Book of Jamez

55 y/o malcontent, something of a writer

Tag: Big Book

  • To Get Off Or Not

    I started taking an anti-depressant at the end of the year called Citalopram (Celexa). I wasn’t really sure it was a good idea but I was in a bad place and was looking for a way out. My regular doctor did an annual “how are you doing” survey on me last fall and suggested it… it wasn’t until the end of the year I took it, I was very reluctant.seemed. The reluctancy comes from a few places.

    First my Mother was crazy… not diagnosed crazy, but a hypochondriac it … Actually seeing how things have played out with my siblings its possible she had real medical issues and mental issues and was never diagnosed or treated properly. But as a kid it appeared as if she were always taking another pill for another made up thing. She never got better, he had peaks and valleys but she’d end up right back where she had been before. This sounds worse than it was… she wasn’t a good mother as in her needs came first – whether it was men, chocolate, romance novels, men or men… we were often a hindrance to what she wanted to do. When we were all teens she sent us all off to live with various relatives she was done. People will say “she did the best she could” but I don’t really buy into that.  (more…)

  • Happy 80th AA

    I was thinking today

    About the 80th birthday of AA

    How much has changed from the days of old

    When they’d lock us up or leave us in the cold

    Back in Akron is where it came from

    Two men started a journey

    a movement that changed the world

    one alcoholic talking to another

    one hand reaching out to the hopeless

    how more than one hundred men have recovered from alcoholism

    that’s what the cover page on our book read all those years ago

    now the hundreds are men and women and millions more

    Once, a lifetime ago for some of us,

    we didn’t care about anyone but ourselves

    now we seek out others to help, only giving of ourselves

    A power greater than yourself

    Your own conception of “God”

    That’s all that is necessary to make a beginning…

    Well, and maybe an open mind

    I have 21 years of sobriety

    It doesn’t seem a possibility

    That the man I am today

    Could even be alive this way

    Today, and every day

    I reach out my hand

    Think about the other man

    Share what was so freely given to me

    So another might be free

  • For Free & For Fun

    The circle and triangle of the program represent Recovery, Unity and Service together as a whole. They tell me it’s an ancient spiritual symbol that existed long before any 12 step program was ever dreamt about and means “wholeness”. I was taught to believe I need all three to recover from alcoholism – that I needed to find the program of action outlined in the 164 pages, that I had to find the fellowship amongst the members and that I needed to give away what was so freely given to me in service.

    When I first got sober I took many things for granted. I didn’t think about how much the rent was for the meeting space, or the books and coffee – I thought about the money in the basket quite a few times and wondered if anyone would notice if I took some. I was rather self-centered at the time and mostly just focused on what I could get out of life for me and what you could do for me.

    I talk quite a lot about shaking hands. I do because it was so important in changing who I was into who I am. When my sponsor told me to shake everyone’s hand before and after the meeting I hated him, I didn’t want to do that – I hate people. But I had agreed to go to “any lengths to recover from alcoholism” and I meant it. So every meeting I would stick out my hand and offer my name to so very many people (this was relatively small town WI, nothing like the meetings I attend in the big cities).

    Some of those people wanted to talk to me – ugh – and asked me how long I’d been sober. I’d rattle off “I’m 37 days sober today” and then they’d say “but who’s counting?” and I’d be all confused, like why ask… I don’t want to let anyone know these things – I hate people.

    After a few meetings people started to remember my name, and I felt obligated to try to remember theirs. I knew Mark M – he always had a suit on and a smile, he claimed he was sober for over 10 years but I didn’t really believe him. Nancy was new too and didn’t make me feel uncomfortable, she always came in with her friend and they always sat together. Randy and Mike, Krista and Suzanne… I started to learn a little bit more about the people I didn’t want anything to do with. And I discovered, much to my dismay, that I didn’t hate ALL people… just most of them.

    Shaking hands led me to a job in the meetings of setting up. Then I got to tear down – I didn’t really like this one as I wanted to rush out and start smoking right away.  My home group started to teach me about service work at our monthly group conscience – and I’d always hear them share at meetings about the tradition and experience working with newcomers. They shared with me and invited me to events where the business of recovery happens – where I met many more characters and learned the ins and outs of the District, the Area and the General Service Office.

    I like to think my home group and my sponsor helped to make me “whole”. Sure the step work was important too, very important to discovering who I had been and how I could become the man I am today. But the service work was just as important.

    Bill W talks about all the different drunks he tried to help and not a one of them remained sober. It was Lois who pointed out that he was staying sober by helping them. He remembered that when he was very desperate in Akron and found Bob. And together, they in turn tried to help many others – only a handful stayed sober at first. It must have been very disheartening.

    I’ve worked with many a guy sharing what was so freely shared with me. Some very new, some around longer than I have been. I’ve made my share of mistakes with those guy and usually learn from those mistakes and grow. And while it can be devastating to lose one of them or to not reach them at all it helps me to stay sober and that really makes all the difference to me. Its really difficult to look at them struggling and not be able to reach them – to see their pain and hopelessness and know that if they just took that first step, if they were just willing to believe they’d be on a different path they could have never imagined… but they have to make their own journey there.I have expected gratitude from the new man I was trying to help. I’ve expected them to have a program just like mine… well, maybe I was really hurt when it wasn’t and flabbergasted ;-). Bill cautions us in our book about doing too much for the new man. We have to show them the way – not drag them in kicking and screaming, nor carry them in on a pampered throne. Many people come in ordered by the courts, the wife or circumstances… not all of those stay but I did, and I know many others who have as well.

    In our book it says “we have ceased fighting anything or anyone”. This is hard for me many days in and out of the rooms. Sometimes it’s very easy to get pulled into the drama. Sometimes, sadly, I might still start the drama – but I’m trying to be more aware of it and change.

    “Your job now is to be at the place where you may be of maximum helpfulness to others, so never hesitate to go anywhere if you can be helpful.”

    I can be of more help to people and organizations I serve, if I show up and serve – without agendas, selfishness and anger. If I just show up and do what I was taught to do early on – I’m going to show up and smile, shake hands and be of service to the people about me to the best of my ability.

    I don’t serve for attention, accolades or accomplishments to add to my resume – I do it because I was told (and believe) that the constant thought of others must follow me throughout the day and when it does I have a better day. I have remarkable days in succession when I’m doing what I ought.

    This post was a bunch of different things that were running around in my head. They’re all in regards to things that are currently going on and they all tie together, even if it might not seem like it to the casual reader.

    “Selfishness – self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles” this is true for me still today and everyday. I think it’s true for a lot of people even those not in the rooms.

    How can I serve? How can I help? that’s how I get out of self, it’s been working for a good long time now and I can’t recommend it enough.

  • The Gift of Bill

    I attended my home group tonight – like most Wednesday nights. Tonight we were on Step 11 and had a great lead and some great follow-up call ups to make for a great meeting. I was fortunate enough to sit by my sponsor during the meeting – we had both attended a retreat committee meeting before the meeting and just kept those seats. During the meeting he reached into his pocket and handed me a wrapped gift and card (for a moment I felt special, then I realized he brought all his sponsees  gifts – then I realized I”m unique, like everyone else ) (more…)

  • Finding a Home Group

    Walking into new meetings the first thing I notice almost every time: OMG they’re so young! Where are the old people? It’s at that point I realize I consider myself old and that my age prevents me from remembering that I was one of the young people when I came into the rooms. Which makes me say out loud, almost every time, “Well crap”. Last night at my friend Cliff’s home group we were talking about that and he said “if they’re lucky some day they’ll be as old as us and still going to meetings” or something to that effect.

    Cliff has made that meeting his home group recently and people have been asking me recently where my home group is and I just haven’t decided yet. It was so much easier when I was new to find a home group: my sponsor said “this is your home group” and I nodded and made coffee, set up chairs, greeted or whatever they would have me do. Oh… you might not know what a “Home Group” is …

    Excerpted from “The A.A. Group . . . Where It All Begins”, a pamphlet published by A.A. World Services and available online here http://www.aa.org/en_pdfs/p-16_theaagroup.pdf

    The A.A. Home Group 

    Traditionally, most A.A. members through the years have found it important to belong to one group which they call their “Home Group.” This is the group where they accept service responsibilities and try to sustain friendships. And although all A.A. members are usually welcome at all groups and feel at home at any of these meetings, the concept of the “Home Group” has still remained the strongest bond between the A.A. member and the Fellowship.

    With membership comes the right to vote upon issues that might affect the group and might also affect A.A. as a whole—a process that forms the very cornerstone of A.A.’s service structure. As with all group-conscience matters, each A.A. member has one vote; and this, ideally, is voiced through the home group.

    Over the years, the very essence of A.A. strength has remained with our home group, which, for many members, becomes our extended family. Once isolated by our drinking, we find in the home group a solid, continuing support system, friends and, very often, a sponsor. We also learn firsthand, through the group’s workings, how to place “principles before personalities” in the interest of carrying the A.A. message.

    Talking about her own group, a member says: “Part of my commitment is to show up at my home group meetings, greet newcomers at the door, and be available to them—not only for them but for me. My fellow group members are the people who know me, listen to me, and steer me straight when I am off in left field. They give me their experience, strength and A.A. love, enabling me to ‘pass it on’ to the alcoholic who still suffers.”

    It was definitely easier when someone assigned me a home group and when I was ignorant about the things that matter so much to me now (Traditions, knowledge, Big Book, steps, history…). Now it seems I start dismissing a groups chance before I even attend a business meeting. I think a part of me will always want the Northside Group to be my home group, or the Eau Claire Pacific Group or the Tuesday Night Big Book Group… Those groups hold special places in my heart and are the model for me to find a new home group where I feel like I belong… All of those groups had flaws, some more glaring than others, but each of them felt like I belonged there.

    What I want in a home group isn’t that much, I don’t think…

    • knowledgable people talking about the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous
    • knowledge and working of the 12 Traditions
    • regular business meetings
    • structure
    • reliability
    • greeters (this one is just a hope… but it was a part of some great meetings I used to attend)

    There will always be a part of me that wants old-timers and big book thumpers to be armed with stun guns to shock people who are off topic and or rambling on and on… I’ve had that desire since I started attending and it’s never going to go away. But really, I want to be at a meeting where they aren’t afraid to call someone on their bullshit and ask them to shut the fuck up.

    So, for now I’m still without a “Home Group”, but i haven’t given up looking and I haven’t given up hope to finding one. It took me almost 14 years to find a home group in DC and being the type of alcoholic that searches for loopholes to slip through I’m glad this sentence is the first in the Home Group portion of the pamphlet:

    “Traditionally, most AA members through the years have found it important to belong to one group which they call their ‘Home Group.’”

    That “most” keeps me looking and keeps me from settling for second best when the right group is probably out there for me to find.

  • In All Our Affairs

    In All Our Affairs

    Everything I know about being a good worker I learned from 12 step programs.

    One of my first sponsors told me to shake hands with everyone before and after the meeting and introduce myself to them. 

    When someone comes to the office I stand up from my desk, walk over and extend my hand, introducing myself – they apparently like this and I see their shoulders relax a bit and a smile form on even the grumpiest of people.

    Our basic text, the Big Book, tells us “Selfishness, self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles.” A.A. page 62

    If I’m manning a table/booth at an event I smile and welcome people over – I ask about them, I want to know what they do and how they like it. I find out how I can help them. If I focus on helping others then I can’t spend time in my head thinking about me which is a great thing.

    I am Responsible.  When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help, I want the hand of A.A. always to be there.  And for that:  I am responsible. 

    and

    “How can A.A. best function” and, “How can A.A. best stay whole and so survive” A.A. page 177 (in the mini Big Book)

    I am responsible for my job too, my company and my co-workers. I want them to always be there for me so I have to be responsible. That means I ask how I can help them do their jobs, if there is anything I can do to make their loads lighter – if their load is lighter than that might make them have a better day. It also means I have to be aware of the rules and how the company is doing. “How can my work best function?” and, “How can work best stay whole and so survive?” Those are some great questions to consider when thinking about your job.

    “Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the A.A. name ought never be drawn into public controversy.” A.A. page 178 (in the mini Big Book)

    I try to stay out of gossip at work – I don’t want to need to participate in it and become involved in any drama. I also just focus on the job at hand there and keep politics and religion out of discussions with co-workers. Yes, I do have an opinion about all kinds of things – but that doesn’t mean work is the place I need to share it.

    “…and when we were wrong promptly admitted it…” A.A. page 59

    That one’s easy – usually… it throws some people off when you come at them and say “Hey, I screwed up here, how can I fix this with you”. People like the honesty, the openness when you do things like that – sometimes it makes them wary but if they see you practice it more they’ll come to understand it’s a part of you.

    “As we go through the day we pause when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action.” A.A. page 87

    This one saves my bacon time and time again – before I toss out my witty retort or type off a heavily worded email I stop and take a deep breath and consider what I’m about to do – sometimes I have to take a few pauses before I’m alright again…

    Sponsor Direction: Show up early, help set up the meeting – make the coffee, get to know people. Stay late – help tear down the meeting and get to know people.

    I’m always early for meetings, I’m always early for work. I make sure that I’m there to talk to people before the day starts and to see how they’re doing. I make the coffee (sometimes my co-worker does) I turn on the lights. At the end of the day I clean up the coffee (sometimes my co-worker does) and make sure everything is locked up tight… It helps to get the day off on the right track. Staying after is nice if someone needs help there you are, you can be in a place of maximum helpfulness to them.

    A.A. can and does make it easy to go to work and do what I do, it also bridges a gap in relationships with my co-workers and people my company serves that otherwise I wouldn’t have. My natural instincts are to stay to myself not talk to anyone else – even when I was drinking I was that way. But I have to be involved in the stream of life and participate, I’m meant to.

    November 2014 edit: People have commented over the years and recently about my great work ethic – I used to credit it to being raised in the Midwest, but then I recall my younger days at factories when it was all about me and my jobs didn’t last very long at all. Being a better worker means thinking about your coworkers, organization and those goals – it means focusing less on you and yours. Surprisingly these small changes can make a world of difference in every day.

    originally published July 2013

  • Big Book Quoters Don't Stay Sober – Oh Really?

    I heard in a meeting this morning “people who quote the big book don’t stay sober” and saw heads nodding along in agreement. Then I heard “you can be too smart to get the program, I hope I stay a dumb”.

    My first thought was “Fuck off”. Then my next thought was that what he really meant to say was you can get trapped in intellectualizing the hell out of the program and it’s really simple – clean house, seek a higher power and help others.

    I can’t count on both my hands and feet the number of people I know with long (double digit) sobriety that regularly quote the Big Book in their shares, stories and every day life. It’s our text book, it has directions “To show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book“. So discounting those who know it is like stabbing yourself in the foot.

    Knowing what’s in your Big Book is vitally important to recovering from “a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body“. If you were diagnosed as a diabetic, you wouldn’t just start injecting yourself with insulin all willy nilly – you’d learn about your disease, what to eat, how to eat, warning signs – and you don’t get that information from your next door neighbor or a person on a bus – it’s given to you in information packets and meetings with your doctor or health professional that understand what you’re going through.

    The same is true of alcoholism. We have a “common solution” that has worked for countless people who were once just as hopeless as I was – I can choose to follow that path to recovery or I can choose to go a different route or skirt the edges of the Happy Road of Destiny and get what was promised when we practice half-measures: nothing. Our book says time and time again “further on are clear-cut directions showing precisely how we have recovered” and “Here are the steps we took which are suggested as a program of recovery”

    On remaining dumb:  “Our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness”. Page 84

    Our book tells us also that self-knowledge is not the answer, so just knowing you’re an alcoholic and doing nothing about it isn’t going to get you far. You can quote the Big Book in meeting until your blue in the face but if you fail to enlarge your spiritual life it won’t help you at all – I think this is what the gentleman was trying to convey (actually I don’t really think this, but I kind of hope that it is, because remaining ignorant shouldn’t be a goal of anyone).

    The common solution I talk about here isn’t the group therapy you see where you come and talk about whats wrong with your life, the common solution is a program of action – getting out of yourself and helping others, specifically alcoholics, but all others “Our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be of maximum service to God and the people about us.”

    “…there was nothing left for us but to pick up the simple kit of spiritual tools laid at our feet.” page 25 We don’t use a jack hammer when a hammer will do, but we also don’t use a hammer when we need the jackhammer, we use the tools that are given to us.

    Read your book, talk to your sponsor, find the solution in the book and work our program of action. Lastly I’ll quote the back of the book twice:

    “To those now in its fold, Alcoholics Anonymous has made the difference between misery and sobriety, and often the difference between life and death. A.A. can, of course, mean just as much to uncounted alcoholics not yet reached.

    Therefore, no society of men and women ever had a more urgent need for continuous effectiveness and permanent unity. We alcoholics see that we must work together and hang together, else most of us will finally die alone.

    The “12 Traditions” of Alcoholics Anonymous are, we A.A.’s believe, the best answers that our experience has yet given to those ever-urgent questions, “How can A.A. best function?” and, “How can A.A. best stay whole and so survive?” AA Page  561 (4th edition

    and (I guess this one is Herbert Spencer not AA)

    “There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance–that principle is contempt prior to investigation.” AA Page 568

  • Silence Your Noise Makers

    At today’s meeting, like at most meetings, the secretary/chairperson/whomever made the announcement for everyone to please silence their cell phones, she did so to her own phone as she was asking all of us to. This has become common place in meetings that I’ve been attending for quite a while now, however when I first came to meetings cell phones weren’t generally found outside of your car, where they were attached by a cord. (Yes, this means I am quite old.) It doesn’t really matter if the phone is silenced, I and others can still hear it when you have it on vibrate and then all the noise you make while you rummage through your purse or back pack trying to see who it is that contacted you. But, don’t worry, I’m sure the person talking wasn’t saying anything important enough for us to be able to hear them.

    Old Princess Phones

    This morning someone’s phone rang during the meeting, it was an actual phone ring tone like the old princess phones used to make before technology came and made those outdated. The woman rummaged through her purse for several minutes, giving us that delightful tone repeatedly 5 times before she got to it – unfortunately she didn’t silence it then and we were subjected to the voicemail notification sound, which was a high-pitched chirp. Experience, strength and hope? nah, thanks, I’m trying to answer the phone. It’s bound to happen, I myself have forgotten to turn off my phone on a few occasions and now double-check more frequently than I used to.

    It’s usually not too bad when this happens, at the same time that this woman’s phone was going off music started to play outside the room, we could feel the deep bass reverberations and it grew increasingly louder – several people went out to see what was going on and the music stopped – for a while – it made an appearance again later.

    What really gets my goat is the folks that are using their phones and gadgets in the room during the meeting. One guy in particular gets several messages on his cell phone during meetings and he just answers them and puts his phone back in its holster, did I mention it makes  a “beep” each time he gets a message, he has it turned down low, but all of us can still hear it. Thank you sir, but perhaps you should talk to your sponsor about the definition of sharing, this isn’t it.

    messaging away

    Two people at today’s meeting were busy reading emails and typing away on their iPhone, one of them had the “click” activated for each letter and we were able to hear that she can type quite fast when she’s using it, I’m sure her boss is happy about that. Thanks for sharing.

    Is it really so much to ask that you pay attention during the meeting instead of using your phone? I called someone out of this a year or so ago, a chronic relapser that was busy typing away into his iPhone right next to me when I was trying to listen to the meeting. I told him after the meeting that he might have more success at staying sober if he put his phone down and listened to the message. He didn’t take it well and a few months later he went out to do some more experimentation.

    Recently a conversation about younger people and their attachment to technology was had by Suzanne and myself, she’s a supervisor and during a recent training session mentioned that young people have a different work ethic than what was instilled in people my age or older. It’s not that they don’t work and get their job done, but they tend to do two things at once that us (and I’m not trying to group us all up into one category) older folks can’t really do as well. This is not an excuse for the sales clerk in Macy’s to be on their cell phone when I’m checking out or for the Burger King worker to be texting instead of helping the customers, but it should help me to come to terms with the changing face of how things work, sometimes even in AA meeting.

    "Big Book" on my iPad

    At a Big Book meeting in San Antonio last year I was getting annoyed at a man who was on his iPad during the meeting, it really started to get to me. Then when he shared his experience he started reading from it and I realized that he had the text on his iPad, I suppose this should have made me less annoyed but it didn’t, I had to come to appreciate it, it doesn’t help that technically speaking what’s on his iPad is not General Service Conference-Approved material. I have it on my iPad also, sometimes it’s nice to be able to look at the Book on the technology that’s available and I hope AA catches up soon.

    Speaking of AA and technology, this afternoon I was able to make my AA birthday contribution via credit card on the web, I LOVE that. If it’s your AA birthday you should check it out at www.aa.org .