Follow up to the previous Let Go and Let God post about AA slogans (Also see AA Slogans). There is, in fact, a problem with this slogan, or rather its constant recitation in AA. When I walk into a meeting, there are few, if any, who can tell me exactly how to let go and how let God.

     Even more disappointing is that there may be no one in the room who has done so himself.

    That poster of the 12 Steps that hangs on the wall is not the Twelve Steps. It is a summary. The detailed instructions are inside the Big Book, even though hoards of AA ‘members’ aren’t really sure what’s in the book other than a few stories. Others think the Big Book is just something you win in the raffle at the end of the meeting.

     Nothing could be further from the truth.

     Find someone who has taken Steps (as they are laid out in Alcoholics Anonymous) and has recovered. That’s the guy you want to follow. That is real sponsorship. It’s not going out bowling on Friday or talking on the phone when you feel like drinking. As if a phone conversation is going to stop us once we are hit with the mental obsession. Joke. If a fundamental principle of AA tells us that we are beyond human aid, when did it become acceptable to think that a phone call can keep us sober? This is why I’m not so sure how many folks in AA are really alcoholics, as apparently they can stop on their own self-will.

God, teach us that action, not empty words, colorful stories and group therapy, is what keeps us sober…