Friends of Bill Wilson? enter here

Snood, I saw Nelson Mandela speak in Boston at the Hatch Shell on the Charles River 2o+ years ago? he had just gotten out of prision.

I consider it one of the major highlights of my life and a very humbling experience.

Glad to know that sobriety is your path and know that it is an unmerited gift from yourself to yourself.

Doing an anniversary thang tonight, so gotta go polish my dancing shoes.

Sea

Enjoy, sea.

It's been a few 24s now and still I have those moments where I start to forget everything about how bad it got by the end. I hit more meetings in the last few years than I did for a while and that seems to help but every so often the mind drifts off to those supposedly good times. Take my word for it my drinking was never particularly good...3 minutes of clarity followed by 3 hours of insanity (usually longer).

Odd that I had somehow overlooked this entire thread before, appreciate it being here...especially right now when I am unbelievably squirrely and need every last ounce of other people's strength to help me hold it together.

All ye tired and suffering hear ye hear ye

Plug into Hazeldon.org and subscribe to "Today's Gift". I start my day with it. It helps this alky get out of her own way and make room for progress.

Oops, I meant Hazelden.org

Oh wow Seaglass - I am having such a trying time.
My S.O. had a relapse after 16 years. What a shock.
And as years go by with unresolved issues of childhood
abuse - the bipolar condition rears its ugly head to the
point that medication is absolutely required, but guess
who doesn't want to take it? Good grief, I had to get
a restraining order ... got a hearing on Wed this week
hoping the judge makes it a permanent restraining
order. I think I have just been in total shock and being
in the hospital over Xmas, New years for 3 whole weeks,
I came home feeling like a wet rag doll. Bed rest for 3
weeks and your muscles have atrophied significantly.
Geez - it can only get better from here.
CONGRATS - Walter. Way to go!

Oh Babs, I'm so sorry to hear of all your troubles :-(

((((((((((((((((Hugs)))))))))))))))))))

Thanks for the sympathy hon.. You are a doll. Actually I
permit myself only a max of 15 to 20 minutes of self pity per
day, and then after that, it is time to buckle up & take time out
for my nap therapy
Seriously, like the 1st paragraph in my favorite "how to
survive life with as little pain as possible book"
otherwise known as The Road Less Traveled ; as it
says: "Life .... is difficult." Once we stop WHINING as
if we're the only ones whose lives are hard; we can honestly
begin to accept the fact that life is just PLAIN DIFFICULT.
There is no cosmic karma out to get me, I see that everyone's
life is difficult. I don't feel like I'm singled out for some negative
energy,some special attention in life. I try to accept that this
really IS just how life is - it is HARD. I don't like it, but as long
as I know everything isn't some big cosmic mistake I can begin
accepting. Many people are experiencing far more difficult lives
than mine.
*I talked with an old friend of mine from Walmart in Arkansas
about a month ago (he is the guy who hired me for my first
pharmacy job with Walmart in 1985) and he told me the most
awful, sad story. He & his wife had a hard time getting
pregnant & having a child. They had one child, a son - who was
playing in their front yard when a drunken driver lost control of
his car, barrelled into Jeff's yard, hit his son and killed him
instantly. I'll tell you what - after that -not a single day goes by
that I don't think about him & his wife and I pray for them & I
thank God that my 3 daughters (even though they can be major
pains in the butt) managed to survive childhood, get married, one
got divorced, Erica & her husband can't afford a divorce (these
two people are a riot) and Gwyn has been saying she is going to
divorce Sean for years now.

Wow, none of us ex drunks talking since March? Did some-one get a resentment or what? LOL My group is going through a growth crisis & it's a very trying time. Having been through this kind of thing once before, I just head off to calmer, quieter waters to meetings where people are not permitted to behave insanely during meetings. My home group is just having such growing pains over the issue of innappropriate behavior. When someone during a meeting & AFTER a topic has already been introduced, raises his hand and starts talking about politics, & then shouts and screams, rants and raves because the chairman looks at me like "HELP!!" So I turn to the"offender" to kindly let him know he's way out of line ... he rants and raves some more and NO ONE backs me up. It's is as if I am right back in the middle of an alcoholic family and drunken dad is raising hell and EVERYONE in the meeting just turned into 8 year old kids walking on eggshells (whether they're 28 or 88) trying to kiss ass to the drunk king baby. This guy isn't even sober. At times like these, I bemoan the growing pains of sobriety and most especially of my home group. A lack of the fundamentals of AlAnon for any alcoholic is absolutely insane. MOST of our friends & relatives ARE alcoholics for God's sake!! AlAnon is forfriends and relatives of alcoholics...yet alcoholics avoid AlAnon like they would avoid the bubonic plague.

Hey, Babs. Good to see you here. Let me share with you two things an old-timer once told me. I had told him I was unhappy with the conditions at my home group and was thinking of leaving and joining another group. He said, "If you don't like the group you're in, don't go leave and go f*** up another group. Straighten out whatever is wrong with your group. Chances are you're the only one who can do it." He also told me: "If you've never met anyone at AA meetings that you don't like...Andy, you're not going to enough meetings!"

Andrew! And how good to hear from you as well. Your old timer's wisdom is muchly appreciated ... I know my job and my place is with my home group always, but right now I have so many serious health issues to be dealing with at one time that I figure we have quite a number of old timers, I'm not the only one, by far. I may be one of the few who study and insist of following the traditions, which makes me unpopular from time to time - but I'm not there to win a popularity contest. Someone will start reading from a newspaper or some other non approved AA stuff, and my groups sits there like duds. One prefers to be the elder statesperson & not be perceived as the "bleeding deacon". I know it takes slow & steady growth, just as it has for me as an individual. We ARE more fortunate this year because quite a few old timers who had been going only on once a week basis to AA meetings have now begun to show up every single day which is ALWAYS a great benefit to any group. We have some people with the most profound insights & wisdom about AA, but will enable another alcoholic when it is not in their best interest. The rule of thumb as far as I am concerned is "Never do anything for another alcoholic that they are fully capable of doing for themselves, otherwise you're risking that fine line between helping another alcoholic versus enabling one."

I agree with that totally, Babs. And whenever fulfilling a service role, I always remind myself of Bill W.'s dictum that "we are only trusted servants. We do not govern."

So very true. Trusted servants. And it's an honor to be so. Most particularly in the small, unnoticed ways that draw no attention
and gain no credit for ones' self from your group. The good deeds done without others knowing about it, one hand not telling the other. I have seen too many grandstanders and it's so belittling to the truly sober people. The only other trouble that appears to be going on not only
here but also in UK is men picking up on women, then stalking them and all that kind of garbage. AA Central is concerned. What kind of story would that make in the newspapers & how would that reflect upon AA?
My home group also has a propensity for tolerating 13th stepping & even though we women make every effort to snatch up every single female newcomer at once to WARN her of the danger of getting involved with any of the male AA members, HELL .... I was only 3 months sober when the group chairman for the "other" AA group in this small town showed up outside my place of employment, wanting me to go have a cup of coffee with him, at 9 PM to talk about his "marital troubles". Thank God for my sponsor, she had me already well prepared. I told him politely that I would be happy to go with a group of AA members to Shoneys or some place after a meeting but that I would certainly NEVER go in the car ALONE to have coffee with a married man, did he have no respect for my reputation at all? He did not stay sober in the long run, by the way, but he destroyed plenty of young women in his time. I have been told by some other AA groups (older more established AA groups) that when the men
see that sort of thing going on, the man who is trying to pick up women is spoken to privately by the men in the group about what he's doing and
encouraged to just move along if that's all he wants in AA. Looking for
another "wounded bird syndrome" young woman. Do you have any
experience with the ways this is handled in other groups??

Interestingly enough, my experience has been that there are at least as many women looking to pick up men at meetings as vice versa. Maybe more at some meetings. Of course, I'm seeing this from a male point of view, so my perception might be a little bit skewed. 13th stepping is gender-neutral.

Well, I may be blind as a bat, but although I see these newcomer females
as totally clueless, I don't see long time sober women hitting on any
newcomer males. I've seen one TRY, but it didn't get her far. Maybe we've
just got ugly women here?

Related to above post...I have nothing against AA per se....It helped me for quite a while...ended up marrying one of the AA gurus, found out really quickly what goes on in the rooms often bears little resemblance to how some behave in "real life"
That marriage ended quickly, and forever dissolved any feelings of awe toward any particular member.

Regarding newcomers, particularly women....of course they are prime targets for sexual advances. Seen it time and again. Been a target myself

It's all part of the cult like qualities of AA.


oh....here's one of the funniest come-on lines I ever got "Never refuse an AA request"

...must've missed a turn somewhere - you've obviously looking for the "Critics of Bill Wilson, Enter here" thread

Honestly Chai Tea, honey - if you had been very sober and note the word sober in MY dictionary means a minimum of 10 years - you would know that just the very idea of an AA guru is SO ridiculous and anyone who sets themselves up to be one (though I've seen plenty of this as well) is likely to end up drunk. Not to mention that at least half the people (maybe more) are going to AA for reasons that I neither understand nor care about. Some are getting their papers signed. Some are looking for a woman with that wounded bird syndrome, they're so easy to pick off the fence. Some like to rip off any of the dumb newcomers trying to "help another alcoholic" before they've even learned to help themselves. Some like attention & never shut up. It takes time &
it takes hanging in there, STAYING SOBER yourself for a long time before my behavior inside meetings is equal to inside of my home. AA changed my life. It is not a cult though I wouldn't doubt some people see it that way too. Me, all I know is that my life changed & it changed for the better for the first time EVER!!!when I stood up & picked up a white chip in AA (and I began going to AlAnon meetings) I haven't been in need of a drink or a drug to alter the way I feel for nearly 21 years now. You see I just ignore (try to) all the people who are there for court, for their mom, for their wife, whatever. I focus on certain special people who when they speak; it gives me goosebumps, makes me want to laugh or cry& touches my heart so deeply & profoundly that I can begin to forgive myself for only being human. Human is the way My Creator made me. Not very perfect, but very persistent. My mama always said "if you can't say something good about something, don't say nothin' at all" Ditto to you, Chai Tea, take it where somebody cares. Those of us seriously within AA don't deserve flippant criticism.You haven't got enough AA experience to fill a thimble, yet you carry enough bitterness & resentment over that AA guru to rival Niagara Falls. May you find your own peace one day. Love to all of my beloved AA friends - only we know who we are. ps Hey! Snood! How you doing? Me,I got some bad news
a few weeks ago. I found out that I have cancer in my bone marrow. Not a very treatable type. But, you know what? Death is the final great experience of life....and I hope (I feel like I am) that my own willingness to leave this life stays with me, regardless of my aching heart for those few beloved persons whose lives will be hurt by my passing.

What is it with me? I try to make my posts short and sweet but end up having too much to say, it happens every time, sorry y'all.