I’ve been hearing things and alcoholics and anonymous that sounds great-things that will get yourself killed.

•This is a selfish program*

•If you’re gonna be miserable -you might as well go out and get drunk**

•If somebody were to try and shove this program down my throat I’d spit it right back out***

•God don’t make junk****

•Alcoholics Anonymous guarantees fairness*****

•JUST DON’T DRINK******

•This is a simple program for complicated people*******

•Nothing going on that a drink or a drug won’t make worse********

•Alcoholics Anonymous is a perfect program for imperfect people (Church)*********

•”I came into Alcoholics Anonymous to save my ass -not my soul” “Alcoholics Anonymous is for sick people trying to get better -not for bad people trying to get good”**********

*As far as I know, nothing God has ever asked me to do -or ever will is selfish

**Tell that to the parents of the person who got ran over by an alcoholic (in AA) who took that advice

***Rebellion, defiance… These are not spiritual principles -and therefore, they are not something to be touted around like some badge o’ courage. Rebellion and defiance are the code of the alcoholic in their cups -in these rooms however, said philosophy can get you killed. A certain degree of conformity, and most certainly self-discipline, are the principles we strive for in these rooms.

****Well it’s true the God doesn’t make junk -He did give us a free will. And as bill Wilson points out, few people ever made a more of a mess out by defying God (and His principles) than the Alcoholic who is -selfish, and self-centered in the extreme.

“Who I am is God’s gift to me -What I make of myself is my gift to God!”

*****Alcoholics Anonymous doesn’t guarantee fairness, it guarantees equality -as much as is humanly possible. If life were fair half the principles of the program would go in the trash

******If not drinking twer’ all there was to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, we’d be passing out fliers or pamphlets instead of a book of 560 some -odd pages -“we” could all just show up to a meeting and then go home

*******True -but only in some cases. What’s simple for some -is complicated for others 🤔 What’s complicated for some -is quite simple for others

********One of the best -and truest things I ever heard in an Alcoholic Anonymous meeting

*********ABSOLUTELY!!!!

**********Alcoholics Anonymous doesn’t discourage us from becoming better human beings -It does 8n fact state that one of the essentials for recovery, and a quality life -is that of character-building.

Some people manage to get sober going to church -finding religion… Some people manage to get sober and Alcoholics Anonymous. What’s anonymous. Now in both instances the opposite is also true. People fail! Why is that:

•Alcoholics Anonymous is the perfect vehicle for yeah it’s difficult for people getting sober-it has all of the tentacles necessary… Church, not so much. They both however contain the most vital ingredient to recovery and that is God and God’s Grace.

•The reason people neither get sober in church or in Alcoholics Anonymous is because they’re closed, defiant, rebellious. No one can thrive in an environment if they are closed to it. That’s why we tell the alcoholic just to keep coming back… “love” -sometimes things do sink-in if the door (to the Alcoholic mind) is able to open ever so slightly (where did that word creep in from “love”).

•I’ve always found it very interesting (tellkng) that Jesus used words and teaching as the vehicle for… “CHANGE”. A reconfiguration or rebooting of sorts! God saw that we needed to change (Although he did regret making clothes; because clothes have pockets; and the purpose of pockets is to have them filled with something -“change” noooo, not that kind 😄). As I said before, it appears that are life long mission is to undo what was done, to unlearn what we have learned, to revert back to being who we were before the world, satan sunk their claws into us.

•Separating the wheat from the chaff in Alcoholics Anonymous

•People in the groups at the hospital would get frustrated with get frustrated with me for some of the seemingly more obvious or basic things I would share in the meeting. I’d tell them, when you go out on a camping trip (hike) with your kids, do you go at your pace or at theirs? You always have to start with the least knowledgeable person in the group.*

*Sometimes the most profound thing that can come out of a person’s mouth is a simple reminder of something that has already been said (many times before) 🤷‍♂️

Connecting the dots

Nothing will ensure freedom from alcohol so much as vigorous work with another alcoholic. Nothing will ensure our failure so much as an intolerance for spiritual principles. These things are all over the book but they’re not necessarily connected side-by-side.

I was the very thing this book was written for an for analytics anonymous and yet so little did I understand. My life as an alcoholic was like reading a line from the book of Alcoholics Anonymous and then skipping 2 or 3 – Alcoholics Anonymous’s book filled in the missing lines. As it was so aptly stated in the movie “Blade Runner” “I am the business”