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Thought to Consider. . . When brimming with gratitude, one's heartbeat must surely result in outgoing love, . . . AS BILL SEES IT, p. 37 |
What’s Love got to do with it?
Wow guys what a great topic for everyone to share on this month!
I hope everyone is having a great holiday season this year. If you’re not, please keep coming back so you may experience happy days again & help others to do the same. I just got a break from the madness, long enough to write to you all.
As you all may or may not know (depending how OLD you are), the great singer Tina Turner had put out a great hit song back in the 80’s by the name of the very title of this newsletter. By the way, that question she posed in that lil’ diddy is a most intriguing & perplexing one, & one that eluded me for years, (by my own self will & lack of God). You may find yourself at a crossroads where you’re wondering that same thing – maybe you’ve discovered God’s Love again or for the first time. Maybe you still rest a little in between, straddling the fence of self assurance. No matter where you are tonight, I can only carry my experience to you & pray that you come to believe that the Love of God is really the only thing that matters.
God has always worked in mysterious ways. One of the many ways, I believe, He shows His love is through the works of people just like you & me.
That’s right –lil’ ole you – lil’ ole me. If we really look back on our lives & reflect for a moment as we close another year on just how MUCH God has shown His love to us, it’s AMAZING! If you think you’re a mistake or you don’t have a purpose in this world, think again, about ALL the people in this world. Just think how many of these people would just LOVE to feel some love this Christmas - & everyday. I think the feelings that we get by this out pouring of Love ought to be transmitted & felt everyday. It’s NO wonder that we feel the most fulfilled when we reach out to our brothers & sisters & try to get to know them & try to see HOW we can BLESS their lives.
I don’t know about you all, but I believe my God assigns me to love everyone I come into contact with. That’s why as an alcoholic who got sober, I feel He has given me a second chance – to make up for being such a rotten taker for so long, & start being a blessing as a giver. Please remember what my God says about love: lets let it be our tour guide through life.
If I give everything I have, and surrender to God, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, nor boast, nor take pride. It is not rude, nor self seeking, is not angered, & keeps no record of wrongs. Love rejoices in the truth, it always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
I believe it also states in the Big Book that intensive work with another alcoholic (showing love), works when other activities fail. We’ll always end up on the great side of a blessing when our attitude is constantly to seek what we can contribute to this life (& our recovery), as opposed to what we can take from it. May God Bless us all this Holiday Season with a little more love than yesterday! Eric J.
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A CLASSIC PRAYER Lord, make me a channel for thy peace -- that where there is hatred, I may bring love -- that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness -- that where there is discord, I may bring harmony -- that where there is error, I may bring truth -- that where there is doubt, I may bring faith -- that where there is despair, I may bring hope -- that where there are shadows, I may bring light - that where there is sadness, I may bring joy. Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted - to understand, than to be understood - to love, than to be loved. For it is by self-forgetting that one finds. It is by forgiving that one is forgiven. It is by dying that one awakens to Eternal Life. Amen |
When I came to AA I didn’t think I could love and I was sure nobody could love me. I used to say it’s a good thing I don’t have to live with myself. I couldn’t stand it. I’d be suicidal in a very short time. Someone told me I did live with myself because no matter where you go, that’s where you’ll be. Not if you’re drunk, I thought. I couldn’t stand myself sober and nobody else could stand me drunk. Sure my fellow drinkers put up with me, but only when I had money and was buying them drinks. And I was running out of money more and more often.
So I came to AA I knew nothing about it and fully expected to be rejected or a best, ignored. Instead I was welcomed and told again and again to keep coming back. The problem was I kept drinking every couple of days. I just could not get honest. I was so enjoying the new friendship I’d found and was so scarred they’d reject me if they really knew me. People kept telling me to get a sponsor but I was afraid they’d say no, and I couldn’t handle that rejection.
Finally I started asking people. One guy I ask said he just started a new job and was working a lot of hours and didn’t think he’d be available enough.
Another said, he was getting a divorce and didn’t think he could help me much at that time.
Someone else said that he was sponsoring too many people already. I was about to give up. It thought they were turning me down because they didn’t think I’d make it. In desperation I asked one more guy I heard him speak in meetings and the things he shared always helped me. A lot of folks even called him AA Dave.
When I finally worked up the courage to ask him, he told me he was already sponsoring about 18 or 19 guys. Disappointed again I turned to walk away. He grabbed me by the shoulder turned me around and said, but only two or three of them actually call me. Sure I’ll be your sponsor. I was so relieved. We started working on steps right away and I stayed sober for 30 days. Still I got drunk one more time.
I thought surely Dave would reject me, but he didn’t. And no one else in AA did either. I fell in brotherly love with Dave and many others that vary day. Later, about a year later, I started sponsoring others I got connected on both ends.
When you have a sponsor and are sponsoring others there is a love no one can explain. I fell in love with Alcoholics Anonymous. I have not taken a drink in some years now, not since that day Dave didn’t reject me.
Love is no longer just a feeling that slips away or an occasional act of kindness. It is a way of life.
The big book says we were given a design for living; I was given a design for loving. Now I know they are the same thing. Every time someone asked me to be his sponsor, or to do a lead, or even many times when I or someone else share in a meeting, I feel that love again. Not that it ever goes way, it’s always with me, but during those times it gets more intense.
If you haven’t yet experienced the kind of love that takes you to a spiritual level you never thought you could reach. A love that nothing or nobody could ever separate you from, you just haven’t been coming around long enough. Don’t give up one minute before it happens to you. Keep coming back.
November 20, 2007
Ron and I are both gay and in recovery in AA. We met when he was at the HOPE CENTER, and he began to help me with the renovation of the home I purchased in May of 2005. He was sober a little over a year when we met, most of that in the Fayette County Detention Center where he was admitted to the Hope Center Program. In the beginning of our relationship, I remember telling him and others each time I dropped them off there to “Keep on being good to yourselves.” As he was nearing the time when he would be released to live on his own, my home was nearly ready to be occupied so he decorated the second bedroom and moved in during September of 2005. Early on in our living arrangement, after our hugging had ignited my passion, he quietly told me that SEX would ruin our relationship. I am still amazed at the wisdom of that statement. Two years later we are still hugging and exchanging chaste kisses.
Often when the mood is right our hugs feel to me like the melding of our souls as we collapse into each other.
I am in aw of his talent and ability to sell himself to
the many clients he has done work for. At times he seems driven and I get to remind him to “be good to himself.”
We usually don’t try to fix manage and control each other and live our own lives while genuinely caring for each other. When one of us is sick, the other hurts. When Ron was scheduled for a stress test last spring, I got him a cross with chain to wear and insisted on going with him while he had the test. When he went to the hospital a few weeks ago for treatment of the “bad” staff infection and I saw how white he was when he left his dog for me to keep I found a new level of pain I had never experienced and ran to my church to light a candle for him.
Our neighbors love to be in each other’s business so we have fun keeping them guessing about us; hugging and kissing on the front porch and occasionally screaming at each other. One evening after he had cooked a fabulous dinner for us, I began doing the dishes and as the sink was filling with water, he began taking the top of our gas range apart and placing the pieces in the sink. [This was not part of the dishwashing contract that night.] I quietly reached over and raised the blind and kitchen window sash [so the neighbors could hear] and we both [jinks on a coke] simultaneously screamed “B***H” and then hugged each other laughing.
In April of May this year he bought a home for himself and began to renovate it and I knew that the day of his departure from what had become our home was approaching. I decided and he agreed that we both needed to continue a day at a time to enjoy each other’s company and avoid projecting pain into the future. I believe we have succeeded as we still find time to visit and share a hug or two and our lives are still very much connected. A few weeks before he moved out, Ron told me that since he left his mother’s home years ago, he had never been able to live with another person for more that a week. He had been with me nearly two years.
His business continues to grow and I continue to encourage him and offer ways for him to release some of the stress he is dealing with now. By the time this is published, he will have been to Portland, Oregon and back for work and his dentist will have given him a fabulous new smile.
He is so loved by his client that they flew him first class and paid for his dog’s ticket as well.
I pray for his health and safety and will probably light a candle for safe travel after I take him to the airport.
Ron; Do you know how much I love you?
Gordon R
Hello, I am so amazed at how my attitude has changed in sobriety. No one could have paid me to believe that I would feel and think the way I do today.
Love used to mean what someone was going to come and do for me. When I gave someone a gift, I expected them to feel my love for them, because I didn’t give to those I did not love. You had to have either been a special person in my life or someone who had given me a great deal of delight in some other way.
Today love is the greatest feeling I have. It doesn’t come from receiving or giving things. It’s a sense of contentment with myself, gratitude for the chance to start over, joy in knowing I don’t have to be the way I was, faith in looking forward to a PRODUCTIVE FUTURE, the new found strength of caring brothers and sisters in sobriety and the acknowledgment of where it all comes from (our higher power). Love is wondrously magical today.
When I see my children’s faces with smiles as I enter a room, When my grandchildren run up to me with hugs, when someone calls me for assistance and I’m willing to go, even when I go to work and every time I see someone come into the solution that was out there with me, that’s love today. The bottom line is, love is power and it moves our spirit in a grand way to do what we were meant to do, be of service to one another, Without expecting something in return. Love is doing what you can when you can because you can. Now that we have been loved to life, it’s our responsibility to do the same for others.
Love
Ellen S. Ky
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Thought to Consider. . . "We never apologize to anyone for depending upon our Creator. We can laugh at those who think spirituality the way of weakness. Paradoxically, it is the way of strength. The verdict of the ages is that faith means courage. All men of faith have courage. They trust their God. We never apologize for God. Instead we let Him demonstrate, through us, what He can do. We ask Him to remove our fear and direct our attention to what He would have us be. At once, we commence to outgrow fear." ~Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, How It Works, pg. 68~69 |
What’s love got to do with it? In a word: everything.
May 2, 1980, I had driven to my ex-wife’s place to pick up the kids. Her brother, one of my favorite brothers in law, lived with her and my two kids, 6- almost-7 and just turned 5. Daughters who loved their daddy and I love them. Their uncle had a fat joint rolled up and I was sure that God meant me to have that stuff to relax. After all, I had quit drinking three months earlier. One must have something, right? Fifteen minutes into the ride home, I was hollering at the kids to “enjoy the sunset.” They were just trying to get my attention for things they wanted to tell me; and I couldn’t “relax” the way I wanted to. During the darkest days of my drinking, the sweet depth of their love and trust in me had helped me avoid suicide: I just couldn’t do that to those unsuspecting innocent children. Now, I was shushing their excitement to see me.
I had been around AA long enough that I knew something was wrong with that communication to my children. It had resulted in me “goofing” on the sunset, my youngest sobbing quietly in the corner of the backseat, and my oldest looking daggers back at me through her tears in the rear view mirror. I don’t remember exactly when I did it–I think I pulled over–and I told the girls I would try to not do that, smoke pot, anymore. By the good graces of God and of You people, I have been able to keep my word to them. My sponsor and I talked it over, and I changed my sobriety date to the day I realized that I no longer wanted to “use something” to take away my pain and stress; rather I would “practice a way of life” to accomplish that.
Don’t get me wrong: ideas like that diehard! I spent my first two or three years playing Romeo, in and around the program, and ducking my sponsor’s admonitions that I try to avoid life situations that might bring more responsibility in their wake. The love was hot and exciting. The eventual breakups were humiliating and devastatingly painful. After seven years of sobriety, I realized that I could not plug the jug that way! I was creating more stress and more pain for myself. Then I embarked on doing well in the rat race of job and career. Spent a long time at it while I practiced the Steps to the best of my ability in the situations that came my way. Despite that, I was fired twice in the next 12 years–for the first times in my life. It does not matter that time exonerated me in both situations: the impact on career hopes has been severe. I was pretty sure that I had seen the worst that life could hand me, and I knew that without the love of folks in the fellowship, and of my family and family-to-be I could not have managed to survive, much less to continue living well.
I had fallen in love with a woman who was struggling with her own recovery. My children were doing well and their lives were unfolding nicely. She had grown children, and grandchildren for whom I became a surrogate grandfather. We lived together. We were planning to tie the knot.
Much of the time, those grandchildren stayed with us and became part of an exciting new chapter in my life: the best time in my life. Despite many hardships, we loved each other, had the program in common, and that was enough to pull us through. Her oldest daughter was struggling with recovery from addiction, from two traumatic brain injuries, and from other injuries to her body and self-esteem. She was in pain a great deal of the time, especially after the latter of the two car accidents that had changed her life. She lost the fight one night in April 2004, when she overdosed and died. Her mother was devastated; and she struggles still to find her way. She left our house that night and has not returned.
At first, I was angry and bitter. Then I plugged it all into the Steps and the Program of AA. Today, my recovery is fueled by what I have learned about love. I have learned that the value of what I have today is much greater than anything I had yesterday, as long as I keep my channels open for love. I learned that tomorrow can be truly and desperately miserable if I disrespect, or fail to appreciate the love that has been, and is, showered on me by others in my daily life–and not only by those in our Fellowship. I have learned that God’s will for me today is to love indiscriminately all with whom I am allowed to interact. I have learned that if I focus on that, and work to correct the parts of me that don’t want to play: life really does take care of itself.
Ten years ago, I would have told you that I love me. The AA program gave me that. It taught me
a lot about how to love you, too. Today, I will tell you that I love myself and I am loved by all of
the folks in my life, each in his or her own way. If I have trouble feeling it, I work on me. That is
always where the problem lies. Love has everything to do with enjoying long term recovery in
Alcoholics Anonymous.
Thanks for asking...and Peace!
Jim R.
Monday Night New Hope Group, in Prestonsburg.
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Right Living "Service, gladly rendered, obligations squarely met, troubles well accepted or solved with God's help, the knowledge that at home or in the world outside we are partners in a common effort, the well understood fact that in God's sight all human beings are important, the proof that love freely given surely brings a full return, the certainty that we are no longer isolated and alone in self-constructed prisons, the surety that we need no longer be square pegs in round holes but can fit and belong in God's scheme of things -- these are the permanent and legitimate satisfactions of right living for which no amount of pomp and circumstance, no heap of material possessions, could possibly be substitutes." c. 1952AAWS, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 124 |
As a child, I grew up with a very overprotective mother, but she raised me and my sister the way that she was raised-as a responsibility and an obligation. Meaning, as a child during the Roaring 20's, she was constantly ill with asthma and whooping cough. Her mother also had to deal with a greedy pharmacist who also overdosed mother on Morphine. So, in retrospect, the type of care my sister and I received was the result of a vicious cycle-that is, because her mother viewed her as an obligation and a responsibility while raising her, along with 3 brothers and an older sister, our mother in turn, viewed us the same way. So, our lives became the living vision of a song by Foreigner "Show Me What Love Is."
It's strange and awkward growing up in a home with such mixed messages, most notably "Do as I say and not as I do". I remember being called on the carpet by both parents for doing pot and drinking in college, yet she was on antidepressants (Phenobarbital and valium) and he was a function -controlled alcoholic. It was very much like that commercial of the son, who is confronted by the father about the cigar box full of innumerable different kinds of pills and the father asks the son "Where did you get these from?" and the son replies "From you, Dad".
It is advised repeatedly that confrontation is another form of love. That wouldn't have applied to my parents as they were direly non confrontational and would refuse to have anything more than "discussions" at worst in front of us" and would immediately sweep the issues at hand under the rug anytime either of us came around, yet would invariably deny there were any "problems" going on. So, therefore, both of us turned out to be doormats. I don't have a clue how they were when our step-brother was around, but that was how they were with us. So, so much for honesty in relationships. Yet, because Mother smothered me due to my disabilities, I learned how to smother people when I was growing up and would show my affection by "buying" their love with various material items. This was more so with my fiancé before we broke up in March of 2003. I also learned from Dad that if you want someone's attention, stare at them and expect them to read your mind sometimes, the latter I try very hard to stay away from. Besides, who wants to spend their lives being the victim all the time, anyway?
I guess one of the things that really gets me into trouble in my relationships with other people is my own patient level. I keep saying I want to take it slow with the other person, but, being the alcoholic I am, I naturally want it NOW! It becomes a major project for me sometimes to let the other person work their way through it all and not just call/email them when I don't hear from them, just when/as I hope to hear from them. Therefore, I end up losing them and it become my loss, not just theirs.
How do I handle the issue of love now? Forcing myself to take it slow and check out my own inventory first before emailing/calling too much. I also have made a promise to myself that if the person I meet is on the wagon as well, that they have been on there at least a year or so. That way, in that time period, they will have hopefully done some major inventory work before seeing that they are actually ready for a relationship.
Whether they are or not, I realize now, is a decision they will need to make, not just mine. I may be 52 and I may be afraid to spending time alone on the front porch when I get older, but I realize now it is better I do so now and still keep that extra rocker handy in case Mr. Right does join me. I am sure God has the person for me. I just not only need to continue to refrain from looking but just be patient.
Yet, love is not always about long-term relationships. It is how we are around those around us. And those issues are dealt with in the form of not only patience, but also, expectations, control issues, fear, anger and so on. Notice I left sexuality out of this. Although this is mentioned in the Big Book on the chapter on Step Four and inventorying, I also need to remind some of us, and also continually myself, that contrary to ongoing popular notion, that love and sex are not nor has it ever been the same thing. Sorry, guys, didn't mean to shoot that balloon out of the sky, but it is a timely reminder, since so many of our own community are also HIV+. They also thought they found their dreamboat after one night of carousing, only to leave with something else that was picked up in a blood test that they didn't want. Unfortunately, that dream boat sank big time.
Myself? HIV-.
Not only am I working on patience for myself when meeting people, it is expectations, trying not to come off like I got an ax to grind or be controlling and just let the evening happen on its own. That may be easier said than done, but I'm learning that it most definitely can be done. After I relocated to here from Indianapolis in 2004 to be closer to my family, I am learning to re-start new friendships and see where that goes. If not a relationship, I will have gotten a new friend. Being pre-disposed to be without a car and having to rely on the bus system here doesn't always help but hey, if the person can't accept the fact that not all people they meet are going to have access to reliable transportation, except the local bus lines, well, to me that is more of their problem than mine so as far as I am concerned, it is more of their loss than mine. Especially, if and when they take into consideration that they may, JUST MAY, get gas money to make up for it. Unlike a lot of people who start out in the program down on their luck and hope to get free housing, food and so forth, I try not to let myself fall into that mindset since I know that NOTHING is free. That no one in this program owes me a living. NO ONE! There is no such thing as free housing, food, transportation, or whatever.
If I had that kind of an attitude, then I would have to take a good hard, long look at my own inventory and figure out my own motivations for being in AA.
Though friends have been instrumental and just appearing out of absolute nowhere (this has happened twice in the last few weeks) in making sure I got home or to wherever I need to go, I try not to expect that all the time, because if I would be doing that, then it would come under using and that is not love either. To just let the circumstances happen is for the better. Otherwise, I am not too proud to rely on TARC to get around with.
Although I have a sizeable number of friends that I love to pieces, I have and am still learning to love one of the most important people in the program. Not only God, but also myself. Learning when to take care of myself and my needs is something that was never pounded in my head.
Sure, Mother said don't worry about others, just worry about yourself. I just never learned that there was a fine line between the 2 until I got into AA. Last night, I was going to go to a meeting, yet as my ride, who I still feel was God-sent as I was in the grocery store for over an hour and never saw her in any of the aisles anywhere, was making sure I got home okay, I told her after she offered to take me to the meeting, that my back (arthritis and herniated disc) were tightening up and needed to get medication into me(which I did) and I would just have to wait and see how I felt afterwards. I thanked her for the kindnesses bestowed upon me and we parted our separate ways.
Therefore, in a nutshell, I view love is being not just how you take care of yourself, but also your
expectations of others and checking in with your relationships with yourself, others and God. We as
humans are very passionate, some more so than they want to admit, yet, we just need to learn how to be
passionate for all the right reason!
Larry D
Louisville
What does Love have to do with it I remember in the beginning when I was in the rooms of AA. There was an old timer who said he would love me till I could love myself. I felt strange when he said that, and I told him that I did Love myself. In reality I was scared as hell and didn’t like my self not to much. Before I got to AA the committee meeting was in full swing. It was telling me all sort of crazy things and wouldn’t shut down.
I failed to mention that I had just quit drinking and had not started to go to AA yet.
One day at College I decided to go and see a Special needs counselor, and told him the trouble that I was having, couldn’t study, sleep, eat, stayed way, too busy all the time. After babbling to him for two hours he consulted with one of the Doctors at school, and they both thought it was in my best interest to seek psychiatric help. All I wanted was a little extra time to study and they sent me to the hospital.
I went and saw a Doctor and let it all out. I shared with him events in my life that I had not shared with anyone. I balled like a baby (that didn’t stop for couple more months). After being admitted to the psychiatric unit the Doctor walked by and I asked him if I was sick, he said oh yes. I asked him if he could operate, he said no. I was then taken into this small room with a man who asked me to answer 20 questions. I got 18 out of 20.
The prognosis is that I am an alcoholic. Believe it or not, I was relieved at that moment. He helped me believe that I was a good person and, even though severely afflicted mentally, that being alcoholic there was a solution.
I felt hope. I stumbled into the rooms as a suggested by my mother. She gave me a dollar and told me to put it in the basket. Mom said that some people are going to talk a lot and some people not at all, just try and listen. Her last suggestion was to get a sponsor. When I entered the room on my first meeting I saw a guy with his head on the table crying. I laid my head down and did the same. I felt at home. Later they asked if any one had any announcements, I raised my hand and said I needed a sponsor. I’ve never been to an AA meeting before and didn’t exactly know what I was getting into. I’m working with My third sponsor now. He has helped me work through the steps. I now see myself for who I really was before I got sober. I was frightened, lonely, and mean--I didn’t understand what love was.
Today I have a peace of mind, love for my family and friends. Thank you AA and my family for putting up with me.
Salem V.
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Thought to Consider. . . In order for me to start working the Twelfth Step, I had to work on sincerity, honesty, and to learn to act with humility. Carrying the message is a gift of myself, no matter how many years of sobriety I may have accumulated. My dreams can become reality. I solidify my sobriety by sharing what I have received freely. As I look back to that time when I began my recovery, there was already a seed of hope that I could help another drunk pull himself out of his alcoholic mire. My wish to help another drunk is the key to my spiritual health. But I never forget that God acts through me. I am only His instrument. Even if the other person is not ready, there is success, because my effort in his behalf has helped me to remain sober and to become stronger. To act, to never grow weary in my Twelfth Step work, is the key. If I am capable of laughing today, let me not forget those days when I cried. God reminds me that I can feel compassion! ©Copyright 1990 ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS WORLD SERVICES, INC.© |
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Thought to Consider. . . "For me, AA is a synthesis of all the philosophy I've ever read, all of the positive, good philosophy, all of it based on love. I have seen that there is only one law, the law of love, and there are only two sins; the first is to interfere with the growth of another human being, and the second is to interfere with one's own growth." 1976AAWS, Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 542 |
Hello. My name is Salem VanEvery. I am the new area Chair for the Kentuckiana Newsletter. I was selected in October 2007 to serve for the next two years. Our newsletter reaches many suffering alcoholics who are in need of your support. I appreciate your previous contributions and your support in the future. I look forward to serving you.
