aa Spoken Here Community Group
Fellowship Where you can share your thoughts, feelings, stories and get support to gain and continue sobriety.
... when we start helping others?
I have been reading a few posts about what an alcoholic is and various other things and often people reply saying roughly "I don't know about this stuff I just know that I am an alcoholic" or "i just know that was the case for me" etc.
That was fine for me when I first started out and my major focus was understanding my condition and how to recover from it.
However it isn't enough anymore because I work with newcomers, many of whom will be asking questions about the nature of their problem and want me to be able to help them. It isnt for me to diagnose anyone else but if I am working with a newcomer it is for me to know what it says in the big book and to be able to help them to read that with reference to their own experience so that they can see for themselves whether they are alcoholic.
I was just thinking about the fact that there are many things that i see differently as a result of working with other people. Previously I just had to think about my own experiences but when working with others I have to be able to use those experience to carry the message to someone else too.
Has the same thing happened for other people?
I have been reading a few posts about what an alcoholic is and various other things and often people reply saying roughly "I don't know about this stuff I just know that I am an alcoholic" or "i just know that was the case for me" etc.
That was fine for me when I first started out and my major focus was understanding my condition and how to recover from it.
However it isn't enough anymore because I work with newcomers, many of whom will be asking questions about the nature of their problem and want me to be able to help them. It isnt for me to diagnose anyone else but if I am working with a newcomer it is for me to know what it says in the big book and to be able to help them to read that with reference to their own experience so that they can see for themselves whether they are alcoholic.
I was just thinking about the fact that there are many things that i see differently as a result of working with other people. Previously I just had to think about my own experiences but when working with others I have to be able to use those experience to carry the message to someone else too.
Has the same thing happened for other people?
I have been trying to help someone for over a year and I have learnt so much about being 'in' a relationship with an alcoholic from what I see in her home and how the dynamics change as she gets a bit more sobriety.
There are also things I learn from my sponsor who has a family.
Then there are my parents who haven't had a drink for nearly 4 months on will power only.
The great thing is that today I can put cotton wool in my mouth and open my ears and truly learn. That then comes part of my experience so I can identify with more alcoholics then just the 'singletons'.
I have always believed that everyone that comes into our life, has something I can learn (reason, season, lifetime).
Love the positiveness here. Thanks :)
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"But what about the real alcoholic? He may start off as a moderate drinker; he may or may not become a continuous hard drinker; but at some stage of his drinking career he begins to lose all control of his liquor consumption, once he starts to drink."
"We are equally positive that once he takes any alcohol whatever into his system, something happens, both in the bodily and mental sense, which makes it virtually impossible for him to stop."
"At a certain point in the drinking of every alcoholic, he passes into a state where the most powerful desire to stop drinking is of absolutely no avail. "
"The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Our so-called will power becomes practically nonexistent. We are unable, at certain times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink."
"If anyone questions whether he has entered this dangerous area, let him try leaving liquor alone for one year. If he is a real alcoholic and very far advanced, there is scant chance of success. In the early days of our drinking we occasionally remained sober for a year or more, becoming serious drinkers again later. Though you may be able to stop for a considerable period, you may yet be a potential alcoholic. We think few, to whom this book will appeal, can stay dry anything like a year. Some will be drunk the day after making their resolutions; most of them within a few weeks."
"Whether such a person can quit upon a nonspiritual basis depends upon the extent to which he has already lost the power to choose whether he will drink or not. Many of us felt that we had plenty of character. There was a tremendous urge to cease forever. Yet we found it impossible. This is the baffling feature of alcoholism as we know it - this utter inability to leave it alone, no matter how great the necessity or the wish."
No matter how different the pattern of drinking or difference in lifestyle between me and my sponsees, I see my own sickness in each newcomer who asks me to sponsor her. I see the fears, the delusion, the excuses, the neediness, the selfishness, the bewilderment that I had and then comes the wonderful point when they truly start to understand what this programme is all about and thereafter is the joy of seeing someone recover and start helping still others.
Of course there is also the sadness of seeing those who are not willing to go any further or disappear off the scene and I wonder what has happened to them and pray that one day they will be ready to hear the message. I guess a lot of caring alcoholics prayed for me as I spun in and out of that revolving door before I found the solution.
Carrying the message to the still-suffering alcoholic is a great antidote to the selfishness and self-centredness of the average alcoholic like me. Step 12 work is, I believe, absolutely essential for those who wish to have a quality sobriety and a useful spiritual life.
I changed and as a result my life opened up and I got to do all sorts of new things, learned new skills, heard new ideas, heard old ideas that I didn't hear or listen to the first time round. I learned how to love without manipulation, dishonesty or resentment.
It is a continual source of wonder and joy that nothing that I learn or experience is ever wasted, I can always use them to help others.
When is too much of a bad thing good?
When TOO MUCH suffering causes change!