but online will always have a special place in my heart. I would love to hear from you women this week what your experiences with online AA have been or whatever you need to share about with the group.
Thank you for the opportunity to Chair this week,
Nancy C
Feb 17: God Could and Would If He Were Sought
GOD COULD AND WOULD IF HE WERE SOUGHT from HOW IT WORKS
It has been said that there are no atheists in foxholes. As so many of us know, we sought a foxhole for refuge from alcoholism. It brought us to our knees to ask for help from a Higher Power, even if we didn't have or understand one. And we were given the help we sought whether or not it seemed we deserved it. When we cleared up, of course, many of us began to question the existence of a Higher Power. Isn't that just like us!
Having sought a foxhole from raging emotions recently, I found myself unable to identify a way out. While the wonderful women of GROW reached out to me, I was stuck in hurt, fear and hopelessness. My sponsor, a very spiritual woman, immediately noticed I was not seeking my Higher Power. She has a joyful spirituality, even after a lot of pain in her life and does not lack for a sense of humor. We even got to a point of her asking if I had been 'sought-ing' today (if He were sought...you got it). She also pointed out that after please should come thank you.
My relationship with a Higher Power has been touch and go throughout the years. Blame it on upbringing, blame it on me. However, in these last 2 years, we seem to have become much closer. I am starting to experience a tangible feel of His presence. Of course, it is I who is moving closer to Him. I doubt He ever moved. It seems always to take a lot to get my attention. I can only say that I hope that my attentiveness grows. Then it may not take such prolonged painful events to get me to turn to the God of my understanding.
There is a particular point in this suggestion from the Big Book. In order to receive help, we must keep an open dialog with our Higher Power. For me, there has been a lot of magical thinking around a Higher Power. For example, I thought, He will just know what I want--I don't have to ask. The only action I have to take is to ask. And it is not my place to be guiding our Higher Power on how to get the job done! Someone wryly commented that If you insist on what you want, you may lose what you need. That is worthy of thought. AA is a simple program for complicated people.
I only have to say Please Help. I have received blessings and answers to my prayers with so little effort. While our prayers most often are on behalf of others, there is a time that I must declare my powerlessness and humility and go directly to my Higher Power for help for myself. He never disappoints! Oh sure, I may not be given what I think should get, but I always get what I need. From time to time I look at what I received when I prayed and see how spot-on the answer was. So often it turns out not to be what I thought I needed. This really is How It Works.
Barbara
Feb 9: Life On Life's Terms
We hear the phrase, :"Life on life's terms" often in our Program. I look at it this way: Every day life is handed to me as my Higher Power directs it to be. I often say to my sponsees: "Life happens -- -It's how I respond to it that is important"!
I also describe it this way: "BORN HERE - - -TIC, TIC, TIC, TIC, TIC, TIC, TIC, TIC, TIC, AND DIE HERE"! I can't go back one tic or go forward one time. I am in THIS TIC - - -right here, right now! Nowwwwwwwwwwwwww, that tic is over!!! I often look down at my feet to remind myself where I am: "Ohhhh -- -Here I am!"
I find each tic is a choice! Today I feel I have the responsibility to not only carry the message but also to carry it on in a positive manner! Imagine it the entire world felt this way - - -there would be no wars!
It's an privilege to present our topic for the week. I look forward on your take on this subject,
Susanne Murphys, CA 8/17/91
Feb 3: Gifts of Sobriety
Hello to all in this fantastic group and thank you for helping to keep us connected in sober cyber space.
I've been thinking a lot about gifts of sobriety as I approach my 7 year anniversary on Monday this week.
Partly this is because the further away from the beginning I stay sober, it can be easy to take things for granted and lose gratitude which has been me recently.
Over winter, I've been in the doldrums. In the summer last year I got myself into a fantastic routine of getting up early before the rest of my family, and my work and starting the day with silence prayers, meditation and yoga. I was motoring along great feeling a little complacent and smug perhaps thinking this would last for ever...
But further into a busy academic year, I overdid the yoga, and in a fit of resentment towards someone who was messing around at the gym not using the machines ( didn't she know I had a busy job , kids to feed at home, me me me stuff) when I rushed and injured my shoulder. My impatience and self importance rearing it's ugly head.
Roll on December and busy busy work as a musician and teacher whilst still in severe pain I got a nasty chest infection very physically and mentally run down . Upshot was by January ,3 months in, and a stone heavier, I was swerving way way off routine and feeling pretty sorry for myself. (I have a tendency to over do it and pay for it later!!)
Needless to say although I think I know my programme ,and usually think I know when I'm off balance, it's incredibly easy to veer off in the wrong direction. Thankfully in late Jan early Feb I'm slowly slowly finding my way back to health and mental sobriety but it's taken a while.
The important reminder for me is that in the dark days of "poor me " I completely lost sight of " but you're still sober" and any gratitude to the tools I've been given.
Now I'm back to a daily morning and evening routine and recording my gratitude. And it's so true that gratitude changes attitude. But I'm trying to remember my perfection- ism and say easy does it and what I can fit in is good enough.
So this essentially is a long way round to saying I'm really keen to recalibrate and reflect on the gifts of sobriety which I'd somehow forgotten having overdone it big time.
What are the immediate gifts of sobriety that spring to mind? Here are mine.
The biggest is peace of mind - losing the daily angst, self flagellation and hatred, and knowing if that inner dialogue starts I'm off kilter and need to re-set.
Another gift is self awareness around my "isms". Perfectionism and being impatient with myself and others still loom large but generally I have a strategy and if I don't I have a front row set of friends who can tell me.
I love that old pleasures and interests have returned. The things I loved before the drinking years. A renewed interest in theatre and my music. I've now joined a stunning choir here in Oxford UK, which just brings me huge amounts of joy.
I love reading and I'm back to enjoying historical novels. All these things were lost to me in the years of drink. I couldn't sit through a play if I'd had a drink without being restless irritable and discontent and I used to read and re read chapters in books as I'd not be focussed and forget what I'd read the night before. I'd decided all my drinking friends who were musicians just made it worse and I had so many drunken nights with them I'd kind of lost connection to music.
New pastimes also have been gifts - namely Mindfulness and Pilates/ yoga . A different gift of desperation - a rock bottom of a different type in 2014 opened me up to the huge benefits of these practices to keep in my sobriety tool kit.
Enjoying what is is another big gift- simple things such as smelling the grass as the seasons change, just being attuned and alert to the world around me. Not having smoked so many cigarettes or drunk so many wines it didn't make any difference weather it was October or February.
Another gift is a better - generally lol - way of dealing with being acutely sensitive, having a quick temper and and needing now to reflect not react. Mostly!!!
Twice this week someone has said something to me where I've felt hurt and instantly stung. But that all too quick surge of rising anger in my stomach was replaced by pause, hand it over, detach, " it's not about you" , writing it out - which I've discovered helps loads- and getting the adult part of my head to talk down the fearful child reactive bit.
The gift of 24 hours helps me daily. Being able to start again the next or even same day better again having not dealt with things well. Reflecting re- sizing and re addressing things and being in better mental shape to be around others - be it my children, my students or family, friends in and out of the fellowship.
omeone once told me another brilliant gift from A.A. is you can bring your children up with the twelve steps. It's a way of living for everyone in the family. As loving and kind as my own parents were and still are I don't think they or I knew many strategies for dealing with life and other people when things go " not according to plan". I'm so aware that I can help me and my kids ( one of whom has all the isms that I do) cope better.
I'm also aware how fortunate I am that my kids can't remember me as a drunk mum.
There's so much else I could say about gifts I have received in this last seven years, amazing women I've met in the fellowship, and so so much more, but genuinely I'm really keen to hear from others in this amazing group -
What had sobriety given you in terms of gifts? and which things still trip you up or do you need reminding of?
My blessings to all of you for a wonderful 24 hours and thank you for all your wonderful guidance as part of my sobriety tool kit.
Ellie
Jan 20: Words to Live By
For our topic today I am using a reading from A Day at a Time, Words to Live By - A Hazelden meditation book.
"Have I ever stopped to think that the impulse to "blow off steam" and say something unkind or even vicious will, if followed through, hurt me far more seriously than the person to whom the insult is directed? I must try constantly to quiet my mind before I act with impatience or hostility for my mind can be-in a very real way-an enemy as great as any I've ever known. Will I look before I leap, think before I speak-and try to avoid self-will to the greatest extent possible?"
When I first got sober and had my profound spiritual experience, I did everything more slowly. I thought over every comment, every word, before they left my mouth. I even meditated on what God's will would be for each and every action. As years went by I became more accustomed to this way of thinking and acting as it had became 2nd nature (this was told to me by my sponsor because I was worried I did not process the same as in the beginning).
I seem now to have lost some of this ability. It may due to long term sobriety and my complacency with it, I am not sure. I am not as bad as I was during my using days but would like to have that God consciousness again. I want to slow down more, think about what I am going to say more and stop being as judgemental as I have become. I have acted more impatiently on occasions of losing my temper or becoming frustrated. This has truly bothered me and I am embarrassed over these incidents. I have a new sponsor and hope our work together will put me back into my God conscious state of mind.
Please share if you have had any issues with this or about anything you need to talk about today.
Hugs, Lynn H. DOS 9/30/96
Jan 13: Step One
It is January, and many women have already shared on Step One. However, in our October business meeting, we considered dedicating one week of each month to the corresponding step. We will discuss this again in April. I'd love to hear what you think about dedicating one meeting each month to the corresponding step.
It's January, so Step One is on the table. I never doubted that I was an alcoholic. I was compulsively drawn to anything that took my feelings away long before I ever tasted alcohol. When I finally did have my first drink, I got drunk. I loved it. It made me sociable and sexy. I was able to talk to people. I could dance better. I could play pool (between the second and third drink). I never had one or two drinks. I always got drunk. That was the goal. So, when I got to AA, my powerlessness over mind-altering substances was not an issue.
The unmanageability of my life was. For a very long time, I was high-functioning despite my dependence on booze, pot, pills, food. I didn't miss work. It was my punishment for getting so drunk the night before. I got promotions and raises. My friends were all partiers, too, so no one noticed how much I drank. For many years, I was able to fake it through life. Never mind two failed marriages, childlessness, aimlessness. I somehow made it look okay. That went on for over 30 years before it all began to catch up with me.
I'd already tried AA once - to get my husband off my back. I wasn't sincere. I still wanted to drink, and I did. I went to meetings every day for three years, and I drank every day, too. I pretended to be part of AA, but I had unspoken contempt for people who could do what I could not. After three years of this, I got to treatment and managed 15 months without a drink (although I cheated with Nyquil). When I relapsed, I swore I'd never go back to AA. Little did I know my drinking would bring me back.
A five-year relapse brought me to my knees. My life got very unmanageable. The promotions, awards, and raises had long since ended. I didn't party with others anymore. I drank alone in front of the TV. I had to check the bath towels to know if I'd bathed the night before and check the kitchen sick to know if I'd eaten. I drank and drove often. Thank God I never killed anyone. I couldn't go more than one day without drinking. I used to joke that if I could make it a week, I could make years. That turned out to be true.
Finally, I married a man I'd never had a date with who didn't speak much English. He wanted a green card and my money. He got both. I was delusional. I was doing my part to help the Third World. When asked why I married him, I told them I didn't have anything better to do at the time. That's how much I valued myself. After three months of pretend marriage and a couple of attempts on his life, God showed me what I had become - a foul-mouthed fire-breathing, hateful, raging drunk woman. I couldn't be that woman anymore. It was time to go back to AA.
I was terrified I'd go through another three years of meetings and drinking. I was broken and hopeless. I didn't believe AA would work for me, but I'd run out of options. It was all that was left. So, I went, and I listened, and I cried. This time, I wasn't pretending. I was desperate. I wanted what you had but had no hope of getting it. Even so, I did what people suggested. Why not? Nothing I'd done on my own had helped. I was finally willing to do Step One with all my heart.
That was over 22 years ago. I didn't have to go through that feared three years. When I left my first meeting, the compulsion to drink was gone. The obsession was not, but I finally had a choice. I was one of the "slowly" variety. It took years for me to feel some hope. I cried regularly in meetings for at least the first two years. It took a year to get the Peruvian out of my house and life. Everything was a struggle. In my first year, I lost my beloved cat, and then I lost my best friend to breast cancer. But I didn't drink.
It wasn't easy. But it was simple. AA gave me the Steps and a sponsor to help me work them. My sponsor 'tricked' me into service positions, so I began to feel like a part of AA. The online community, you women, kept me sober even when I wasn't sane. I got to meet some of you personally, a true blessing of the program. The program gave me written instructions in the Big Book and many people who had been there to show me the way. I think I was maybe five years sober when I realized the promises were coming true even for me.
I can have it all again. All I have to do is pick up a drink. There is no doubt in my mind that I would not be able to stop again. That's what I think of whenever I think about having "just one" drink. I never had just one. I am sure I would die an alcoholic death. But what I am more afraid of is living an alcoholic life. So, every time I think of picking up, I do Step One all over again. I play the tape all the way through. I know where it ends. No need to experiment or do more research.
I invite you to share your story with us this week. What brought you to AA? What keeps you here?
Thank you for letting me share, danna
Jan 6: from page 62 of the book, Alcoholics Anonymous
"This is the how and why of it. First of all, we had to quit playing God. It didn't work. Next, we decided that hereafter in this drama of life, God was going to be our Director. He is the Principal; we are His agents. He is the Father, and we are His children. Most good ideas are simple, and this concept was the keystone of the new and triumphant arch through which we passed to freedom."
Hi! I'm Julie and still an alcoholic. I was reminded of this bit in another meeting and wanted to make it the topic and share in this meeting.
"Most good ideas are simple." Oh, how I love that line. The simplicity of this program is such a beautiful thing. Simple but not easy.
For the longest time, I played God. I thought I was in charge of my life. I had to run the show. I couldn't ask for help. Even though I had a little bit of religious education but lacked trust and faith.
I felt let down again and again by my parents. I watched them try to do it all and act like martyrs in the process. I guess that's what was ingrained in me.
Do it yourself. You won't be able to do it perfectly. So quit trying. Maybe just moan and complain. Don't ask for help. Repeat and repeat.
It's so awesome to have come to believe in a power greater than myself. I am no longer alone. I have faith in my God. I trust my God. It was a simple suggestion from my sponsor to ask for help in the morning and say thank you at night.
Overtime I grew in my recovery and spiritually. I came to believe. I passed that arch and it's been such an amazing journey.
Sobriety has given me so much (and taken away as much, thank God.)
Following the how and the why of it... I'm grateful. I'll keep coming back.
Please share on this topic or anything that might be on your mind.
Julie K, 5/17/12