aa Spoken Here Community Group
Fellowship Where you can share your thoughts, feelings, stories and get support to gain and continue sobriety.
When I sit in meetings or read something that I disagree with it is normally because it is not my truth or my experience. I would find that when others spoke about their experience if it was different from mine I would try to look for ways of proving them wrong, I would use throw away comments like, they are not doing the steps, that is just the drunk in them talking, my ego wanted me to prove they were wrong so I could be self rightous.
As I felt the spirituality rise in me because that is my truth, I felt it as tangible as I feel happiness, sadness, pain, joy the same way I feel anything that is part of me. But as I felt my spirituality rise and in working with my sponsor I came to realise that by trying to disprove anothers truth I was not seeing the message they were giveing. I was blocking myself from my HP and others.
I used to think I had a good understanding. When I set aside the words they used and tried to see what the message was they were giving I soon realised I know only a little. God will constantly disclose more to me if I am open to hear the message not how it is presented.
One of my biggest lessons was to learn that my truth may not be your truth but that does not make yours or my truth wrong it just makes it different.
G8
As I felt the spirituality rise in me because that is my truth, I felt it as tangible as I feel happiness, sadness, pain, joy the same way I feel anything that is part of me. But as I felt my spirituality rise and in working with my sponsor I came to realise that by trying to disprove anothers truth I was not seeing the message they were giveing. I was blocking myself from my HP and others.
I used to think I had a good understanding. When I set aside the words they used and tried to see what the message was they were giving I soon realised I know only a little. God will constantly disclose more to me if I am open to hear the message not how it is presented.
One of my biggest lessons was to learn that my truth may not be your truth but that does not make yours or my truth wrong it just makes it different.
G8
I agree and this aplies to groups too. It is why I have a problem with the book studies that are advertised here and on the alcoholism group. They are run by one person (I'm not implying the person does a bad job) based on the writings and thoughts on the big book of one group. I have sat in on these book studies and I find the lack of many old timers and general discussion of different thoughts on what the big book is saying somewhat disturbing.
Every big book study I ever went to usually had a wide range of people many newcomers medium sobriety and long term sobriety. When a newcomer would ask a question several thoughts ideas and opinions were shared. This causes a person to think filter the good from the bad and takes away the anticeptic sitting in a classroom feeling.
This is just my opinion and I was wrong once before.
Nice to come on DS and hear the message and don't have to worry about the holy ones disrespecting his wife or yelling at the cashier.
Gosh, I didn't mean to stir the pot.
Weightlessness - just a few miles up there...
I found out right away that the literature mentioned âGodâ an awful lot. Damn! I did not want to deal with âGodâ. Then after several meetings I heard people say things like, âTake what you want and leave the restâ or âA âGodâ of my understanding.â Cool!
That was in November of 1995. December of 1995 I heard something completely different from what I had previously heard. The different thing I heard was â âGodâ as you understand Himâ and âread the Basic Text (Big Book) to know what to listen to in an A.A. meetingâ.
There were definitely two different âcampsâ so to speak and as more time was spent in A.A. I found that within the first camp I encountered, there were as many camps as there were people in that camp.
But in the second camp they were all saying the same thing. They were talking to me about ââ¦a way out on which we can absolutely agreeâ¦â (Big Book, page 17)
Fortunately or perhaps divinely I was able to hear what the people in the second camp were saying as my attempts at âtaking what I wanted and leaving the restâ while following âa god of my understandingâ as heard in the first camp(s) kept me drunk and dying. (Doctors had given me two years to live.) The people in the second camp who claimed permanent recovery from chronic alcoholism absolutely agreed on the information outlined in our Basic Text called Alcoholics Anonymous. They were 100% sure that if I followed directions in that book to the best of my ability as directed by one who had recovered from the hopeless state of chronic alcoholism that I too would recover. That was in 1998. By the way, they never did show me how to quit drinking:)
Tim
Billy C.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I lie and deceive people all the time-- not by making up facts that don't exist, but by withholding certain facts about myself that are simply nobody else's business. Take away this right to privacy and to present myself in any social situation as I see fit, and with it goes my identity, my sanity and all respect for anyone else's dignity.
I love this quote:
"Now as to the matter of lying. You want to be very careful about lying; otherwise you are nearly sure to get caught. Once caught, you can never again be in the eyes to the good and the pure, what you were before. Many a young person has injured himself permanently through a single clumsy and ill finished lie, the result of carelessness born of incomplete training. Some authorities hold that the young ought not to lie at all. That of course, is putting it rather stronger than necessary; still while I cannot go quite so far as that, I do maintain, and I believe I am right, that the young ought to be temperate in the use of this great art until practice and experience shall give them that confidence, elegance, and precision which alone can make the accomplishment graceful and profitable. Patience, diligence, painstaking attention to detailâ these are requirements; these in time, will make the student perfect; upon these only, may he rely as the sure foundation for future eminence. Think what tedious years of study, thought, practice, experience, went to the equipment of that peerless old master who was able to impose upon the whole world the lofty and sounding maxim that âTruth is mighty and will prevailââ the most majestic compound fracture of fact which any of woman born has yet achieved. For the history of our race, and each individualâs experience, are sewn thick with evidences that a truth is not hard to kill, and that a lie well told is immortal. There is in Boston a monument of the man who discovered anesthesia; many people are aware, in these latter days, that that man didnât discover it at all, but stole the discovery from another man. Is this truth mighty, and will it prevail? Ah no, my hearers, the monument is made of hardy material, but the lie it tells will outlast it a million years. An awkward, feeble, leaky lie is a thing which you ought to make it your unceasing study to avoid; such a lie as that has no more real permanence than an average truth. Why, you might as well tell the truth at once and be done with it. A feeble, stupid, preposterous lie will not live two yearsâ except it be a slander upon somebody. It is indestructible, then of course, but that is no merit of yours. A final word: begin your practice of this gracious and beautiful art earlyâ begin now. If I had begun earlier, I could have learned how."
Mark Twain: "Advice to youth" 1882
I found out right away that the literature mentioned âGodâ an awful lot. Damn! I did not want to deal with âGodâ. Then after several meetings I heard people say things like, âTake what you want and leave the restâ or âA âGodâ of my understanding.â Cool!
That was in November of 1995. December of 1995 I heard something completely different from what I had previously heard. The different thing I heard was â âGodâ as you understand Himâ and âread the Basic Text (Big Book) to know what to listen to in an A.A. meetingâ.
There were definitely two different âcampsâ so to speak and as more time was spent in A.A. I found that within the first camp I encountered, there were as many camps as there were people in that camp.
But in the second camp they were all saying the same thing. They were talking to me about ââ¦a way out on which we can absolutely agreeâ¦â (Big Book, page 17)
Fortunately or perhaps divinely I was able to hear what the people in the second camp were saying as my attempts at âtaking what I wanted and leaving the restâ while following âa god of my understandingâ as heard in the first camp(s) kept me drunk and dying. (Doctors had given me two years to live.) The people in the second camp who claimed permanent recovery from chronic alcoholism absolutely agreed on the information outlined in our Basic Text called Alcoholics Anonymous. They were 100% sure that if I followed directions in that book to the best of my ability as directed by one who had recovered from the hopeless state of chronic alcoholism that I too would recover. That was in 1998.
Tim
That is so true we all have our own experience. I learned quite some time ago to take what I like and leave the rest. I can't let someone rent a spot in my head it's mine not theirs.
Thank God for AA
>> the law of gravity versus ...?
>> Weightlessness - just a few miles up there...
If the "absolute" (law) of gravity were not present and in effect in both places, it could be stronger a few miles up than it is down here, and it could even switch effects between the two places hourly.
Next: There can never be a one-ended stick.
I'm into my BB more today than I was when I found this site. I know it's because so many have shared their experience regarding integrating the spiritual principals into their lives. It would be foolish for this alcoholic to say I know everything just because I've been sober awhile. I love the diversity of AA and if I listen, even if the experience is different from mine, I might just learn something. Thanks for an awesome topic!