Sheets of Sobriety August 2020 Subscribe Past Issues Translate RSS Sheets of Sobriety August 2020 [email protected] IN THIS ISSUE But For the Grace of God: What this AA Slogan means to you Interview with an "Old-Timer": 27 years of sobriety Your Submissions: AA Fellowship SOS Funnies: Joke overload! History of AA: Remembering the roots of AA Committee Announcements: Indianapolis Intergroup will be meeting in August via Zoom https://us15.campaign-archive.com/?u=e88c06528c4f4f9f727842ddf&id=ed50db5b3f[8/9/2020 11:08:52 AM] Sheets of Sobriety August 2020 Topic Time: Finding Hope in AA Your responses as to what this slogan means to you! https://us15.campaign-archive.com/?u=e88c06528c4f4f9f727842ddf&id=ed50db5b3f[8/9/2020 11:08:52 AM] Sheets of Sobriety August 2020 But for the grace of I was headed down a God go I......no dark and deadly path judgement! bc it’s and God stepped in to only by Gods grace stop me. that I’m not where that person is and I could be at any time I would be totally if I don’t stay screwed but for the spiritually fit. grace of God. I don't know why I have been so blessed but I sure I have been saved am grateful. several time by the grace of God How I'm alive, while so many close to me Willingness is an have passed, I'm not attitude that can sure. But I am change every persons blessed to still be life forever here. God has given me grace and mercy, and when I've I would still be accomplished what I drunk, homeless, in signed up for in this that state of life, he will bring complete me home. And I won't demoralization, know exactly what it hopelss state of mind is until then. and body BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD That moment of clarity or window of Only by the grace of opportunity. That was God grace. The fact that https://us15.campaign-archive.com/?u=e88c06528c4f4f9f727842ddf&id=ed50db5b3f[8/9/2020 11:08:52 AM] Sheets of Sobriety August 2020 I'm still here is mercy. I'm alive Humility "that could've been me, but God chose differently" God gave me a gift I did not deserve I couldn't figure this out of my own, God's grace was but the grace of God always there I just made a way for me to had to find the be shown. willingness to accept it Gods Grace is something he bestows upon us but based on I am only here now by our past behavior we God’s Grace and mercy are not deserving of. Example You pray for a new job which you get despite having His will not mine been fired from the last jobs because you showed up drunk. Gods To me it means don't grace allowed this to judge other happen. alcoholics for their f Ed up lives and choices. I was The piece of God in blessed with my us that isn't our moment of clarity and will. that I had the https://us15.campaign-archive.com/?u=e88c06528c4f4f9f727842ddf&id=ed50db5b3f[8/9/2020 11:08:52 AM] Sheets of Sobriety August 2020 support and ability to have it take hold and keep me sober. To stay humble and There, but for the not judge...to Grace of my Higher believe that God is Power, go I. It could doing for us what we have been me. I'm cannot do for eternally grateful ourselves and that it's not. maybe just maybe all will be well. We be fucked........but by There but for "grace Gods grace. We be of God go I" in unfucked. reference to another individual active in Some one write that their addiction.... down And that I am no God reached into that better or worse than dark scary place I any other person, was at in my life and that if I hadn't pulled me back into surrendered and the light of love. picked up the kit Even when I didn’t laid at my feet I'd deserve it. be worse than I ever was. I'm no one to judge. And I'm humbly Grace is the walking in a new way undeserved favor of of life so freely God that let me live! given. If I hadn't accepted There go I. a new life shown by https://us15.campaign-archive.com/?u=e88c06528c4f4f9f727842ddf&id=ed50db5b3f[8/9/2020 11:08:52 AM] Sheets of Sobriety August 2020 God's light, I'd still be the person I sometimes it means was. Good orderly Direction to me..the grace of By his mercy I am Good walking Orderly Direction But for the Twelve Steps, jails, institutions and death would be my fate. Sometimes a miracle is what didn't happen to you!! Indy Online AA Meetings https://us15.campaign-archive.com/?u=e88c06528c4f4f9f727842ddf&id=ed50db5b3f[8/9/2020 11:08:52 AM] Sheets of Sobriety August 2020 Interview with an "Old-Timer" Interview with an Old-Timer John- D.O.S. 03/21/93 1. Why did you come to AA? How did you get https://us15.campaign-archive.com/?u=e88c06528c4f4f9f727842ddf&id=ed50db5b3f[8/9/2020 11:08:52 AM] Sheets of Sobriety August 2020 here? How did you know you were powerless over alcohol? I first came to AA in 1988 after flunking out of college, drinking more and more daily and after a failed suicide attempt and after my 21st birthday. My psychiatrist helped me understand that if I was always drunk when I was in trouble, it might be that I needed to stop drinking if I wanted to stop being in and having trouble. My dad was in AA already so the door to it had been propped open by his success. I knew I was powerless over alcohol for sure was when I had relapsed, gone out for a good six month binge, and woke up in my tub covered in vomit with no idea how I’d made it home. 2. What was your first meeting like? I remember little about my first meeting in 1988, other than it was in a dark church basement in Boston on Newbury Street, just across the street from where I had begun to work and that I heard, “Don’t Drink, Go to Meetings, and Ask for Help.” That has stuck with me over 32 years later. 3. What was the most memorable thing someone did or said to you and your first years of sobriety? Not sure that I remember anything specific that stuck with me in the early days, mostly because I think I killed too many brain cells. But I do remember what I wrote in #2. https://us15.campaign-archive.com/?u=e88c06528c4f4f9f727842ddf&id=ed50db5b3f[8/9/2020 11:08:52 AM] Sheets of Sobriety August 2020 4. Why have you stayed and why do you keep coming back? I have stayed, and I keep coming back because I am 100% positive if I don’t, I’ll get drunk again, somehow- someday. It’s in AA where I have found happy, joyous, and free from the pain that my drinking caused me. 5. What does Hope mean to you? Hope is the belief that it can always get better, even if only a little bit. It means that if I can make it through today, sober, I've won, and I've built one more arch in the foundation that will help keep me sober. 6. What does fear mean to you? Fear is such a powerful and real fear in my life, and I’m so bummed that it still is the case these many years later. I like the phrase “False Evidence Appearing Real,” because it reminds me that much of my fears are imaginary and made up by me- not freed in me. Which means if I use my tools to deal with it, I can overcome it and “Face Everything And Recover.” 7. Have you had a spiritual awakening? Tell me about it. I think I have had many spiritual awakenings, with perhaps the strongest one when I completed my 5th Step and when I felt https://us15.campaign-archive.com/?u=e88c06528c4f4f9f727842ddf&id=ed50db5b3f[8/9/2020 11:08:52 AM] Sheets of Sobriety August 2020 I had finally completed my 9th Step. I felt the presence of my Higher Power in a very real way on both occasions. I think I had one too when I had my first 5th Step as a sponsor. It was so real and powerful to be trusted with such a personal moment. And I have them at meetings all the time as I listen to others share their success, pain, fear, hope- all the elements of their sobriety. 8. What was your hardest amends? My hardest amends was to my wife, who had never seen me drunk but experienced all of the character defects that I'd never worked to remove by working the steps for the first 6 years or so that we knew each other. 9. Tell me about how you work steps 10 and 11? Not well. I try to review my day before going to sleep and 10 if I had any amends to make- then I wake up the next day, find something to be grateful for, thank God for it, ask for help to stay sober, and make the amends at some point in the day.