April 2024

"We were having trouble with personal relationships, we couldn't control our emotional natures, we were a prey to misery and depression, we couldn't make a living, we had a feeling of uselessness, we were full of fear, we were unhappy, we couldn't seem to be of real help to other people... It is clear that we made our own misery. God didn't do it. Avoid then the deliberate manufacture of misery... We are sure God wants us to be happy, joyous, and free." (BB, p.52,133)

How can this change happen? The Promises reassure us that, as we work the Steps consistently, we will find "a new freedom and a new happiness." When I was drinking, or just white knuckling "dry," I had "a total inability to form a true partnership with another human being." (12&12, p.53) The AA fellowship, a home group, and a sponsor I can confide in -- these get me out of the prison of myself. Other people start to matter to me.

The Steps teach me how to look at myself honestly, take responsibility for the way I have hurt others, repair the damage, and develop a genuine relationship with a Higher Power. Then, I can be useful. Then, I can love and serve someone besides myself.

It gives me hope that Bill W. struggled with depression even after he got sober.

Love is more than a warm feeling. Love is about self-giving and extending myself to another. Love is the "way out."

"This seems to be the primary healing circuit, an outgoing love of God’s creation and His people, by means of which we avail ourselves of His love for us.... Nowadays my brain no longer races compulsively in either elation, grandiosity, or depression. I have been given a quiet place in bright sunshine." (Bill W., Letter, 1958)

-Kevin P.

Northside Tuesday Night Group

My last drink was on St. Patrick’s Day 2020. There was an alleged global crisis about to infect humanity. I was kicked out of jail, my not so grand am car house had been impounded and I was running out of bad ideas. The best idea I could come up with was to drink a bottle of Woodford and check into a detox facility. Not bad for a guy who couldn’t talk the mail into letting me stay a little longer. Still holding onto old ideas, thinking I had power over alcohol or anything for that matter I was not convinced that there was victory to be won thru surrender and I was too delusional to see that self reliance wasn’t working.

No longer jittery, I left treatment on April 20th. Properly armed with a head full of new bad ideas I had yet to put into play and all the necessary resources for a well known spree. I was off and running on what would be the bender to, God willing, end all benders for me.

By August 1st I had destroyed my car house, been evicted from 3 different storage unit apartments and had my mobile UHaul home repossessed. Finally, beaten into a state of reasonableness and despair I had run out of bad ideas.

Finally desperate enough for willingness to override self reliance I surrendered. No más. I couldn’t go on doing things my way anymore and by the grace of God I was carried into safety and placed under the care and love of Alcoholics Anonymous.

As that chapter in the story ends for this Irish fool, my last drink was on St. Patrick’s Day 2020 but my sobriety date is August 8, 2020. That was the probably the first, best and last great idea this grateful alcoholic has ever had.

-Andrew M.

Time is considered a fourth dimension for locating points in space-time. The first three dimensions are the typical height, width and length. Our Big Book talks about when we get sober we are catapulted into the fourth dimension and I have always had issues understanding exactly what that meant. To me, it refers to now having quiet time in my head. I am no longer mentally whirling answers in my head about where I’ve been, what I’ve done or where I’m going and why do I need to go there! Geesh, that was a ton of work and mentally exhausting. And, by the way, most if not all of those answers were lies.

Today I try not to lie about anything, especially to myself. I also try not to give you the answer that you want to hear instead of just telling the truth. What I had to learn was that also is a form of lying. But, when you are raised as a chameleon, it becomes second nature to tell people (parents) what they want to hear. You can make this into an art form – and I did. Then you get married and play the same game (now called manipulation) and believe that you are not hurting your significant other or the relationship by telling her what you think she wants to hear. So sad.

What the AA program helps us realize is how to speak from your heart and not only your brain. You have to begin to care about your answers for the long-term good of the relationship and not just getting through the moment. This concept was totally foreign to my thinking. My sponsor had to tell me how to answer certain questions because I didn’t understand that I was lying. This then allows me to feel, something I tried hard not to do.

With feelings comes peace and the hope and desire to be useful to others. That is the new understanding of happiness. Thanks AA.

-Mick S., Hardrock

As a result of recovery, I am free to live my life the way I see fit and I do not have to let others or society –even my recovery community – tell me what that has to be. I can choose each action I take and I can be responsible for every action and its consequence. And because of that freedom I am able to be a part of the human community in a way that I never thought possible. And that freedom has been one of the keys to me finding a happiness that is lasting.

The problem is that it seems not a lot of people today know what happiness is. Or perhaps said better – know what will truly make us happy. We feel a fleeting rush and confuse that with happiness. We give others the power to make us happy – and therefore also the power to make us miserable. We believe that satisfying the bottomless desires within us will bring us happiness. We think happiness is something we should just expect and are disappointed, and even resentful, when it does not come to us as a gift from the Heavens. “After all,” we say “I am sober…don’t I deserve happiness?” As if happiness is an entitlement. The founding fathers of American democracy talked about the pursuit of happiness as an inalienable right. But happiness itself? Well, nobody ever promised us rose gardens despite so many of us in recovery seeming to think that. I know I did for the longest time of my recovery. Of course, most of us have one thing going for us when it comes to the proverbial garden – a bounty of fertilizer!

What has been most difficult has been admitting when I am not happy. It almost feels there is this unspoken obligation to be happy in recovery – paint on a happy face. I see it all of the time – as if having problems or being unhappy somehow means you are not doing your recovery “right.” I can’t count how many men I have spoken to with years of recovery who have come to believe that there is something wrong with them talking about their pain because they have 20….30…even 40 years of sobriety. Just the other day I had breakfast with just such a man - with forty years and when he faced incredible adversity at 35 years he had convinced himself that he was supposed to be the elder and being the elder meant he wasn’t only free from problems but superhuman.

I have spoken with others who feel like they are breaking some unwritten rule if they talk about wanting to use or act out with their addiction after they have been sober a certain amount of time. Just another kind of insanity. All of this is ego. And pride. And….BS! There is no freedom when we feel like we have to put on an act in order to fit in the one place that is supposed to be safe enough for us to show up however we need to. There is nothing that is more valuable than us having a place where we can be authentic. When we don’t have that, what have we got? I don’t know about you but painting on that happy face gets me drunk – after I have decimated every relationship that means anything to me. Sad but true.

In my tenth year of sobriety I admitted I was not very happy in most of the areas of my life. As a result I was exposed to the possibility of true happiness. I gave myself permission to stop pretending. Again. When I was desperate in that first year I did not care about fitting in because I was desperate to learn how to live. Plus, I was still convinced deep in my heart that I did not fit in. At ten years it was different and it strengthened my muscles enough so that I was able to do it again at fifteen years and even seventeen years. Today, I do know anew happiness, and that it comes through the “right living” laid out in the Twelve Steps – and that happiness is not an end in itself. That facing my unhappiness creates space for my happiness to deepen and to be longer lasting. The true freedom has come in realizing that I will not always be happy and I do not have to pretend.

There is nothing wrong with being unhappy – it is what makes happiness meaningful. There is something very liberating when you come to realize that you are as free to be unhappy as you are to be happy.

-Dan Griffin 12 Step Blog