Let f o t e Edi
Welcome to the latest edition of the Daily Reprieve,
It’s quite alarming with what is happening in the world; everyone’s health is at risk, more financial insecurity, strained relationships, political polarisation and numerous other things which add even more fear and insecurity to our lives. It reminds us of our own rock bottoms and how powerless we actually are.
But as we know, we can only focus on our own recovery and this months’ newsletter is a compilation of fellows sharing what their foundation of recovery is. The beautiful thing about the rich tapestry of AA - is that a person with only a few days of sobriety will secure themselves on to different things than a person who perhaps has seventeen years, and in that way, can definitely make a newcomer feel more understood.
October is the month where we focus on the tenth step and as we continue to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, we can promptly admit it. The reason for this is that we continue to grow by exercising self-discovery and we grow the peace outside of us with our friends and family.
We are thankful to each and every person who made a contribution and we trust you will enjoy each and every one of them!
Until next time,
The AA Newsletter Committee
Fo n i n of Rec y
I am a recovering alcoholic with 3+ years of for the first time I was without that voice in sobriety. At this stage I do these actions to my head that constantly obsesses about a maintain my sobriety: drink. This allowed me to focus on recovery. 1. I am completely honest with my sponsor and send her my 10th step daily I did almost everything my sponsor 2. I do Gratitude list daily exchange with my suggested because I was desperate and it accountability partner was pointed out to me that clearly my way 3. Whenever I feel uncomfortable or irritated didn't work. Willingness and Action are so I do a spot check inventory and send it to important in recovery. Without them, it my sponsor would be impossible to stay sober. Having 4. I attend 2 meetings a week the willingness and taking action will get 5. I get together with my friends in recovery you through the stepwork and keep you in 6. I do service whenever I can. service. In AA I learnt about Acceptance and to see my part in things, which then taught The foundation of my recovery is an me to let go of anger and resentments and acknowledgment that I cannot do it on my to forgive. The 10th step inventory has own and that my Higher Power is with me become a daily routine every night, and it always. has given me so much more self awareness. Through my 10th step email to ~E my sponsor each night, it got me thinking more about others, and it really helped me to become aware of each day that goes by. AA has gifted me with a solid foundation The serenity prayer became my go-to, and a that I never knew I needed. I drank because I prayer I love and still use today. Meditation never knew how to handle the came a year plus into my sobriety and has uncomfortable and unpleasant emotions now become a huge part of my life. Having and situations. And then it became the one quiet time to tune in, feeling connected to a thing that I relied on for everything. The higher power, has filled that gaping hole that more I drank the more disconnected I was, I always tried to fill with alcohol etc. and the more I could only rely on Alcohol. It was a vicious cycle that I did not know how The Big Book and the program of AA really to get out of. I guess we all have to hit our does equip us with a basic toolkit for life. own rock bottom before you get desperate Not just to survive but to thrive. enough to surrender. That was my story at least. The desperation led to surrender ~C which removed that mental obsession and
Tel g on m el
I was talking to a friend recently and he result. Make those amends, and others will intimated that he often struggled with some forgive you on your terms. Have 3 service mental health issues and it was only recently positions and you’ll have three times the that he was able to finally start articulating opportunity for people to praise you for being some of those struggles with his close a good AA boy scout. friends. He also mentioned that it took him many years of trying to stay in control of the At some point along the way, with the gradual situation before he finally arrived at the point increase in pride and arrogance, came more where he had to grudgingly accept that he experiences of friction, discontent and really needed some professional help because judgement with the world and others around it was beyond his ability to achieve any lasting me, both in the program and outside. I started resolution or healing around those issues. to lose that conscious contact with my Higher Power and that interior freedom and ease of That conversation made me start to think a being comfortable in my own skin that came little bit about one of the foundations of with it. And the hardest thing about it was recovery that today I seem to take for granted, that I felt I could not let anyone know what I but that was previously so crucial to me, was experiencing. especially from my second year of recovery onward. In the early days of my recovery, Here I was, a rock star in local AA recovery, when I had finally surrendered and accepted and if God forbid, anyone knew that I was what I needed to do and poured all my energy constantly restless, irritable and discontent, and focus on going to any lengths for sobriety, what would they think about my recovery I found myself starting to experience all the program? promises of the steps. The shame of appearing less than was My life started to be put together in a new way, something that would take a much longer relationships and friendships started to heal, time for me to work through and release. and I began to experience life in a charged Eventually it got bad enough that one day the and electrifying, life-giving way. Flush with thought popped into my head about that growing experience, my ego slowly, contacting an old fling I had had awesome sex subtly, but surely, started to re-grow and with a long time ago. insidiously hijacked a lot of my ways of I was attached at the time, but I didn’t realize looking at the world and the way I worked the program of AA. that I was careening down a slippery slope toward a potential relapse, so entranced I was A speaker in AA I once heard described the by the intensity of the experience I had had steps of AA as the tools that are meant to with this friend of mine. Also, though I couldn’t lead you to an experience of one’s Higher see it at the time, I was actively trying to think Power and all the accompanying myself out of my resentments and discontent, transformation and healing are by-products of and it wasn’t working. that conscious contact. In my experience though, once the ego started to reassert itself, They often say in AA that you have to act your way into a new way of thinking, that it is the focus of the steps became less about leading me to my Higher Power, and more impossible to think your way into it (which about me exercising my will over the world as should have been obvious to me from my My Higher Power. My way of interacting the days of active alcoholism, but as they say, we often grow at the speed of pain). world became less unconditional and more transactional. Do this step, and you’ll get this Eventually, I ended up having that booty call, normalize the struggle of acceptance. It takes and the overwhelming sensation of guilt and the shame of being less than, and releases it shame that I had woke me up to the space so that we become comfortable with being as where I could see that something was we are. We see ourselves on a journey of seriously wrong and that I was completely off growing towards, rather than running from. the beam and it finally forced me to confess to my sponsor and a couple of fellows I was Another by-product of this is that I have close to that I needed help and very quickly. become a much more compassionate and They helped me to see what was missing gentle soul when working with others. The from my program. militancy of my earlier days in recovery, in sponsoring, often drove away a few who could As it turns out, in the 10th step where it talks not handle the hard edge of “suit up and show about the spot inventory, I was doing all of it up”, “sit down and shut up and open your faithfully except the little pesky bit about, “We ears”. discuss them with someone immediately” where my brain usually skips a beat and While my sponsor at the time often pointed moves on to making amends and being of out that I had no power to make anyone get service. Little did I realize it, but that action of clean and sober, nor the power to make telling on myself, about being accountable, is anyone relapse, it was often countered by the the thing that helps me to process observation that for newcomers, the resentments and shame and get perspectives gentleness of the practice of the welcome in that help me to release them from my being, the Third Tradition is often the only living sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. So embodiment of the Big Book that they have once I started to incorporate it into my life the ability to read at that point, before rigorously, my conscious contact came back deciding whether or not AA is for them. in short order. Since then, it has become an There is a popular saying: “I've learned that integral part of my program, so much so, that it is fairly instinctual now. people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never What I have since realized as I have grown forget how you made them feel.” Once I more in the journey and in recovery and been started to become much more comfortable able to experience is that the act of telling on with telling others about my flaws and petty myself humanizes me and helps me to thoughts and actions, I started to become become more fully me: where I’m at. A lot of more accepting of newcomers who often had early recovery is about the visceral coming to these character defects on full display and terms with our limitations, but what takes heaps of shame to go with them. That allowed longer to heal is our acceptance that this is me to hold space for them, and eventually the way it has to be, moving forward. Many a make them feel like AA was a place they could time the ego rebuilds itself, because there’s a come back to when they were ready to do the deep seated hunger in us to try to prove that work to recover and heal. maybe we aren’t really the train-wrecks that Most of all, these days, telling on myself helps our past actions had brought us to the space me to rest easier at night, so I can meet the of being; that our flaws and character defects next day with more peace and grace than I are things that can be worked out to our own can doing it all on my own. It helps me to timetable. become part of the human race, and for that, I How often have I heard the need to be better am truly grateful. coming from an intense space of shame in ~Anonymous the rooms. Telling on ourselves helps us to
Wit De p Pa n Cam Tot Sur d
It all starts with the first step! We are and devastating “NO” from my “last straw”, powerless over alcohol and our lives have someone who I was hoping would have become unmanageable. I am a real relieved me of my alcoholism (i.e., someone alcoholic. Once I put a drink into my body it who could make me feel OK about myself sets off the craving and I want more. In once and for all). With the blow of that “NO” addition, there’s that mental obsession I fell to my knees and I prayed with the where I believe it will be different this time, “desperation of the drowning” (BB p. 28) this time I can manage it, or sometimes I and cried out for my higher power to help just say to hell with it, I’ll take my chances--I me. The rest of the day was full of anxiety just want to get drunk! but the obsession was starting to lift. Over the next few days I would say that a miracle I also have the spiritual malady where I am happened. I picked up the Big Book and it totally self-centered and always thinking finally hit me that I am a real alcoholic and I about me! That is the root of my problem. If have to live a spiritual life if I want to be you are a real alcoholic like me you only happy, joyous and free. Blessed with the have two choices: die an alcoholic death or Gift of Desperation, I fully surrendered. live a spiritual life. That’s a tough one to Finally I could see that no human power swallow! At two years sober I was still could relieve me but that God could and miserable, anxious, and unhealthy-- I was a would if he were sought. dry drunk! In an odd sort of way I set the stage to break myself open to have a So, now I seek God as I understand God. I spiritual awakening without even realizing pray, saying out loud that God is in charge, what I was doing. not me. My destiny is to live a spiritual life; I accept that now. That involves trudging, At the end of How It Works it mentions three work, effort, surrender, and praying for the pertinent ideas, and the second, “That willingness. It’s been said to me this probably no human power could have program is all about growing up, and to me relieved our alcoholism.” was particularly accepting and living out my destiny is what apt for me during my recent spiritual growing up is all about. experience. I had been grasping at straws, trying for a human power to relieve my ~Margaret alcoholism. On August 19, 2020 I got a big
“My A Fo n i n”
My AA Foundation, believe it or not, was me from being a bum. I was truly homeless. when I stepped foot into my first home I’d lost everything. group Sunrise Sunday 9:30am morning meeting. I walked in the room and there When I got back home after the meeting I stood Donald J., the man that gave me my asked my Dad, (they were divorced when I 1st AA Resentment. Donald was a grade was 9), was Mom ever called Pennies? Dad ahead of me in High School. I never liked said describe this man, so I did. Oh that’s him then or now but we practice principles little Joe. It turned out that Joe knew my before personalities. Some people just rub Mother and father when they were dating. I you the wrong way. was just a sparkle in my Father’s eye. Why he called my Mom Pennies was because He sees me entering the Meeting Room, he they always played a card game with tokens yells at the top of his lungs; but my mom used shiny new copper pennies instead of the dull red plastic “There he is. Mr. Top Shelf. We’ve been tokens. waiting for you”. I yelled back, Donald what in the hell are talking about? (I drank and What an AA foundation the Roosevelt We loved Thunderbird, that delicious cheap ass Care group was for me. People I went to sweet tasting wine.) Of course, me as a highschool with, a person who knew my newcomer, I was scared to death. I was so parents when they were dating. Reaching embarrassed and everyone was laughing, I my bottom I meet the worst person I ever thought, at me. drank with who was now the Group Secretary. My whole life before AA and There was Glascove, a nasty drunk who beginning my AA journey was all in this one wore very thick milk bottle eye glasses. He room. I’m so grateful for my strong had a slobbering juicy mouth & wet thick foundation, for the Love & Fellowship I lips. I pitched in money with these 'bums' to found in my first home group., buy that first bottle of liquor when the Liquor store opened up at 9am - not one ~Tony T, April 4, 1979 minute early. That's what the homeless were called back in those days. I drank with this guy many times. Then one day Glascove just disappeared. In my hometown, Freeport, Long Island, when you weren’t seen for a while that meant you had either died or were in Hollywood making pictures. (A nice way to say you were in jail.) Here, 5 years later, Glascove was 5 years sober and the Group Secretary for Roosevelt We Care, my first home group.
A little old man came over to me later and asked me was my Mother’s nickname Pennies? I said no, it was Tiny or Teeny. My Dad, RIP, moved me into his house, keeping New r fir im s o s of A
What should I do—or not do?
Using the same sort of foul language that I I need to better maintain a neat appearance used as a thirteen-year-old to impress my at meetings—something I am not always so parents that I have finally grown-up, leaves good at! A general conception is that AA is the newcomer with the impression that I am comprised of skid row bums. Newcomers too immature or slow-witted to be taken are happily impressed to find this is not so. seriously (psychologists call this After all, if I am to be trudging the road of attention-grabbing technique “shockers”) happy destiny, shouldn’t I be dressed for the occasion? If I mock the Twelve Steps during the reading of chapter Five (What’s the point? ~Bob S Balk-balk, Ha! Ha! etc.) I am likely to leave the newcomer with the impression that the * Problems Other than alcohol (Excerpts) F8 AA Twelve Step program is not to be taken seriously. The “Ha-Ha” may also come from seasoned members, just to be polite, although they may consider this “AA virus” as a crashing bore.
It feels good to share “let it all hang out,” at discussion meetings. However, if I do not share how the Twelve Steps are working in my daily life (My experience, strength, and hope), I leave the impression that AA is limited to a group-therapy solution. Bill Wilson wrote: “Sobriety—freedom from alcohol—through the teaching and practice of the Twelve Steps, is the sole purpose of an A.A. group.” * Group therapy is good, so far as it goes, but AA is better than that! We have a Twelve Step solution that really works.
If I spend my time during the important “meeting after the meeting” with my regular friends, but ignore the newcomer, I am apt to leave them with a negative impression of AA—they came in lonely and left lonely. A less-than-welcome reception may cause their first AA meeting to be their last AA meeting. I need to have AA literature ready for them with a robust welcome before they dash out of the door. Giv Bac is t e Fo n i n
My Forgiving, crying, voicing Is the way to peace of mind Honouring the pain and anger Relief emerges over time
The man who buries pain lays land mines For he forgets where they are laid Depressing pain brings sickness, sadness A buried past depression makes
I am five and fifty now The man with wounded child lives Spoken words heal ancient wounds Who heals well is he who gives.
~ Anon
Refl c o s On Sob y Sep b 2020
I shouldn't be alive today. I shouldn't have a had a solution; swallow a hand full of usable brain today. Only through the grace Valium and drink a bottle of Scotch. Again, of a benevolent God am I sober today. almost dead. Hardly able to walk, taken to Queen Street meeting of AA I found folks I 33 years ago I was found in a coma from could relate to and started, day by day, to alcohol poisoning. In hospital I was told I learn the program and try to practice it. had a lethal amount of booze in my blood. The doctor and nurses said I should have I was dragged out to a 12 step call by a long been dead. term member to a travelling executive with bad DT's and a briefcase full of cash from Might I have a drinking problem? many countries. He tried to run from his disease at luxury hotels all over Asia. It The one thought this alky feared to face. failed! We took him to hospital put his $ in a lockbox and a friendly doctor put him on a I got into an outpatient 12 step lecture drip for a few days. The man survived and program a few evenings a week and learned returned to his family. I spoke with the that I had a disease called alcoholism. doctor about my problem. He said if I don't There was no pill, operation, or voodoo that drink, I won't get drunk. could remove the psychic tumor in my brain. Only one thing was possible. Not to drink for Pride went before my fall, but through the the rest of my life. It worked through to the help and friendship of my Singapore AA end of the course while I attended one friends, psychiatric aid and lots of meetings meeting a week. It was not enough. After a I put together long intervals of sobriety. few more weeks I was at After over one, two and three sober years I it again. again picked up the bottle.
I tried to videotape "Days of Wine and Back at the Relapse. Roses" but passed out half way through. I
How Ox o d Gro Cri s Spa d The Twe Ste
Bill and Lois Wilson attended the NY Oxford Necessity of belief in and dependence upon Group shortly after Bill was released from God. Towns hospital late December 1934. All went well till Oxford Group members This later became a word-of-mouth six step criticized them for having private meetings program of action for the alcoholics—there for “drunks only” in their home at 182 were several versions of this but here is Clinton street in Brooklyn Hts. They were listed the version found on page 263 of our considered as “not maximum.” (not fully current Big Book: complying with OG principles) Chaos developed! Consequently, during August of 1. Complete deflation. 1937, Bill and Lois stopped attending the 2. Dependence and guidance from a Higher Oxford Group meetings. Power. 3. Moral inventory. The yet unwritten AA program of action was 4. Confession. now on its own in NY! Happily, the 5. Restitution. twenty-eight Main Principles (tenets) of the 6. Continued work with other alcoholics. Oxford Group remained embedded in the mind of the author-to-be of our Big Book. The six-step word-of-mouth program was Some of these tenets were accepted by Bill expanded into Twelve Steps in December of as helpful to alcoholics—these are found on 1938 (Pass it On, pages 197-198). How page xvi of the Big Book: lucky for us that Bill was considered “not Maximum!” Certainly, a God-send for us all! Moral inventory Further evidence that: “God moves in Confession of personality defects mysterious ways”! Restitution to those harmed Helpfulness to others Bob S
The hi r po of ca an eff c
At the end of my drinking, I clung on to two when my sister said, "will you go to rehab?" truths. I genuinely believed them, and would that I basically said yes. It took an element for sometime after I got sober. of humility. I had run into the Higher Power of Physical Fatigue. I went as far as 1. People should judge me based on my admitting I needed a break. Of course, I intentions. would need the 4 star accommodations, business class flight to rehab, and clinically 2. The world should cut me some slack - if certified counselors--nothing but the best. I you had to deal with what I had to, you'd did have serious problems and I needed a need that too. prestigious solution. I was also willing to evaluate tarot cards, Hinduism, Buddhism I'd think about it often while I was drinking, and maybe even Catholicism. (I thought and I was drinking around the clock by then. latin sounded cool and I could relate to the I'd start in the morning, because everyone "Hail Mary" prayer) Whatever I adopted, it needs a little something before facing the really needed to be edgy and not pedestrian, day. I'd continue through the day, gulping (ie nothing that had ever been written down vodka from a water bottle. I'd wake up in in the history of mankind) the middle of the night to drink. I was genuinely working really hard. Managing My humility grew when I came back. I had the volume, frequency and circumstances of found out two things. 1) Being honest was my drinking was a full time job. liberating. 2) I needed some kind of support. And the AA rooms were familiar. At the same time, I started going to AA Maybe I could find something here. It was meetings. I knew some of you by then. I'm so much like group therapy. I could identify. sure you knew me also. Going to meetings I liked the way you listened to me. And so I had started as an ultimatum from my wife found the Higher Power of Association. but then evolved to a twilight zone. I really could relate to how you drank but I had a big I had always found the Big Book to be problem with the "God thing." I spent a fair archaic and parochial. White protestant amount of time thinking about spirituality. I men. But I did need to fit in. So my persona had summarized the program as 1) I had a was "I got this." I worked on my head nods problem and 2) I needed to find a situation and facial expressions that suggested and spiritual belief system that didn't require approval and understanding. I listened a lot of change to my style. 3) The steps, really closely to what you were saying so I this inventory, this making amends, this could mimic and fit in. "One day at a time." helping others were all minor details and "It's a we program" "Surrender to win" Corny optional. When I found a spiritual solution indeed, but I'd practice it by myself so when that was cool enough, I might do the noble I said it in public, it felt real. things that the steps involved. But no promises. Now my "recovery awesomeness" required an audience. The more pathetic, the easier My path to sobriety took me through plans to pull it off. You guys would do. I could to commit suicide, an intervention, rehab, show up every day for validation. Come in, and back into the rooms. I was so tired that sit down, share, go to work. Come in, sit down, share, go to work. Meetings became as profound as God or the System of the a powerful routine. The Higher Power of Universe, but little by little, I did come to Habit. believe that the people in the rooms were onto something. I guess the first suggestions I took were "keep coming back," and "sharing is service." A big part of this, in hindsight, was a gradual (You're welcome.) The suggestions became recognition that my problem was that while a bit more ludicrous. Call other AA men I kept doing the same thing and expecting a every day. (Two dumb suggestions at the different outcome, I didn't have the ideas, same time - aren't attractive female AAs meaning, or presence of mind to do going to be more soothing? And why every something different. After a meeting where day?) Get a sponsor. (I had a token the topic of insanity came up I rushed to sponsor.) Work the steps. (maybe...) Work work and asked a young guy (a non AA with the steps with a sponsor. (what?). These an honors degree) - what's the definition of ideas were objectionable, optional, and my insanity? "Doing the same thing and position was that I'd get to it only when I expecting a different outcome." stopped wanting to drink every day. Then one day, I was having a bad day. I really Along the way I picked up that I served the needed a drink. I had taken a few phone God of Being Awesome. It permeated my numbers. I messaged a few guys and being. Everything I did revolved around what called a few. Nobody picked up. But after a others thought of me. As a result of the while I didn't feel like drinking. I would have steps I learned I can turn my back on higher never thought it would work for me. Early in, powers I no longer wish to serve. It does I had cornered an old timer (a guy with 6 not have to always be a certain way. The months more sobriety than me) and suavely Higher Power of Practical Choice. quizzed him about this practice. Fact is a theoretical understanding wasn't enough. I Letting go of being awesome is what it took knew about it, I just didn't think it would for me to develop a perspective on humility. work for me. Struggling with these It was a relief to know I didn't have to be suggestions made them top of my mind better than you to be equal to you. In fact, when I actually had a choice--drink or try a most people aren't busy comparing. And by suggestion. I had found the Higher Power this time, I had enough sobriety, was of Suggestion. sponsoring, and had been doing enough such that I learned the Higher Power of I found a lot of higher powers in the coming Experience. In fact, this program has months. The power of community, the opened up a pathway to an entire pantheon power of friendship, the power of intimacy, of higher powers. But each experience the power of honesty in small things, the involves letting up of something and trying higher power of being fallible. When I something different. This shift of core started working the steps with my sponsor, I beliefs is that psychic shift they talk about, found even more. If you had talked to me in the spiritual experiences. the first few years, I didn't think I was winning. I thought I had it in me but as it I made the leap of faith from "I got this" to "I turns out, I didn't. This, for me was a Step 2 don't got this". That was my Step 2. time. For the little things, if I didn't have it in me, I'd ask for it. Don't understand a From all these experiences--and I do suggestion? Find out more. Don't consider many of them spiritual in understand why doing something might nature--I've come to believe in the power of make me feel better? Try it once. Nothing action, the power of change and the power of humility. Which brings me to the Higher things before I would. My humility tells me Power of Cause and Effect. Cause and if I want what someone has, maybe I could effect aren't new to me. What's different is try what they did. I am not ashamed that I sometime in the last few years I let go of my don't have all the good ideas. It seems belief that the world should judge me based perfectly natural that when I'm trying on intentions. If I believe in cause and something someone suggests for the first effect (and I do), no "higher power" can save time, it feels and looks clumsy. Because me from stupidity. The higher power of I'm sober and working the program, I have blind luck is a false god. Instead, I came to access to all these powers greater than believe people judge me based on my myself. behavior. Cause and Effect. It seems so simple now--do good things, get better If you're struggling with the higher power outcomes. It's a higher power, because I "thing" or Step 2, try asking yourself if you have an appreciation of my limitations in really think you have it in you to recover? If I predicting cause and effect-- there are am honest with myself, I didn't. I need exponential numbers of variables--chaos something greater than myself because I theory, psychology and let's face it, I'm too can't help myself from making the same lazy to figure it out. I believe in cause and mistakes over and over again, with alcohol effect as a power outside of myself so I and living life in general. don't claim to be able to cause every desired effect. The power for me comes through Since accepting that, I am more open to that "aha" moment that I can't behave in a change and getting help stopping behaviors dumb way and expect a sensational that definitely do not get me what I want. I outcome. I do not trust my higher power to pray for knowledge of the power of cause cover my butt that way anymore. and effect and the power to go with that flow. In doing that, I open up the possibility Today, whatever humility I have keeps me of new experiences and new perspectives I from trying to manipulate and just focus on would not have otherwise. I'm no longer doing the work. There are "low humility" responsible for the outcome because days. The odds of getting a better outcome sometimes I don't fully understand cause go up when I do the next right thing. I think I and effect. I just like the odds of doing the understand what they mean when they say I next right thing way better than repeatedly didn't have any good ideas. I needed the doing what doesn't work and hoping it will. suggestions. Specifically I need suggestions that worked for people like me. I didn't have ~Tony the courage. I needed to see you guys do
Wit A Lit Hel Fro His Fri s
Mid-summer, 1938, was a watershed period Thank God for Hank Parkhurst! I have for the writing of our Big Book—it almost did always considered Hank and Ebby Thacher not happen! Donations from the as two unsung heroes of AA history, Rockefellers, Charles Towns, and others although neither of them remained sober for were helpful, but Bill Wilson’s upcoming Big timely periods. Bill may have made the Book project remained on hold, even touchdown, but Ebby handed him the ball doubtful. Bill W. had written two and Hank became his inspiring hard-driving pre-manuscript drafts: THERE IS A coach! Not to forget Jimmy Burwell who is SOLUTION (Chapter One) and BILL’S given credit for “God as we understood STORY (Chapter two) during the late spring Him.” months of that year—Please notice the reverse order. These chapters were only a By December Bill had finished the beginning effort to publish a short book that manuscript including HOW IT WORKS, INTO could sell for a dollar (about $18.00 today). ACTION, WORKING WITH OTHERS, plus four Happily, Doctor Silkworth added, THE other chapters. Jim Scott helped write the DOCTOR'S OPINION that July. Akron personal stories and the NY stories were also included. Bill had endured financial struggle for over a year and had become understandably But in early 1939, Tom Uzzell, editor of discouraged. By early fall he had not written Colliers Magazine, reduced the manuscript anything for three months—he finally stated: dramatically and a Dr. Howard (perhaps an “I am not an author.” However, his partner, alias) changed the tone from: “Thou must Hank Parkhurst, convinced him that just a under pain of drunkenness”, to “This is what few more chapters were needed to justify we did.” the $1.00 price. Hank’s adamance was The finished book was published in April of successful! 1939. It sold for $3.50. Bill began writing the next two chapters, So, Bill was gifted with many helpful friends MORE ABOUT ALCOHOLISM and WE as he constructed this marvelous life-saving AGNOSTICS ON September 15, 1938. book for us. Thank you, God!
Bob S, Richmond, IN
The Mat Cal of t e Ar e *le
I don’t do false humility.
Before recovery, I’d enjoyed a certain better way of getting clean. You can always amount of career success. My job was an tell an addict… but you can’t tell him much. Executive Creative Director at big international advertising agencies across Having said that for all my grand Australia and Asia. Advertising is the international CEO suite and top tier creative perfect industry for addicts. It runs on fear, experience, NOTHING has taught me more ego and greed. than sponsoring other men. Not managing a creative department at 30. Not even my The objective is to make people spend MBA. Being a sponsor is a sacred duty. money they haven’t got, on stuff they don’t need, to impress people they don’t like. It’s not the sponsor that gets the addict clean, it’s God. The raw materials for their As a creative, being completely delusional is recovery are their levels of honesty, open a professional bonus. It helps tremendously mindedness and honesty. when creating perceptual differences between products that are identical. And a little dab won’t do it.
My character defects became powerful They need to have a critical mass to get career assets. The killer combo in active them showing up for stepwork. My job is to addiction of low self esteem and an inflated encourage through a program of attraction. ego propelled me to come up with more and They say if you want to get good at more bigger ideas so my peers would tell something fast, start teaching it. This is me how brilliant I was. That external how sponsorship works. I seem to be approval was an intoxicating drug in itself. unable to suggest things for sponsees to do Working across Asia Pacific, I became what unless I’m doing them myself. It is the locals say of most expats, “overpaid, easier softer way. oversexed and over here.” Opinion alert: I think that nothing can boost Alcohol and cocaine use was widespread in an addict's self-esteem more than doing advertising - more than tolerated, even esteemable acts. First and foremost of celebrated. As the top of the food chain in those is sponsorship. Sponsoring someone agency offices in Bangkok, Hong Kong, gives you the opportunity to have such a Jakarta, Singapore and Phnom Penh I massive impact on their life, if they follow thought I had it all, had done it all and knew direction, that you can’t help but feel that it all. Anyone who said anything I didn’t like, you are a useful, helpful human being. I’d interrupt with “yes I know…” or “yes but…” It’s also easier than it looks. Simply show up THAT is the mating call of the arsehole. and take them through the step work whilst trying to show as much patience, kindness, Never heard it before? Then wait until you tolerance and love as you can possibly start sponsoring. muster.
In my experience, many sponsees have an Sponsorship is not an optional extra. It’s opinion on what you’re suggesting. Or a step 12, tradition 5, a privilege and a duty. I preference. Or an idea themselves. Or a was lucky enough to receive the gift of recovery. I need to give it away to keep it.
The therapeutic value of one addict helping another is unrivalled. Sponsorship is the only magic bullet we have.
If you’ve never done it then you’re letting down yourself, your Higher Power and the fellowship.
Without it you will never experience the true power, majesty and freedom of the program.
Time to pull the trigger.
~ Paul