Step 2: Bill's Story

Step 2: Came To Believe That A Power Greater Than Ourselves Could Restore Us To Sanity

The Assignment: Read "Bill's Story" from the Big Book

Sponsor: Did you ever wonder if you were crazy?
Me: Yes. As a matter of fact there were many times in my life where I felt crazy. Not right. Not thinking right. Wondering if it was 'just me'. In relation to alcohol. No. I drank because I wanted to. I wanted the stuff in my brain to stop. The racing thoughts. The hopelessness. The confusion. The wondering. I drank because I wanted to not feel. I didn't feel crazy because of the alcohol. I felt crazy because of my life and situations that baffled me. Times that I just couldn't find my way. I think that alcohol added to the feelings of being lost in my life during the times when I chose to drink. But as a whole....I didn't feel crazy because of my drinking. I did not have the compulsion to drink. I chose to drink.

Sponsor: Did you ever feel remorse, horror, and hopelessness of the next morning?
Me: Yes. Waking up with a black eye and swollen eye and walking around with a bag of peas on my face caused alot of anguish. I knew that I could have really hurt ME. I have made stupid phone calls when drunk. Who doesn't? I have made mean comments to my daughter Sarah. I have been cruel with my words. I have never been physically abusive during times of drinking. For the most part just hurt me. The remorse came in the morning when I would wake up still drunk. Unable to function at 100% for hours. I have wasted hours of my lifetime that I will never get back.

Sponsor: Did your mind ever race uncontrollably?
Me: Not in respect to finding that next drink. No.

Sponsor: Did you ever seek oblivion?
Me: That is why I chose to drink. To not think. To not feel. Essentially I was the walking breathing dead. I didn't want to exist in my life as I knew it. I had to escape. Alcohol did that for me. Temporarily.

Sponsor: Did you feel lonely?
Me: I felt very alone. As a single mom I was all there ever was. I was all my kids had. I worked my ass off to get done what I could. I never drank until about 4 years ago. I struggled thru the loneliness for years. I still feel very lonely. Times at home by myself. Times when I am in a crowded room. Times at work. There is a tremendous amount of loneliness in my heart. I grieve daily for it to lift. There is much loss to grieve in my life and that leaves the void. God is the only one that can fill that void. But He created me to not be alone. He is always there....but it would be so nice to have a husband. A mate. A partner. To walk this road of recovery with and to share my life with. Body mind and spirit. It is my deepest prayer.

Sponsor: Did you feel fear?
Me: Fear is my baseline feeling. I am and always will fight the fear. Some people wage their war with anger or disappointment. My battle will always be fear. The God of my understanding says to "Fear NOT". It is not always easy to reach the point where there isn't fear. It is a desperate hand and heart reaching up and there is not cry for help....but a whisper. A pleading for......Oh Father...please help me thru this......Fear is a shadow that is always there. Fear is a big part of why I drank. To not feel it. To pretend it wasn't there. Now....I acknowledge it. Feel it. And I share it. Sometimes just a text to someone I trust that says....."I'm scared" and that is enough. It gives it away and it is shared. I am stepping into the solution when I give it away.

Sponsor: What was your reaction to religion, the church, and God?
Me: I have always had a deep and profound faith in God and Jesus Christ. The Trinity. The cross and the blood of sacrifice for me. The struggle comes in when man gets in the way and tells me what I must do and must not do. I have really had to let alot of my religion go. I now think for myself and don't buy into the path that others tell me to walk. I have to depend on the Holy Spirit for direction and this program. There are pieces of myself that I am still not ready to surrender. Pieces of me that I keep tucked into my pockets for just me. This is a daily walk for me. And I am learning to trust this program and myself and my God all over again. I can't think that I have all the answers anymore because they didn't work for me the first time. This program tells me that all I have to have is the WILLINGNESS and an open mind. That is working for me today. I have found clarity and serenity. Even if my problems still seem too big for me. I know that I can do this stuff today and not drink. TODAY.

Sponsor: Did you know that...."nothing more was required to make my beginning"...than a willingness to believe?
Me: I did. But it has never been more profound for me than this time around in the rooms.

Sponsor: Notice how Bill was instructed to find God's will and to pray.
Me: Yes.

Sponsor: Isn't it essentially true that Bill takes the first 11 steps while still in the hospital?
Me: He was in triage. He had the rest of his life to slowly work this program and work it out in his life. Sometimes it is the triage that matters and keeps us sober. Perhaps he had a spiritual event that worked all that out?

Step 2 Came To Believe

We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

I have always heard it explained this way:

First we CAME (we showed up)
Then we CAME TO (the denial lifted)
Then we CAME TO BELIEVE (that there was hope)

I want to break this down even more. The first 3 Steps are always the hardest. They are all about surrender. Surrender your way of trying to do life. Your way of trying to make it better. Make the pain stop. Make the insanity stop. Make the husband stop drinking. The kids stop acting out. Make the house quiet. Stop fixing everything. Stop being exhausted. Stop lying. Stop spending money. Stop eating. Stop NOT eating. Surrender is something that comes pretty hard to most.

Coming to believe that there is hope is a pretty scarey thing. We want to believe there is hope. That there is a God out there that cares. That there is freedom from striving and spinning and twirling and living out of control. Most people that enter recovery come in with some awareness that there is a Creator. It is the "coming to believe" that is the hard part. It requires us to trust. Trusting that there is a God and that WE matter to Him??

How can be get to a place where our need for a higher power is greater than the fear and disbelief of reaching out for Him? For some men and women the concept of a Heavenly Father is terrifying. Thier fathers here on earth have traumatized them, shamed them, hurt them, bruised thier souls, and crushed the very spirit inside them. Reaching out to a 'father' in heaven is beyond reason.

I'm going to get really honest here in these posts. I will not hide. I am a firm believer that there is no other reason for going thru what we go thru, other than to give away the hope that we recieved thru restoration of Christ. As I said I will draw from others and what they have to say, but I will draw from my own recovery the most. I am an incest survivor. My father took my innocence when I was 4 yrs old. Then he abandoned the family. So for me, the concept of a 'father' was something that I could not reach out to. But the really cool thing about the Father is that He provided me with his Son. Jesus. Jesus was the one I reached out to. I had to separate this in my mind before my heart could grasp it. Jesus walked me thru the darkest placest of my recovery. He fought for me. Stood up for me. Healed me.
Restored me.

That is what I "Came To Believe" and what He used to restore me to sanity.

For My Sponsor

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First Step Sunday

I spent a couple of hours Sunday going over my 1st step with my sponsor. It wasn't what I expected. I think I expected scrutiny. Probing. Prodding. And it was anything but that. You know one thing that I know??? I made a good decision on who I picked as my sponsor. I needed a no non-sense kinda girl. A lady with an edge. And that is my sponsor. She led me to the process of Step 1 and then let me walk thru it. It was gentle. Loving. And I processed. Not what I expected.
What I wanted was quite another thing altogether....like that's a surprise right?
I decided last week that I needed to get the lead out. Start working thru the steps. I have heard that people walk thru the steps in different ways. I have gone thru an in depth step group for a whole year. Focusing on 1 step a month. Talk about time consuming. I can't say really that I got alot out of it....except for relationships with the ladies that I still call my sisters that went thru that group with me. We still hang out weekly. I also worked thru the steps with a counselor. I worked thru the steps out of order. I worked the steps I wanted to. So on and so forth.
So this time back in the 'rooms' I decided that I needed to do the steps because I wanted to. And because I have heard that they are the way that they are and in the order they are in for a reason. Are ya sure about that??? And ME. Yeah. I had decided that I would plow right thru them. See....I actually WANT to get to step 4. There is some clean up to do and I am ready.....scrub brush in one hand and a can of Comet in the other!! Lets go!!
So today I wanted to just read my stinkin answers and move to Step 2. Which I got. I got this. Something like this...
* Step 1...Check
** Step 2...Check Check
*** Step 3....Check Check and Check
Then the FIX me part can begin. Ouch. I just realized that it's 'all about me'. Ewww!!! But you see sponsor with her wisdom and solid program knows what I need more than I do. Talk about humble. And I was humbled. In a sweet loving 'slow your ass down daughter' kind of way by my loving God. Thru the hands of my sponsor.
So, now with Step 1 completed. Again. I know that I am powerless over alcohol. It's effects. It's lies. It's power. Cunning, baffling, powerful. I am not messing around with that fire and madness. Not today. And God willing not tomorrow.
I have also picked up the 12 and 12 at the suggestion of another fellow. Interesting stuff. In there. I am seeing ME all up in the first 3 Steps.
I'm going to stop here and let my brain catch up. I need to continue to process this afternoon. And one thing that I will share before I close tonite....
I read in the 12 and 12 a little ditty of a sentence that goes like this:
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change
The courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to know the difference.....(and here is the profound part)
NOT MY WILL.....BUT YOURS BE DONE. Amen.
I am changing this up. In my head from now on. Every time that Serenity Prayer is said...in my head and my heart...I will end it with Not my will but YOURS be done. Maybe this will be another way for me to express my reliance on the God of my understanding....and remove me from the throne.

Emotional Sobriety

Emotional Sobriety:

I heard this phrase in a meeting and have been chewing on it ever since. I have asked several people men and women what they make of this and what it means and I had some pretty cool replies.

I heard:

"I'm a Big Book man. If it ain't in the book then I can't tell ya. However, I heard Bill W. speak about this. I can't remember much." I was disappointed by this.

"Emotion Sobriety is not taking things so personally". OK.

"Alcoholics are immature. Emotional Sobriety is remembering that the world doesn't revolve around us". Good.

"Google Bill W's letter on this subject". I will.

And last night at a meeting I just decided to hit at the last minute....the topic was "Emotional Sobriety". Too cool.

What I got from all the feedback from the people that shared is summed up in this phrase that I have grabbed hold of since I came back into the rooms...

"DO THE NEXT RIGHT THING".

And so today I am taking an inventory of some things in my life where in the past few weeks I have not been doing the next right thing and it is effecting my serenity.

They all center on relationships in my life. How stinking Co-dependant of me.

First there is a relationship with a man that I adore. We were involved deeply 9 years ago. He has since married and has children. He is unhappy in his marriage and wants a relationship with me. Emotional. Mental. Physical. Sexual. I want that too. I still love him very much. He is the one man that I pushed out of my life because I knew I couldn't give him what he wanted. It was hard to do. But I let it go and we both moved on. Until recently.

I wrote about him here a long time ago: http://authenticallyspeakingtara.blogspot.com/2008/03/breakfast-in-oz.html

So doing the next right thing would be to let it go again. Until he figures out what he needs to do to fix his marriage and family or call it quits. I don't want to do something that cannot be undone. Adultery cannot be undone. Ever. So for today and for this week I will be chewing on how to do what I need to do and the words that I will use to not hurt or be self righteous. I will do the next right thing for me. I cannot have the destruction of a marriage or family on my head. It is one thing that I don't have to take an inventory of now and don't want it on my step work to make amends for later. Ewww.

And there is another relationship in my life. Not a real one. But it is a friendship that is very close. There is no way in hell that this relationship would go anywhere. There is nothing that this guy could ever offer me. Nothing that I could glean from him. Sane people do not stay in relationships with people that are unhealthy and unstable. Recovering alcoholics cannot surround themselves with people that are going to muddy the waters emotionally. So this relationship will also not be pursued. Distance has to be a priority. For me. I like spending time with this guy. Yes. He makes me laugh. We have fun. But his perspective on the program of AA and the recovery process is clouded. He is a "have to attender". Court ordered and in severe denial. His anger and stubbornness prevent him from taking from this program what is good and spitting out the bones. It is sad.

I do not want to subject myself to unhealthy relationships because I crave the attention. I need the closeness. I have to be looking at this and how it can be a stumbling block for my recovery and my emotional maturity. My emotional sobriety.

So. With walking this first step....I have to realize that I am powerless over alcohol and that my life is unmanageable. I am embracing all that. And realizing that perhaps all the recovery from my past is still tucked tightly inside my spirit and my mind. I just need to keep "DOING the next right thing". It is the doing that is the ass kicker for me. Knowing is just the first part. Doing. It seems to me while writing all this stuff out that most of what am doing are 'action things' . Admit. Do.

Interesting stuff.

Here is the copy of Bill W's Letter on Emotional Sobriety

EMOTIONAL SOBRIETY
"I think that many oldsters who have put our AA "booze cure" to severe but successful tests still find they often lack emotional sobriety. Perhaps they will be the spearhead for the next major development in AA, the development of much more real maturity and balance (which is to say, humility) in our relations with ourselves, with our fellows, and with God.

Those adolescent urges that so many of us have for top approval, perfect security, and perfect romance, urges quite appropriate to age seventeen, prove to be an impossible way of life when we are at age forty-seven and fifty-seven.

Since AA began, I've taken immense wallops in all these areas because of my failure to grow up emotionally and spiritually. My God, how painful it is to keep demanding the impossible, and how very painful to discover, finally, that all along we have had the cart before the horse. Then comes the final agony of seeing how awfully wrong we have been, but still finding ourselves unable to get off the emotional merry-go-round.

How to translate a right mental conviction into a right emotional result, and so into easy, happy and good living. Well, that's not only the neurotics problem, it's the problem of life itself for all of us who have got to the point of real willingness to hew to right principles in all of our affairs.

Even then, as we hew away, peace and joy may still elude us. That's the place so many of us AA oldsters have come to. And it's a hell of a spot, literally. How shall our unconscious, from which so many of our fears, compulsions and phony aspirations still stream, be brought into line with what we actually believe, know and want! How to convince our dumb, raging and hidden ‘Mr. Hyde' becomes our main task.

I've recently come to believe that this can be achieved. I believe so because I begin to see many benighted ones, folks like you and me, commencing to get results. Last autumn, depression, having no really rational cause at all, almost took me to the cleaners. I began to be scared that I was in for another long chronic spell. Considering the grief I've had with depressions, it wasn't a bright prospect.

I kept asking myself "Why can't the twelve steps work to release depression?" By the hour, I stared at the St. Francis Prayer ... "it's better to comfort than to be comforted". Here was the formula, all right, but why didn't it work?

Suddenly, I realized what the matter was. My basic flaw had always been dependence, almost absolute dependence, on people or circumstances to supply me with prestige, security, and the like. Failing to get these things according to my perfectionist dreams and specifications, I had fought for them. And when defeat came, so did my depression.

There wasn't a chance of making the outgoing love of St. Francis a workable and joyous way of life until these fatal and almost absolute dependencies were cut away.

Because I had over the years undergone a little spiritual development, the absolute quality of these frightful dependencies had never before been so starkly revealed. Reinforced by what grace I could secure in prayer, I found I had to exert every ounce of will and action to cut off these faulty emotional dependencies upon people, upon AA, indeed upon any act of circumstance whatsoever.

Then only could I be free to love as Francis did. Emotional and instinctual satisfactions, I saw, were really the extra dividends of having love, offering love, and expressing love appropriate to each relation of life.

Plainly, I could not avail myself to God's love until I was able to offer it back to Him by loving others as He would have me. And I couldn't possibly do that so long as I was victimized by false dependencies.

For my dependence meant demand, a demand for the possession and control of the people and the conditions surrounding me.

While those words "absolute dependence" may look like a gimmick, they were the ones that helped to trigger my release into my present degree of stability and quietness of mind, qualities which I am now trying to consolidate by offering love to others regardless of the return to me.

This seems to be the primary healing circuit: an outgoing love of God's creation and His people, by means of which we avail ourselves of His love for us. It is most clear that the real current can't flow until our paralyzing dependencies are broken, and broken at depth. Only then can we possibly have a glimmer of what adult love really is.

If we examine every disturbance we have, great or small, we will find at the root of it some unhealthy dependence and its consequent demand. Let us, with God's help, continually surrender these hobbling demands. Then we can be set free to live and love: we may then be able to gain emotional sobriety.

Of course, I haven't offered you a really new idea --- only a gimmick that has started to unhook several of my own hexes' at depth. Nowadays, my brain no longer races compulsively in either elation, grandiosity or depression. I have been given a quiet place in bright sunshine"


Bill Wilson

Admit...ing

Step 1

ad·mit/ədˈmit/Verb
1. Confess to be true or to be the case, typically with reluctance.
2. Confess to (a crime or fault, or one's responsibility for it).

Admitted we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable.

This is probably the most difficult step for all of us.

We come into the rooms broken. Battered. Half dead. Families torn apart. Lost our licenses. Lost our freedom. Lost our homes. Our jobs.

And we have lost all respect for ourselves.


Some of us come into the rooms because we just don't know what else to do. We have lost all hope. Become hopeless.
We are lost. We are nomads with no 'home'.
Not that we are homeless. Well some of us come into the rooms homeless.
But for most of us....there was no other answer than the rooms of AA.

Some of us come in because we are court ordered. I'll get to that part in another blog.

But for the most part...we enter this program looking for a way. Hoping to find a way to drink like a lady or a gentleman.

We come in and hope to sober up long enough to be able to get a handle on our drinking so that we can drink like everyone else.

Then we get to Step 1.

Admitting we are powerless over alcohol.
I gotta stop here. For me. I am a woman. A woman that has been pretty tossed about by life and by men and situations. And there isn't
a whole lot that I can say that I am powerless over. I mean I came from the "I am woman hear me roar" generation. Anything you can do I
can do better and get paid more for.

So to admit that I am powerless over anything is a real challenge and a struggle internally for me. To "ADMIT" is the operative word in this step.
At least it is for me today. THIS time around. I have to ADMIT. That means concede. Give in. Throw in the towel. Turn in my key. And that has taken
alot of work to come out of denial.

I was able really quickly to get to the point that I can ADMIT that I am powerless over the 'effects' of alcohol. Making me a victim of sorts. I mean I can't control the effect that alcohol has on my body. The truth is that I cannot control anything about alcohol. Not how it effects my body. Not how it messes with my spirituality. Not how it clouds my ability to think and use logic. I am powerless over the whole sha-bang. It was the admitting part that kicks my ass.

Look. I think for most of us...we have have this mental picture of the stereotypical drunk. Bottle of whisky in a brown paper bag. Dirty smelly clothes. Beard. Living under a bridge. No mental faculties left.

This is not me. YET. And it has taken me some time to reckon with my reality and myself and who and what I am. It isn't pretty. There isn't anything pretty about the word alcoholic. AND I told my sponsor that I would rather be known as an incest survivor (which I am) and wear that title gladly...but an alcoholic? That sucks.

To wrestle with my reality and what I walk in today. Alcoholism. It has been a slow crawl over broken glass where I WANT to go in and out of denial. I am...no I am not...I am....

It has become easier....and less traumatic for me to say....."Hi my name is____ and I am an alcoholic." I still don't like it at all. But the truth has got to seep into my bones in order for me to ever go forward in this.

New Years Eve....The Beginning

I spent this New Years Eve at an AA function.
An alcohol free dinner and dance.
The DJ left alot to be desired but what do you want for free and out in the middle of East Bum-Fucked Egypt?

The most amazing conversation took place at the event. It wasn't an instant "God Moment" but it was a slow burn kind of conversation where I came away thinking about me as a whole. I shared with this guy from the program that I loved to write. I really do love to write. Well, I guess what I really love to do is to put my thoughts into words. It helps me sort and sift and really chew. I am a processor. If there is such a thing. I hear things and then will lament and chew them over and over. Especially if there is a profoundness in them.

And during this exchange with my fellow.....I realized that I had set my writing down as he had put away his painting. I was blown away that someone could set a gift like painting down. And after this conversation...I realized that him setting his gift down...grieved me. Actually me setting my gift down is what grieved me....I just did not recognize it at the time. I have always been puzzled by people that "put things down" that are obviously talents and gifts from a Higher Power. They put them down for certain reasons. Depression. Time. Money. The gift can sometimes become an idol and therefore has to be put aside. But I think that in my case I set my writing down because I didn't really want to process anything of myself because I had been going thru so much pain and turmoil that to really own it just was too much.

I am ready now to go forward. I gotta step up and step in. So I created this page for my journey back into the rooms of AA as a program re-run.

I will be doing my step work here. And I will leave it open for all to see. If there is something that I have gone thru that may help someone else find their way then so be it.
This is where I will embrace my alcoholism and the journey into and thru the 12 steps.
　
THE ASSIGNMENT:　
　
Sponsor gave me the following assignment for Step 1. It has been waiting since Thanksgiving. Can you tell I want to embrace Step 1? However, I am ready. I am powerless over alcohol. I am powerless of the effects it has on my body. My brain. My spirituality. Here is my first step:
Out of the Big Book....Read the Preface, the Forward, and the Doctor's Opinion.

Answer the following questions:

Sponsor: Are you aware that your illness affected both your mind and your body.
Me: Yep. I cannot argue this at all. My memory decreased. Partly because when I drank which was almost every day, I drank to forget. I drank to not think. I drank to not feel. I wanted it to affect my mind. Life was too much for me to handle. I was too much for me to handle. Now that I am 6 months (sans a Halloween one time relapse), my mind and my memory have slowly started to un-drunk. I can remember shit without writing it down. I can go in the grocery store and remember what I need at home because I am not sidelined by the damn wine isle. Did affect my body? Oh yeah. I know as a gastric bypass patient food is an issue. Wine helped me be able to eat without a whole lot of discomfort. Not only that but wine replaced alot of my meals. I didn't eat dinner. I drank. I gained weight. I had black circles under my eyes. And I rarely ever rested well because my body was trying to clean out all the alcohol in my sleep. Oh and the hangovers killed me. Constant headaches. Tired. Lethargic.

Sponsor: Can you believe or can you accept the concept of an allergic reaction to alcohol?
Me: This allergic reaction thing trips me up. I know that for me, my body cannot handle it. My drinking career is very short. 5 yrs tops? So, the allergy had to be developed by all the surgeries I had. The modifications to my body. I am really not clear on the clinical side of alcoholism as an allergy but I do know for me....that I cannot drink without a black out. I cannot drink without hurting myself in one way or another. And I know that I cannot drink.

Sponsor: What is an allergy?
Me: A body's reaction to a substance or stimuli that it has no ability to fight off on its own.

Sponsor: Do you agree with the idea of hospitalization?
Me: Yes. In the case of severe detox. In the cases of people who need outside help.

Sponsor: Have you experienced the phenomenon of craving?
Me: Yep. Happens when I least expect it. Its a mental thing and nothing else. Usually brought on my extreme emotional distress. But it passes quickly if I resist.

Sponsor: Did you like the effect of alcohol?
Me: Ah...Duh. Yep. I drank for the effects of the immediate. I liked the way my head stopped thinking. I liked the way that my confusion ended because I couldn't think. I liked it that I didn't really feel anything. It's the thoughts and feelings that caused me to want to numb out. The after effects sucked. I remember waking up still drunk, knowing that I would have to drive to work. I would have to function and deal with people and numbers. The effects lasted much longer that the buzz did. I would be hung over for most of the day...until I stopped on my way home for another bottle of wine.

Sponsor: Did you reach the point where you could not differentiate "the true from the false"?
Me: No.

Sponsor: Did your alcoholic life seem normal?
Me: Yes it did. I was in a routine and it was normal. I drank more on the days where I didn't have to get up the next morning to go to work and in my mind...that was normal.

Sponsor: The doctor seems to say that a 'psychic change' must occur. What is a psychic change?
Me: A spiritual awakening. A shifting in the spirit of the drinker.

Sponsor: Can you accept that alcoholism has never been by any treatment with which we are familiar, permanently eradicated?
Me: Yes. It would be nice if someone would come up with a pill that I could take to help me drink like a lady...but until that happens....I am destined to live this life out alcohol free one day at a time. I must be in this program and working at my recovery to stay sober. It has to be a purposeful journey that starts and ends one day at a time.