Step12.com

[angel143]

I got this from the Akron AA. It is titled "15 points for an alcoholic to consider when confronted with the urge to take a drink."

I do not have the ability to scan it into an email. But if you would like a copy, just PM me and I can copy and mail it to you.

Here it is:

The unhappiest person in the world is the chronic alcoholic who has an insistent yearning to enjoy life as he once knew it, but cannot pictue life without the alcohol. He has a heart breaking obsession that wby some miracle of control he will be able to do so.

Sobriety, the magnificent obsession, is the most important thing in yhour life without exception. You may believe your job, or your home life, or one of many other things come first. But consider, if you do not get sober and stay sober, chances are you wont have a job, a family, sanity, or even life. If you are convinced that everything in life depends on your sobriety, you have just so much more chance of getting sover and staying sober. If you put other things first you are only hurting your chances.

1-Cultivate continues acceptance of the fact that your choice is between unhappy, drunken drinking and doing without just one small drink.

2-Cultivate enthusiatic gratitude you have had the good fortune of finding out what was wrong with you before it was too late.

3-Expect as being natural and inevitable, that for a period of time, (and it may be a long one) you will recurringly experience:
A-The conscious, nagging craving for a drink
B-The sudden, all but compelling impulse just to take a drink. C-The craving, not for a drink as such, but for the soothing glow and warmth a drink or two once gave you.

4-Remember that the times whey you don’t want a drink are the times in which to build up the strengthnot to take one when you do want it.

5-Develop and rehearse a daily plan of thinking and acting by which you will live that day without taking a drink, regardless of what may upset you or how hard the old urge for a drink may hit you.

6-Don’t for a split second allow yourself to think: “Isnt it a pity or a mean injustice that I cant take a drink like socalled normal people.”

7-Don’t allow yourself to either to think or talk about any real or imagined pleasure you once did get from drinking.

8-Don’t permit yourself to think a drink or two would make some bad situation better, or at least easier to live with. Substitute the thought: “One drink will make it wors, one drink will mean a drunk.”

9-Minimize your situation. Think as you see here or there a blind or other sorely handicapped person, how joyful such a person would be if his problem could be solved by just not taking one little drink today. Think gratefully of how lucky you are to have so simple and small a problem.

10-Cultivate and woo enjoyment of sobriety.
A-How good it is to be free of shame, mortification and self condemnation.
B-How good it is to be free of fear of the consequences of a drunk just ended, or a comng drunk you have never before been able to prevent.
C-How good it is to be free of what people have been thinking and whispering about you, and of their mingled pity and contempt.
D-How good it is to be free of fear of yourself.

11-Catalog and re-catalog the positive enjoyments of sobriety, such as:
A-The simple ability to eat and sleep normally, and wake up glad you are alive, glad you were sober yesterday, and glad you have the privilege of staying sober today.
B-The ability to face whatever life may dish out, with peace of mind, self respect, and a full possession of all your faculties.

12-Cultivate a helpful association of ideas:
A-Associate a drink as being the single cause of all the misery, shame and mortification you have ever known.
B-Associate a drink as being the only thing that can destry your new found happiness, and take from you your self respect and peace of mind.

13-Cultivate gratitude:
A-Gratitude that so muc can be yours for so small a price.
B-Gratitude that you can trade just one drink for all the happiness sobriety fives you.
C-Gratitude that AA exists, and you found out about it in time.
D-Gratitude that you are only a victim of a disease called Alcoholish, that you arent a degenerate, immoral weakling, or the self elected victim of a vice or a person of doubtful sanity.
E-Gratitude that since others have done it, you can in time bring it to pass that you will not want or miss the drink you are doing without.

14-Seek out ways to help other alcoholics, and remember the first way to help others is to stay sober yourself.

15-And don’t forget that when the heart is heavy, and resistence is low and the mind is troubled and confused, there is much comfort in a true and understanding friend standing by you. You have that friend in AA.

[Ranman99]

OK great this is good info. thinking about having some similar thing in town here and we are doing a big book workshop on Sept. 19th and that evening actually a special meeting and sober dance to celebrate 52 years of AA in Singapore.

I must say different priorities this time around finally and sobriety is first and all other falls in place after that. Still have work to do of course one day at a time and will never deny the self destruct button is available but have the tools to keep the cover locked on the little sucker

Ciao,

[garden variety]

Hi Angel and all,

There is a fellow who has many years that I always felt safe and comfortbable around when I was newly sober. He didn't have to speak or anything, it was just his presence that brought about a certain type of peace and security at those times early in sobriety when I hated being an alcoholic.

He taught me one of the most lasting and important lessons in sobriety. I heard him speak one night, and when he said "I have a price tag on my sobriety today. How much am I willing to throw away if I pick up one drink?"

Boy did the light ever go on

PUT A PRICE TAG ON MY SOBRIETY!!!

Today the price is far too high to pay for a single drink. The cost of one drink is far too expensive to consider anymore. I believe this is a major point being made by those "15 points" above.

-The price of freedom is priceless. It's worth any amount of diligence to always stand watch over.
-The cost of relationships is also priceless...especially the cost of a daily working relationship with a God of my understanding. I'm the child of a King. Who could ever provide more to me than my "Heavenly Father" (as Dr. Bob would call Him).
-The cost of today can never be replaced, ever again.

There are many more things that make up the "price tag" on my sobriety, but these are some intangibles that nourish my soul. The problem has always been in my soul. I was a treating spiritual illness with a "chemical solution".

The door to my past is never shut, and I remember what I used to think was "fun" while drinking. Yes there were moments of "pleasure" when I drank, and there were "feelings" that I thought could never be had again. But over time, my drinking always led to the "bad buzz". When I drank, I became angry, bitter, and mean. If you were near me, I was going to be sure to share my bad buzz with you.

It took me about 3 years to stop whining about the lifetime "sentence of alcoholism". I laugh about it today. Three years to "say goodbye" to misery - that's absurd...incredible...tragic. But how many other folks go through the same thing, even for years? In the beginning, I sold myself way too short.

It took a "thourough following" of the path outlined in the book. I discovered that sobriety came to life through the work and action of taking the 12-steps of Alcoholic's Anonymous. Today there are a many more things that make up the "price tag" of my sobriety.

-The cost of joy - something I never knew while drinking.
-The experience of happiness, which is the byproduct of joy and a life well-lived. Without joy, there was no happiness - ever.
-FUN. I can't count how many times in a day that I laugh, sometimes to tears. I never knew how to laugh with another person, or how to laugh at myself.

It was well worth the time it took me to put a price tag on my sobriety. I hope you'll ive it a try.

"If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change"

God bless,
Paul

[angel143]

[Ranman99]

Thanks everyone for these special messages. Truly a gift to have this site because I am more and more stunned each day. I have been spending a bit of time trying to identify why it took me so long and many attempts at AA to finally break on through to the other side. I do this so that when I do share my experience hopefully It will stike a chord with someone suffering in a similar way that I was and the strange part is I was kinda blind sided that the spiritual part of the program was what I could not accept all those years. All about surrender for me anyway.

I was given a gift last night. I went to a hospital speaker meeting last night and after the meeting I was asked if I would speak in two weeks. It is a gift for several reason's. Unbeknownst to the woman who asked she has asked me to speak (and this is the first time I have ever spoken) on the evening of my belly button birthday. Absolutley the best brithday gift I could receive in this point of time.

I have thought over the years about how I would share when given the chance and bottom line was I was usually still so full of lies and misgivings that there would never have been a time that I would have been able to honestly share or speak. Oh I can talk that's part of my problem But I now can start to see the responsibility that I have as part of receiving this gift. Who me? I can not give away what I do not have. Today one day at a time I want to get more that I can give away