The relative success of the AA program seems to be due to the fact that an alcoholic who no longer drinks has an exceptional faculty for “reaching” and helping an uncontrolled drinker.

In simplest form, the AA program operates when a recovered alcoholic passes along the story of his or her own problem drinking, describes the sobriety he or she has found in AA, and invites the newcomer to join the informal Fellowship.

The heart of the suggested program of personal recovery is contained in Twelve Steps describing the experience of the earliest members of the Society:

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.
Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Newcomers are not asked to accept or follow these Twelve Steps in their entirety if they feel unwilling or unable to do so.

They will usually be asked to keep an open mind, to attend meetings at which recovered alcoholics describe their personal experiences in achieving sobriety, and to read AA literature describing and interpreting the AA program.

AA members will usually emphasize to newcomers that only problem drinkers themselves, individually, can determine whether or not they are in fact alcoholics.

At the same time, it will be pointed out that all available medical testimony indicates that alcoholism is a progressive illness, that it cannot be cured in the ordinary sense of the term, but that it can be arrested through total abstinence from alcohol in any form.

Source: AA Great Britain

Ian

I came across this and thought I should share it with you….. not sure who the author is. Enjoy!

Blessings,
Wendy

“I am a woman of distinction.

Recklessly beautiful and untamed–my heart is splayed wide open for I not only trust the process, but I trust the force in which each one of my feet hits the ground and my ability to maneuver through the joys and grief I face each day.

I walk tall, taller than an old cypress tree because I am at home in my skin — my self worth lives in each nook and cranny of my spine.

It is not attached to exterior what have you’s like money, a piece of paper, a house, a car, this world approval, a ring or success.

My success is in presence.

I am present in the humans I stumble upon like heart beats at first light and in the night.

I salsa dance bare bummed with bronze skin and white cheeks — let the music sway and bend and dip my spirit with the grace of a dozen fire flies drunk on the Moon’s wine.

I am dripping in salt, browned from the sunshine, and barefoot in my beauty.

I am not afraid to tell you I am beautiful because I have done the work to be at home in my soul’s skin.

I do not shrink to accommodate the insecurities of those around me, but stand tall to remind them gently, why crouch?

My body may be a meat bag, a vessel for the magnificence I hold inside but I cherish each scar on my chin, each freckle, each voluptuous sun bleached curl, each inch of my breasts.

I walk with my head held high when I walk into a room because I know there is space for me in this world — however I may come.

I show this world my tears and my laughter, unashamed.

I know better than to try and fix or heal the suffering of this world.

I know that by healing my suffering, I heal this world.

I am a woman of distinction and I am not afraid to love you before you are ready.

I am not afraid to move faster or slower than the expectations we lay on vulnerability and opening.

I open at my will.

I open at the first drop of a breeze, at a smile from the man sitting with a green top hat that I pass in a taxi cab.

I open fearlessly and sweetly and ferociously with all the might I can for what good is living if we are not loving?

I am here to love and love I will.

I am a woman of distinction, and I am not a victim of circumstance — I feel when things are out of alignment and I move from them with as much grace as I enter.

I show up for this world.

I set boundaries with ease that honour me.

I understands that no is self love and everything after no is unworthiness.

I am worthy, darling — oh so deliciously worthy.

I am authentic as all hell and can taste bullshit from a mile away.

I spit out societal Koolaide laughing and write my own bible.

I ground — ground through movement, through dance, through the sea.

I drink the ocean for breakfast and kiss the red dirt for dessert.

I do not keep my freedom in a cage that requires six whiskies to be let loose.

I dance and shimmy and shake and love through my life.

I am a woman of distinction — you will feel me when I walk into the room”

Author Unknown