Big Book Study: Promises of Recovery (Part 15 of 15)

SPEAKER_1 (0:06)

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Chris (0:28)

My name is Chris, and I am an alcoholic. It has been quite a pleasure coming up here to Montclair and putting together the team of people who have come up and shared of their experience, strength, and hope. And, you know, I'm always thrilled to participate and quite honored when asked to do these things. And we hope that, you know, we've brought a message of depth and weight and hope up with us from the Bernersville area. You know, before I bring up tonight's two speakers, we're going to end with a bang with two wonderful, wonderful guys, Ian and Jonathon. I've known them for a long time. And Ian is quite possibly the most generous person I've met in Alcoholics Anonymous. With his time, with whatever he has, he's always there for people. Jonathon has done the extraordinary job of putting a website together for our home group, where people actually listen to our meetings around the world on this website. And I get emails from, you know, Australia and Europe asking questions about certain things. And it's really made it, it's really, it's done a lot of good for carrying the message. And, you know, these two guys are very, very good friends of mine.

One of the saddest things to happen in Alcoholics Anonymous, and through looking back on it, it's hard to pinpoint exactly what went wrong or when it went wrong. But somewhere after the 40s or in the 40s or in the 50s, I'm not even really sure.

The emphasis on the program of recovery started to be eclipsed by the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. And that's a great thing unless you're in real trouble with alcoholism. Meeting-based sobriety is, even the book says, it's a far cry from permanent recovery. The whole point of the AA textbook in Alcoholics Anonymous is permanent recovery.

In this day and age, it's become all too prevalent to have revolving door type of things going on in AA, to have people relapsing and staying a year or two, going back out, going back into treatment, coming back, not really feeling the place is right, and not getting anything, still feeling terrible. And it's really a crime because that's not necessary.

Adherence to the original recovery process as it's laid out in the book Alcoholics Anonymous ensures permanent recovery. Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. And it's very, very clear about what that path is. And that path is not doing 90 and 90 till the cows come home. That path is working the 12 steps. Paying the money back. Praying and meditating. Working with other people.

Inventorying your resentments and your fears and your harms on a continuing basis. Something that not a lot of us are real thrilled about. When I first showed up in AA and it would be a step meeting, you'd hear somebody go, you know, if they would have told you I had to do all those steps when I came in, I would have been right out the door. And again, I would have to ask, you know, would anybody care really if you went right out the door, you know? You know, what do you really bring in to this group? Just of any value. But I don't judge, so I don't say things like that, you know. I'm very tolerant and accepting of all.

But anyway, one of the things that's very, very important to understand about the recovery process is, if you take away my alcohol and you tell me to just suck it up, put the plug in the jug, and don't drink a day at a time, that ain't good enough for me. If you're going to take away the thing that I've been using to escape my emotion, the emotional travesty of my life, if you're going to take that away, you better have something to give me in return. You better, or else I'm just going to find sobriety untenable. Like 80% of the people who come in, they find sobriety untenable because they don't engage in the thing that will give them what they were looking for in booze in the first place. And you get that from practicing the steps. Now, I don't know of another progressively fatal illness in the world that has like 160 promises. If you engage in the treatment for this progressively fatal illness, you will receive these unbelievable promises. It truly is remarkable. We have a great deal in Alcoholics Anonymous. It's the best deal out there for alcoholics. You either die an alcoholic death, live life along spiritual lines, and if you're living life along spiritual lines, there are some amazing things that are going to be happening to you in your life. If you find that sobriety is just kind of like a long, slow, trudge every single day, and there's just not a lot of quality in your life, and things are always going wrong, and you're always depressed and everything, you're doing it wrong.