Re: Rational Recovery.....to Dave

I am new to this board, and I do not wish to offend. When I posted the cost structure of Moderation Management, I can see now in hindsight that it was somewhat confrontational. I regret that. Let me take this opportunity to make my amends for my part in this matter.

Everyone posting here or posting anywhere else for that matter takes this business of alcoholism seriously. I surely do. I. But I must keep an open mind about this.

Serenity now turned me on to the book Seven Weeks to Sobriety. It is my plan to purchase it and to study it.

When I first came in, the men around the tables told me to keep a bowl of hard candies and a jar of honey at home. The sugars would help with the cravings. They also told me to eat, don’t go around hungry, it’s not a good idea. But that was just about all the nutritional help they had to offer. I shook it out the hard way.

I work with guys who are trying to get and stay sober, and I have a feeling that that book may be of benefit to them. At any rate, I’m going to look into it.

But here comes a little additional dogma from a prattling AAer. I can’t help myself.
Nutrition is important, support from friends and family is important, staying away from people and places where alcohol is being consumed is also a damn good idea. But those things alone don’t have the needed power to keep me sober.

As a sponsor, I tell the men I work with not to rely on me for their sobriety. I will let them down. It’s not that I want to or anything, but I’m just a man, I don’t have the needed power. I tell them not to rely on their job, their wife, their bank account or anything else on God’s green earth to keep them sober.

When I first showed up in my first meeting, I didn’t believe in this higher power stuff. I thought it was weak minded and delusional thinking. Then a man around the tables asked me one simple question, “Do you want to be happy, or do you want to be right?”

I was blessed with the gift of desperation. What I really didn’t want to do was to drink anymore. This AA message is an odd one, it seems to be heard most clearly by the most desperate among us. If a man still has some fight left in him, he will take another run at King Alcohol. But if he is lucky enough to be beaten to his knees, and he just can’t take the pain anymore, then he may be ready.

Your friend as we trudge the happy road,
Shadowalker164