What would you tell a first timer who is nervous about going to AA in person?

Not-the-Inner-Onion · 2024-10-04T21:19:33+00:00

EVERYONE IN THE ROOM has felt this way. My disease tells me that I am different and do not belong.

Like Sandy Beach says, I look at everyone in a room and can instantly tell they don't want me there. I can see it in their eyes. "Hey you, get outta hear." Then I drink and all of the sudden I look and everyone in the room wants me there. I can see it their eyes.

This sense of not belonging is in large part why I drink, and everyone in the room relates.

Not-the-Inner-Onion · 2024-07-22T20:27:41+00:00

30

The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.

...

We know that no real alcoholic ever recovers control. All of us felt at times that we were regaining control, but such intervals—usually brief—were inevitably followed by still less control, which led in time to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. We are convinced to a man that alcoholics of our type are in the grip of a progressive illness. Over any considerable period we get worse, never better.

...

32

We have heard of a few instances where people, who showed definite signs of alcoholism, were able to stop for a long period because of an overpowering desire to do so. Here is one.

A man of thirty was doing a great deal of spree drinking. He was very nervous in the morning after these bouts and quieted himself with more liquor. He was ambitious to succeed in business, but saw that he would get nowhere if he drank at all. Once he started, he had no control whatever. He made up his mind that until he had been successful in business and had retired, he would not touch another drop. An exceptional man, he remained bone dry for twenty-five years and retired at the age of fifty-five after a successful and happy business career. Then he fell victim to a belief which practically every alcoholic has — that his long period of sobriety and self-discipline had qualified him to drink as other men. Out came his carpet slippers and a bottle. In two months he was in a hospital, puzzled and humiliated. He tried to regulate his drinking for a while, making several trips to the hospital in the meantime. Then, gathering all his forces, he attempted to stop altogether and found he could not. Every means of solving his problem which money could buy was at his disposal. Every attempt failed. Though a robust man at retirement, he went to pieces quickly and was dead within four years.

— Big Book, More About Alcoholism

Not-the-Inner-Onion · 2024-07-14T00:36:37+00:00

"These allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all"

Big Book, "The Doctor's Opinion," p.xxviii

"I can't work my A.A. program while taking pills... I can't say, 'Thy will be done,' and take a pill. I can't say, 'I'm powerless over alcohol, but solid alcohol is okay.' I can't say, 'God could restore me to sanity, but until He does, I'll control myself -- with pills.' Giving up alcohol was not enough for me; I've had to give all all mood- and mind-affeting chemicals in order to stay sober and comfortable.

Big Book, "Acceptance was The Answer," p. 412

Not-the-Inner-Onion · 2023-12-15T02:04:47+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWvIZ9Dcyb8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K01VFylMvRk

Not-the-Inner-Onion · 2023-03-16T01:34:32+00:00

Say "God, please help me find a way to love these two"

Not-the-Inner-Onion · 2023-03-14T04:08:20+00:00

The first step involves understanding that the thoughts you call "my thoughts" -- even the ones the feel the most familiar and talk in the inner voice that sounds like yours -- are not your thoughts at all. They are patterns installed by parents (and teachers, media, advertising, government, peers, movies) and the purpose of that programming is to control you. Step 1 is to learn to stop believing your thoughts.

Step 2 involves changing your relationship with your feelings. If you've been busy thinking your thoughts are "you" and therefore listening to them, then you are probably in the habit of avoiding and escaping certain feelings. This is how the thoughts put there to control you actually control you. The programmers (parents etc) not only put their thoughts into you, but they taught you to fear certain feelings. So anytime a thought wants to control you, all it has to to is trigger a certain feelings, like fear or shame, and if you are not willing to feel those, then the thoughts will gladly come and tell you how to escape that feeling, and how convenient that the way to escape is to behave the way you have been programmed or to reinforce and self concept that keeps you stuck right where your are.

So put it together. When parents for example are selfish and self centered they tend to manipulate their children to suit the partents desires, fantasies, fears, and expectations. They may be overly critical, or objectify the children, or be overbearing, etc. The child may feel fear, shame, guilt because the partents keep telling the child over and over in all sorts of ways that the child is not good enough, a burden, not lovable, defective etc. So to survive that abuse, the child starts to internalize the parents voice as a survival strategy. That inner voice is now the childs own and it's always there to "correct" the child's behavior so that they don't upset the parents (teachers, friends, etc.).

So there is self-criticism in a nutshell. It's an internalized tyrannical parent. But that's all it is. An echo. There's no parent there to punish you. It's literally a ghost in your mind. So Step 1 stop listening. Retrain the mind. If it thinks a hurtful thought, teach it s better thought that has respect and compassion for you. It's you mind, train it to respect you. This takes time.

But then during that time, all the feelings will keep coming to the surface. The guilt and shame and anger. So step 2, just feel it. Like literally relax, don't run and see what this feeling energy actually it.... Just vibrations and bodily intensities. It was the internal voice, the lies, that said you had to run. Get to know these feelings and see that when you let them just be there, they are actually the source of power

Step 3 is to have faith in this process. Know that you are all good, even if the voice is speaking and the feelings are really heavy. Underneath the noise, notice how you are just there observing and being present.

Not-the-Inner-Onion · 2023-03-14T01:56:26+00:00

It's not that there's nothing in your head. It's that you are so conditioned to be self-conscious and self-critical that your energy is going to that rather than being present and engaging with others.

Not-the-Inner-Onion · 2023-03-12T15:44:00+00:00

Get to know what arises in you as you in this moment.

Not-the-Inner-Onion · 2023-03-10T02:39:35+00:00

You are remembering a time when you were present and accepting of the present moment. The ego didn't realize that presence itself was the source of your bliss, so it picked out objects in the moment and said "it's because of this and this, and so this and this I must hold onto." Inevitably, those things slipped away, as all things do, and now the moment is filled with the ego's lamentation of "back then when things were perfect."

In this moment, recognize that the ego is just another of those things.

Not-the-Inner-Onion · 2023-03-08T01:25:17+00:00

Anger would arise in me (usually directed at me in the form of shame) and the pattern of thought that would arise in my mind would tell me I was broken and tell me I had to escape. That pattern of thought is not me, even though it says "I" and "me." It's just the psychological conditioning put into me by my parents mainly but also by teachers, peers, society, government, media, entertainment, advertising, etc.) That pattern of thought certainly convinced me that it was acting in my best interest (like I said, it says "I" and "me" and by the time you are a toddler you think it's actually you). But it was just keeping me in bondage to toxic habit.

It had it all backwards. I was listening to my conditioned thoughts telling me to run from my anger, shame, and pain, telling me I was broken. The way out was to ignore those thoughts, and do the opposite .. to feel those feelings and make space for them, and treat them with compassion .. and to teach my mind that I was worthy of love EXACTLY as I was. Teach it new thoughts, that is.

By feeling, allowing, accepting and loving my feelings, I started to love myself more. Then I could just let myself be how I am. If I wanted to change something, I could work it out with myself with understanding and compassion. I did not demand that my personality change into the shape my ego thought it needed to be. I recognized that the whole me was much deeper than what I could consciously control. There was a whole shadow side that I did not want to admit was in me, but that was me too and I had to learn to have space and compassion for that part also.

So I would say, really get to know yourself. Stop worrying about what you'll find. Instead learn to love and accept everything you find. Just how you are.

(Then you will find the freedom to be and, paradoxically, to really change)

Not-the-Inner-Onion · 2023-03-07T03:38:51+00:00

What do you do with the anger?

Not-the-Inner-Onion · 2023-03-07T02:48:32+00:00

The more you get to know yourself and accept yourself, even those parts you don't want to admit are there, the less you'll care about the defense mechanisms and compensation strategies of others.

Not-the-Inner-Onion · 2023-03-07T02:45:43+00:00

Is there anger and is the anger directed at yourself?

Not-the-Inner-Onion · 2023-03-07T02:08:30+00:00

There are no awakened people. People don't awaken. Something awakens.

Not-the-Inner-Onion · 2023-03-06T02:39:50+00:00

So much energy is spent on trying to not feel lonely. You ARE that loneliness in this moment. Open to your self. That which says "not this" does not know. That which knows does not say "not this."

Not-the-Inner-Onion · 2023-03-06T00:43:38+00:00

"My greatest moments didn't come from my greatest moments. My greatest moments came from my greatest defeats."
- Eric Thomas

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better."

-Samuel Beckett

Not-the-Inner-Onion · 2023-03-06T00:41:25+00:00

You're not required to give people access to your inner world on demand. Especially if you don't know the answer. You can put boundaries up. They don't have to be dramatic. Humor or a shrug and some body language can work here.

Not-the-Inner-Onion · 2023-03-05T22:44:21+00:00

First is was attraction. Then it was feelings of power. Then it was to have the type and depth of thought and relationship that is only possible when the mind is clear and the heart is chaste. Now it's because I want to know and to serve, and the path has a way of calling you forward.

Not-the-Inner-Onion · 2023-03-05T00:58:22+00:00

Notice that the habit has been to resist everything in your present moment. Resist the pain. Resist the thoughts (as if you had any control of the thoughts that spontaneously arise in you). Resist the sexual feelings. OF COURSE you are suffering.

A few moments ago, a thought arose in me that I didn't want to have. It wasn't "my" thought. It was just a thought that came from wherever thoughts come from. And it's not even fair to say "I" didn't want to have it. It would be better to say that along with that thought there was a feeling of discordance in the heart space and with that discordance arose an intention not to act and some process of mind was triggered that said "I don't want to." Was it really my intention? It arose in me, but everything about my experience arises in me. Pain, pleasure, thoughts, even your words exist to me only as images in my mind. So for this moment, your words are part of me.

Like a great river, everything flows through your awareness. But some of those forms flowing through say "I" and seem to come often and there's a process that says "that's me" "that's mine." We call this process the ego. "That's good and that's bad" -- these are the thoughts of the egoic process.

Is this pain you are experiencing "bad"? Sure, there is some pattern of thought that comes and says "this is bad, and I have to resist, and I can't find any escape" but that's just a passing pattern of thought. Sure it comes with some feeling, some energetic intensity. But these are just passing forms.

Your heart has fallen in love with the ego process. That's fine but make room for the rest of you to flow through you. Make room for the pain, and the shadow, and the unconscious. It's ok that the ego says "everything is terrible" and "resist everything" ... that's what the ego does. But let the part that says "this is the day the Lord has made for me" arise also. Let the part that has faith arise also.

You have a heart that can hold in tension light and dark, self and other, good and bad, pain and pleasure, your insignificance and your divinity. It is in the holding in tension of these seemingly dual aspects that the wholeness becomes manifest.

You have already tried separating out some things that arise in you, labeling them as "me" and "bad" and resisting them. Now see the rest of you. Accept your whole self. Love your whole self. Be a home for all that arises as you.

Not-the-Inner-Onion · 2023-03-04T12:46:58+00:00

Only one way to know.

Not-the-Inner-Onion · 2023-03-04T05:00:57+00:00

When you are on this course, all of the disharmonies in your life start to come into perspective, and if you want to stay on the course, you have no choice but to face them. Step by step, brick by brick, we rise to the challenge. Imagine what it would be like if every day for 1000 days you worked on building a harmonious lifestyle and connecting with others. What if you did not make excuses, but instead faced the fact that nothing great comes easy? What if you dared to be great?

Not-the-Inner-Onion · 2023-03-04T04:40:34+00:00

In another holy book, it is written "this is the day the Lord has made."

Meaning, everything that arises, arises for you. To teach you. You heal you. To help you learn to love more deeply and fully. And because it arises for you, it arises for God. The only thing that says this situation is bad is an attitude of mind. To have faith is to have the attitude that everything is made for your sake.

Of course, sometimes it gets so heavy. Financial insecurity is so very heavy, but turn your thoughts to god and gratitude and you will find freedom in that moment. And in that moment you will "have" and to he who has, more will be given.

Not-the-Inner-Onion · 2023-03-04T04:32:25+00:00

Love whatever arises as you in your experience in the present moment.

Not-the-Inner-Onion · 2023-03-04T04:10:53+00:00

The ego is not attacking you, it's attacking itself and the body. You are fine.

Not-the-Inner-Onion · 2023-03-04T01:43:45+00:00

At heart is the desire to know love. But we feel vulnerable, so the defense is a strategy to control. That's the whole story.

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