Category Archives: 12 Steps

Why The Steps Work

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     The Steps give us enough things to do to always be working on ourselves. Between inventory, amends, prayer, meditation, heping others and working with addicts, we can almost constantly work on ourselves, if we choose. In fact, this is why the Steps work. But the trick is we have to push ourselves at every chance to take action. And more importantly, we have to push ourselves to take RIGHT action.

     That means we must learn to distinguish between actions that are useful and result in real growth, change and spiritual evolution, and useless actions that yield few to no results whatsoever. Relatively useless actions include meetings, individual or group therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, taking methadone or suboxone, taking psychotropics, having shock therapy, going to outpatient programs, engaging in role play and relapse prevention, taking herbs and homeopathy, relying on friends, family, coffee pots, sobriety chips, sober dances or that ridiculous book sold on cable TV, and last but not least, going to cushy and insanely over-priced treatment centers that serve tenderloin and swedish massages. Sorry, but useful actions are of a somewhat different nature… a spiritual nature. That’s because the solution to addiction is not man-made.
     Since addicts need to be told what to do, the Twelve Steps as they are laid out in the Big Book tell us what to do. They provide the tools we need to recover from our insanity, expel the spiritual poison that has brought us down, and establish an appropriate relationship with HIM. The solution is to use these tools to access the power of God, which if harnessed, is capable of anything. There is not one single addict on the face of the planet, regardless of how hopeless and toothless they may be, who God cannot make sane and free from addiction.

     Please don’t be fooled by any of the above mentioned half measures or false solutions. Other false (or in this case fake/scam) solutions include jokers such as Narconon, for a paltry fee of $15,000. For that you get to take a sauna and even get to keep their ‘life skills’ workbook, courtesy of some fabulously clever marketers and advertisers in L. Ron Hubbard and company. How do people fall for this stuff???

     Please also note that methadone and suboxone are simply forms of synthetic heroin, minus the acetic acid, or rather, the process of acetylation. All three drugs are morphine-based and thus derive from the same drug class. Methadone and suboxone are extremely dangerous. The notion of harm-reduction is a deceptive hoax that takes advantage of vulnerable addicts and parents in order to sell drugs. Drug sales are the incentive, not fixing addicts. In fact, you and I are being forced to pay for the distribution of methadone, as many of these ‘clinics’ are subsidized by tax dollars. The system is so broken, corrupt, idiotic and Godless, it hurts.

God, please help us distinguish between remedies and solutions…

AA Sponsorship

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     What is sponsorship?

     Is it approaching some newbie at an AA meeting and telling them that they need a sponsor and that you’re the man to do it? Is it then dragging your sponsee to AA meetings day after day after day? Is it calling your sponsee on Saturday night to make sure he isn’t drinking? Or is it fielding frantic and desperate phone calls from your sponsee as he teeters on the edge outside of a bar? Is it providing a social structure for your sponsee by taking him out for dinner, a movie, or some bowling? Is it telling your sponsee where to work, who to be with, or what friends they should have? Is it getting all militant and beating the shit out of him? Better yet, is it telling your sponsee what kind of clothes to wear? Is sponsorship determining what colored socks to wear on Monday? Sure that may sound ridiculous, but it’s just as ridiculous as all the other useless actions I just mentioned.

     Sponsorship is NONE of the above. Watered down, modern AA has spawned all sorts of new ideas and norms about what sponsorship is. Hollywood has well-defined the slew of AA cliches – the meeting room, the sob stories, the group prayer, and the sponsor who calls you when you’re in trouble. Sorry to say that none of these things have much to do with Alcoholics Anonymous, which was originally nothing more than a series of spiritual actions designed to restore the addict to sanity by accessing the power of God, or Spiritual Power, if you like. It is a way to God – nothing more, or rather less.

     The 12 Steps was the sole program of AA – a rigorous and life-changing set of actions to heal ourselves from deep within. An enormous amount of work is necessary to extract the life-detsroying character defects that sabotage all good things in life. The work continues as we make amends to all who we have harmed. We take Steps to prepare us for our new life of purpose, the purpose of helping others who still suffer. If all we did was to sit there in meetings, make some coffee, be the treasurer and pass out sobriety coins, we remain untreated, insane, and a threat to every newcomer who walks through the door. Why suffer? Why struggle through each day when there is a solution?

     Sponsorship is very simple. It is one person who has taken Steps and recovered taking another addict through the Steps as they are laid out in the Big Book. That person must be willing to change and grow along spiritual lines. Our job as sponsors is to hook the sponsee up to God and then get out of the way. Nothing more. I take them through the first 7 Steps, guide them with their first few amends and then they should be on their way.

     It is not my job to be their friend or to listen to them blab on all night about their feelings or struggles, allowing them to validate themselves as some sort of victim. It is definitely not my job to call them. If you want to get better, then it is you who have to call me and I’ll tell you what I did. Nothing more. And by the way, your feelings don’t matter. I don’t really care how you feel. Sound harsh? Well, it’s really not so harsh when you think that our pathological focus on ourselves and our feelings, our constant engagement with self-pity is the exact thing preventing us from getting better.

     Holding on by a thread is not AA. AA is a set of spiritual tools that we can use to build a foundation of strength, peace and freedom. We can be forever rid of the mental obsession, the insanity before a relapse. There are no such things as cravings. There are no such things as triggers. We are either okay or not okay, recovered or recovering, sane or insane. There is no in between. Same with sponsorship.

God, Make me a better man today…