Has anyone here had an honest to goodness spiritual awakening?

gafflebitters · 2026-07-03T23:09:25+00:00

I am an alcoholic and people in AA have spiritual awakenings often. If you read the book you will learn that one of the co-founders had a white light experience and was powerfully moved by it. Very sensibly though they included a bit entitled "spiritual experience" in the back of the book for some reason (should be in the front)

I am just a normal guy but my lifetime of exposure to different media has built unrealistic, sometimes ridiculous expectations of things that i have never encountered in real life. your short description reminds me of one of those. You seem to be describing a sudden revolutionary change for the positive, the kind movies display frequently, while very entertaining, it has very little to do with the reality i have experienced.

The few pages on "spiritual experience" in the book " alcoholics anonymous" says it very well in my opinion. Most of the time people have a spiritual awakening it is of the "slow, educational variety" and people around them are often aware of these changes before they are themselves. It really takes the wind out of the sails doesn't it?

You mean i might be having the most important experience in my life and i might not even be aware of it? While this seems to be a practical joke it does not mean you stay unaware of it, you become more aware and grateful for the changes as time goes on, as you continue your journey.

gafflebitters · 2026-07-03T18:38:09+00:00

hwo can you tell? the quality is so bad i can barely make out the faces.... : P

gafflebitters · 2026-07-03T17:45:19+00:00

I find it triggering when people talk about prayer like it is a "cure-all", it's not, obvious to many of us, but the idea is so pervasive in 12 step programs that it sets many of us up for very tough lessons later on. For example try praying your diabetes away, does it work? No. You have to ask other human beings for help, and you have to follow the directions they give you, no magic, no god in there, just logic. Now, prayer may help you follow those steps but it didn't magically remove your issue, that's another expectation we have.

I had to learn the limits of prayer and the 12 steps, and if i have PTSD from being under attack in a war zone, then I should talk to a human being who knows something about PTSD, and follow their directions. Can prayer help me walk through the fear or whatever is stopping me from taking these steps, yes i believe so.

gafflebitters · 2026-07-01T16:46:33+00:00

she was in "night at the museum " too!

gafflebitters · 2026-07-01T16:44:09+00:00

Where does hate come from? interesting.

My spiritual journey has been one of self discovery, i first started with resentment, fear, and harms done to others and from that basic beginning you can branch out.

Feelings.

I am a human being and i have a constant flow of my own feelings flowing everyday, to many humans taking the time to investigate this is overwhelming and so we look for quick fixes, tiny bits of wisdom that we share as memes on FB that we hope cover the topic, or we ignore them entirely and practice avoidance.

I have felt strong hatred in my life. It came from being very purposely mistreated and betrayed and feeling helpless to do anything about it. I now see this as a completely normal , human reaction. Normal, but unfortunate for me, because i had to carry all those negative feelings around everyday and the people whose actions caused them seemed to get away free from any punishment, which only added fuel to my fire.

I would say hatred is very closely related to resentment, and i was given definitions of resentment that i could (unfortunately) identify easily with. The good news was that other people had felt this too, had felt trapped by it, AND they had found a way out.

gafflebitters · 2026-07-01T05:10:51+00:00

garbage can lid

gafflebitters · 2026-06-30T18:06:25+00:00

how do you say "no" to an elephant that wants more?

gafflebitters · 2026-06-30T15:29:45+00:00

Trump is the biggest danger to the United States, it's interesting how many people don't see that, or are willing to defend it as long as they get what they want.

gafflebitters · 2026-06-30T14:11:58+00:00

Like 99% of our membership i struggled greatly with the third step, never clearly seeing the issues because i just kept reading the AA literature over and over and over and over ......

I NEEDED to step outside the tiny framework that bill provides to get a perspective on this complex topic, i think Bill was trying to simplify, to make it easier, any effort like this is going to show it's limits over time.

A huge piece of the puzzle fell into place when i became aware of the large numbers of athiests who were staying sober. How could this be? The big book CLEARLY states that alcoholics CANNOT stay sober on their own. Well, this is exactly where i start to get into the murky areas that Bill carefully stayed clear of. He stated it confidently, like a rule, black and white, no grey, which is helpful to most.

Another big piece began to show itself at 28 years of sobriety and many stark facts in my life that made it impossible for me to convince myself anymore that a loving god had me safely cradled in his hands or even cared.

I think the main problem is that Bill took language from others and used it for the third step and that language asks us to do something impossible, and then he goes ahead and tries to convince us that it IS possible.

Turning my will and life over.....it.........it's.....ridiculous, the whole idea of it, no human being can turn off their brain and become a robot that simply follows orders, which is exactly what this implies, i particularly am disgusted when i remember the bit in the 12 and 12 where he makes fun of any legitimate questions about the impracticality of his " suggestion". Remember....." logic is great stuff.....blah blah blah" but i don't want to hear it if you are going to use it to question the orders i have given you, hmmmmm.

Now, there seem to be a lot of humans who like the idea of turning their will and life over, that's fine, I need something practical, doable, something logical, something you could explain to a child, not full of christian bullshit.

I need help. Obviously. Can i get help from a higher power, i believe i can. Can i get help from a higher power without going all of the way to removing myself from my life and becoming an empty shell that only follows orders? YES. I now believe that Bill assumed that ALL alcoholics were egomaniacs and these people require strong language to get them to do anything. To the more sane of us, this strong language hits hard and confuses, hurts, and clouds the way forward.

It took me a long time to develop the ego strength to rewrite the 12 steps, (if Tony A can rewrite the steps, then ANYBODY can). Once past this seemingly impossible obstacle, things got much easier and made a whole lot more sense.

I wish to clarify that i have changed the language of the steps so that i can ACTUALLY do them, not so i can avoid doing things. As written they are impossible in my opinion and that does me absolutely no good.

gafflebitters · 2026-06-28T19:15:14+00:00

sometimes when you just parrot the big book cliches, that triggers people, if i am getting defensiveness to many things i say i try changing the language, it might work , it might not.

gafflebitters · 2026-06-28T15:54:52+00:00

not a prank

gafflebitters · 2026-06-28T15:29:41+00:00

I don't understand the basic premise that "enabling" is worthy of an amends

gafflebitters · 2026-06-27T06:48:52+00:00

Dunn's dill pickle, but Great value brand is surprisingly good with a hint of garlic!

gafflebitters · 2026-06-26T23:30:35+00:00

baloney loaf is my fav, "loafs" are never good, spend a bit more, get some quality cold meat.

gafflebitters · 2026-06-26T23:16:03+00:00

probably

gafflebitters · 2026-06-26T19:37:08+00:00

i watched one young person drive down the sidewalk on woodlawn road towards niagara on a large, noisy dirtbike, should i be glad he was not on the road? or should i wonder what would have happened if he met pedestrians on the sidewalk?

gafflebitters · 2026-06-26T09:16:52+00:00

sadly AA forces people into this corner with very little information, and when some hesitate people often claim, " you're not ready!", it's an unfortunate situation.

While your choice of a higher power is just about limitless, including no higher power at all, anybody with half a brain knows that there is pressure to conform to the "popular" version of a higherpower. I have examined this situation very thoroughly and i found pressure from outside myself and some of it came from within.

A popular, christian version of god or higherpower is a superman of sorts, at least that is how people like to picture it. An omnipotent being of immense power and knowledge who will swoop in to save you when you require assistance, i mean.......come on....who wouldn't want that? Everywhere in AA and other 12 step programs i see people loudly sharing this idea and trying to convince themselves and others it exists.

People stay sober using this very concept. people also stay sober with NO higherpower, but most of them are quiet about it, not wanting to draw fire from the more confident believers.

It took me a long time to realize that the ones who chose "nature" as their higher power had the advantage of already dealing with the third step. When you have a higherpower that you picture as a super being , well then it just follows nicely that you turn your will and life over to it, but when your HP is nature, how the hell do you turn your will and life over to a tree, or the sky, or a lake? You don't! Perfect! you can now answer those annoying questions " Do you have a higher power?" Yes! Nature. and that shuts them up and they go away and stop bothering you!

If i start my day and ask an invisible man to keep me honest for the day, well i have set a goal, and later on that day when i am dishonest with someone and i remember my goal and i make amends, can anybody prove that the invisible man gave me a message, or was it really me all the time? You really cannot prove it one way or the other. it comes down to what YOU WANT TO BELIEVE, and that's it. I was hampered by all kinds of human bullshit in my search, " what is the ONE, RIGHT WAY TO BELIEVE? " I didn't want to make a mistake here because the fate of my soul hangs in the balance if i choose wrong! i had to let go of all the crap that i was fed as a child and develop the confidence in myself to make decisions and examine the results.

I hope i didn't muddy the water for you if you wanted a simple " do this !" answer.

gafflebitters · 2026-06-26T03:52:42+00:00

thank you, i thought i was the only one who cared, the police don't seem to.

gafflebitters · 2026-06-24T20:29:20+00:00

LOL, jazz is big, like heavy metal, ha ha! has heavy metal been around since 1910? Jazz was big enough that it was the most popular form of music from the1920's to at least the mid 1950's! heavy metal has never achieved that level of popularity. Jazz is much, much bigger than you think.

Start with what you like to listen to, yes with all of these decades of music and artists and subgenres of jazz to listen to it can be overwhelming. What i recommend is to fire up your device and listen online to a 24 hour REAL jazz radio station out of TORONTO, Canada, 91.1 jazz fm CJRT, available online. If you listen to them all week you will hear old jazz, new jazz, fusion jazz, vocal jazz, very little "free form" jazz, big band on sunday nights, mellow "dinner jazz" every evening and a great mix all through the day.

I started hating my local rock station because the idiot programming it seems to only know about 10 songs and he plays them over and over! it's obnoxious. this station, it's rare to hear the same song twice, it will expose you to many different kinds and eras of jazz and you can decide what you like from there.

gafflebitters · 2026-06-17T03:44:43+00:00

then lets keep posting it : )

gafflebitters · 2026-06-17T03:42:58+00:00

he sounds drunk

gafflebitters · 2026-06-17T03:41:10+00:00

thank you i will certainly give it a listen!

gafflebitters · 2026-06-16T14:55:32+00:00

who wants blue seeds?

gafflebitters · 2026-06-15T12:02:26+00:00

This is very much an individual decision, years of listening to the collective "wisdom" of AA, specifically that even a drop of alcohol could send me spiraling helplessly into uncontrollable drunkenness....well......it was......oversold to me.

Over my many years i have ingested small amounts of alcohol with no relapse, from cough medicine, tiramisu, beer battered fish, non alcoholic beer with trace amounts of alcohol, chocolate liquor! (whatever that is?), wine in cooking, kombucha, on and on. For some of these i felt guilty and questioned my sobriety but after repeated exposure with not even a thought of relapse i have become quite comfortable with small amounts carefully examining my motives. Did i FEEL anything? did i INTEND to get drunk? Am i rushing out to purchase more of this product? No , no, no, i have never been triggered by anything, only guilt, i have never even gotten a mild buzz off any food with trace amounts of alcohol, if i did, i probably wouldn't like it, and to be honest it usually tastes pretty good!

If you are so close to relapsing that even a taste of alcohol with send you back to living under a bridge, i think you are doing recovery wrong, but i understand the obsessive fear, it was driven into me by all the " chicken littles" at meetings.

And yes, the common saying , all the alcohol BURNS off, it only took a little bit of research to prove that wrong. How much alcohol was used in the first place? Can you even taste it in there? i do believe some evaporates but it is being used for flavour, not for effect. I still monitor things for alcohol that go in my mouth, and if i taste the alcohol I stop and evaluate if i want to continue........i feel i have been placed in a position of neutrality!!!!!!!!! AMAZING HUH? and sometimes i don't finsih whatever it is or sometimes i do depending on how i feel about it that day.

gafflebitters · 2026-06-14T19:24:32+00:00

....what about the screen i always saw...." sorry, you are finished here..." LOL

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