Filed under: news
Once again, there is good stuff to read in the latest issue of the 24 Newsletter. The AAA folks are publishing a series of talks given by Tom Powers Jr., the author of Gresham’s Law and Alcoholics Anonymous. Tom consistently has engaging things to say about the program. This time around, he takes on the Fourth Absolute—Absolute Love.
First of all I had to come to some understanding of what is the opposite of Absolute Love. Of course everybody knows that the opposite of love is hate — or is it? Originally, I thought what’s the big deal? I don’t hate anyone especially. And that is why it is important to understand what falling short of attainment in this area involves. Failure to practice Absolute Love is manifested not so much through resenting and hating as through indifference, rejection, drawing away, and a certain kind of willful self-sufficiency. It took me a long time to see in the personal inventory sense how much trouble I had in those terms approaching Absolute Love as a Program principle.
Little by little, I found out after repeated failures (some producing strained and wrecked relationships) that I wasn’t really getting much better in this area. And then my sponsor made a remark to me one day that let some life-saving additional light into the picture for me. We were working together on some project and — I remember it clearly — he said, “Your problem is you’re not a team player.” That remark didn’t get through very far then, but somewhere down deep it stuck. At the time I just wanted to argue the point (and the manner in which it was delivered).
And yet I kept returning to that statement, “You’re not a team player.” And at some point I saw that he was completely right. All my life, whether it was working my first job in the Chappaqua post office or being a student at Yale University, or an enlisted man in the Army, or here in this AAA group, I would tend to be unwilling to extend myself personally past a certain point. Unwilling to take a chance in relating to others and, as a result, tending to sit in judgment with a crystal clear view — too clear — of where other people were missing the target.
If you’re interested in receiving the 24 Newsletter, you can sign up here: (link)
Filed under: news
The full text of Becoming Recovered 1.0 is now available as an “open source recovery text.” Like open source software (wiki), this open source text can be altered by anyone for any purposes and then redistributed freely in its modified form. This means that we’ve decided to officially waive our copyright to the full text of Becoming Recovered 1.0.
How does it work? Here’s an example:
Let’s say you like the text of Becoming Recovered, but you want to adapt it to your particular needs. You are free to rewrite the text so that it is more useful to you. Maybe you want to replace the stories with the stories of people from your group, or maybe you’d like the spiritual language to reflect your religious preference, or maybe you’ve even got a different way of doing prayer and meditation that you’d like to add to the book. Whatever your reason, whatever you’d like to change, you are free to do so, and you can then sell or give away copies of your new version without fear of violating copyright law. The book is yours, and you can do whatever you want with it.
There are only a few restrictions:
1. Rename your version of the book. If you like, you can include “Becoming Recovered” in your title. (For example: Becoming Recovered, with additions by John D. or Healing Power, based on Becoming Recovered 1.0) Please do not use the title “Becoming Recovered 2.0″ as we will be making use of this title in the future for our own revisions.
2. Include the following disclaimer somewhere in the first few pages, either on the title or verso pages, or on another page before the beginning of the text:
“This work is based on or includes passages of Becoming Recovered 1.0, an open-source recovery text that can be found at stepstudy.org. The author of Becoming Recovered 1.0 waives copyright over that text and instead presents it as public domain material. The author(s) of this version of the text acknowledge that their copyright is limited to large-scale, original additions to the text and does not apply to word changes, sentence alterations, or the original passages of Becoming Recovered 1.0.”
3. The author of Becoming Recovered 1.0 maintains the right to deny open source privileges to any authors who use this text for the purposes of libel or discrimination. All uses of the source text that include derogatory statements about racial or ethnic groups, religious organizations, persons of a particular gender or sexual preference, or any other group or individual will be prosecuted as violations of copyright law.
That’s it. If you can comply with those three conditions, you can take the book and do whatever you want with it.
Don’t forget to let us know about your new version, so we can link to it from stepstudy.
And of course, as always, if you like BR 1.0 as it is and don’t want to change it, you are free to download it and print out as many copies as you want, using them however you see fit.
If you haven’t yet read the book, check out an excerpt in the post below.
Here’s a link to the PDF: (link)
Filed under: articles
We experience an obsession when we are trying to stay abstinent and are overpowered by thoughts of using. People who love addicts experience obsession in their relationships when they feel the desire to control other people’s moods or behavior. Obsession can take a variety of forms.
An intrusive obsession is a thought of using that seems to enter our minds from out of nowhere. When we are hit by an intrusive obsession, we find ourselves suddenly dropping our plans and responsibilities, and pursuing the substance, behavior or person that we crave.
A reoccurring obsession is a thought of using that enters our minds over and over again throughout the day. Fighting with this thought consumes all of our energy. We try to remind ourselves of the importance of not using, of all the things we will lose if we use again, and of what always happens to us when we are on a spree, but the thought keeps coming back and seems to grow stronger over time. If we are able to hold out against the reoccurring obsession, we become exhausted and depressed. We are easily irritated and find that normal daily tasks require an enormous amount of effort. Even if we don’t use, the reoccurring obsession wins by beating us down.
A third kind of obsession is called circumstantial obsession. We experience a circumstantial obsession when we are presented with the opportunity to use and cannot think of any good reason not to, even though we have everything to lose. We may give ourselves some silly excuse for using, or we may not think at all. Before we know it, we are deep into active addiction again, wondering what happened to our common sense.
A fourth and final kind of obsession is called the fundamental obsession. The fundamental obsession may not be experienced as a thought of using at all. Instead, we experience this obsession as a basic preoccupation with ourselves and how we feel. It is usually hard for us to identify the fundamental obsession at first, because it is so much a part of how we experience the world. It is like water to fish—we are so familiar with it that it is hard to see. Those of us who have been abstinent for long periods of time without a spiritual solution know the pains of fundamental obsession all too well. Life is unsatisfying. We are constantly agitated and restless, even though we may be quite depressed. We are unable to form meaningful or lasting relationships. We have a deep sense that life is treating us unfairly. People seem cruel and selfish to us; they ignore us and our needs. No matter what we try, we do not seem to be able to get any peace of mind. We are constantly trying to adjust the circumstances of our lives in an attempt to find some comfort. We may have a vague sense that something is wrong with us, but we do not know what it is.
Reoccurring and circumstantial obsession may actually get easier to cope with over time, but the fundamental obsession only gets worse. The pain of daily living builds up inside us and we have to vent it somehow. Some of us become violent; others tax the patience of our friends with complaints. Many of us find some substance or behavior that provides us with temporary relief. In other words, we switch addictions in order to cope with the pain of fundamental obsession.
