(107 votes)
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“No matter how truthful the words of my message, there could be no deep communication if what I said and did was colored by pride, arrogance, intolerance, resentment, imprudence, or desire for personal acclaim — even though I was largely unconscious of these attitudes.”
AA Co-Founder, Bill W., July 1960, “The Language of the Heart”, The Language of the Heart
What an ego! Not impressed.
To all that don’t know,your sponsor is not God.Baltimore
Chris R. said it! If i aint talking about God, the program in the bigbook, the 12 steps, and my personal experience? Then what the fuck should i be talking about! Huh? My sponsor told me the same thing his sponsor told him! “Work the steps or die mutha-fucker! You aint drunk now”. “The elevator is broken, take the damn steps” the answers are in the bigbook! He also say’s, “what does the bigbook say?”
Okay good,but the language is bad
You should have let that language stay in the bar…Baltimore
Yepper great wisdom
I see the program really brought you peace and joy. Nice language. “Hey man, this is a serious disease, so I’m gonna give it to you straight, bad language and all.” That’s how it usually goes. Back to Chris R, who I can tell hangs out in the same bar with you. He is not sharing his personal experience. He did not share his personal experience in this talk. He shared a bunch of vague nonsense, then quoted a bunch of lines I can read in the book myself. It’s great that his conception of god can relieve his depression, but it can’t relieve childhood cancer. He obviously never had real depression, which is not treated with god. AA helps, but it takes a lot more. General sadness and melancholy is helped with self reflection, fellowship, and action in the steps. I don’t hear a guy who is happy, joyous and free in this recording. He seems to think he has everyone down in the rooms. He knows who the real alcoholics are in the rooms. Really? What were those things that were disturbing that he drank over? No, they didn’t make him an alcoholic, but maybe he could have helped someone in the rooms who is not enlightened as Mr. R. So to answer your question animal, share your experience, strength, and hope – that’s what you talk about. How has the program helped you in your family? What do you do now that you didn’t do while drinking? Share the joy in your life, rather than the misery that causes you to write the things you did. I get it, that’s all stuff old time sponsors said. I had one myself, but he died of emphysema from chain smoking. His daughter hated him, even though he was a highly respected AA member who knew the BB cover to cover. A friend in the program who is also a psychologist told me guys like that just took their obsession and put it into an unhealthy clinging to every word in the book. The latter won’t kill you, but you’re certainly not attractive.
I am a chemical dependency counselor, an food addict, Christian, and found the 12 step program in 1975: While my personality is nothing like Chris R, (I found him today because I wanted to encourage myself over my sons drinking), I heard something that is missing in me: I don’t sponsor people because I make all the mistakes Chris talks about. I try to counsel, be a friend, helper, but I NEVER JUST KEEP IT TO THE 12 STEPS as the SPIRITUAL solution to the addiction: I created my own FOUR PHASE program but haven’t started that either because I get weary with people since I don’t know how to keep focused with them: THANK YOU CHRIS: I think I just found that last key that will help me help others: BE UP FRONT, let them know what your goal is (Spiritual experience with the 12 steps) and if they have other problems, help them look into counseling and if they need friends, encourage them to make friends in the program and if you happen to become their friend too, great. It just isn’t the goal of the program if you want to help others get that Spiritual experience based on the 12 steps; Sponsors are not God and they are not guaranteed friends and they may never be able to counsel you about anything else: BUT if you want what they have which is sobriety, then they need to tell you what they did to get it. If they can’t tell you then they don’t have anything to share based on this program: I think its just a matter of keeping things strait and knowing our limitations as well as OUR EXPERIENCE STRENGTH and HOPE. I love the program because there are so many kinds of people, but they can all have a testimony of one thing in common: HOW they found sobriety through that spiritual experience based on the 12 step program:
A long but on-point comment Yvonne…