Seen On The Web

Uneasy Rider: I'm someone who makes a long time solution for a short term emotion
-Annira, Recovery (AA) Coffehouse
http://groups.msn.com
/TheRecoveryAACoffeeHouse

Words That Stay: While AA discussion forums have been on the Web for years, a new crop of upstarts have materialized during the past year. Essentially, these "conversations in cyberspace"can go on for days, months -- even years.

Unlike chatrooms, where the interaction is in real time, discussion forums are more like bulletin boards on the Web, where someone posts a conversation starter, someone else stops by later and adds a response, and so on.

The handy thing about these forums is that all the conversations are neatly arranged in categories and "threads." So you're able to easily follow a conversation with just a few mouse clicks. Many of the posts are also extremely thoughtful.

Here are some AA discussion forums you can check out:

~AA Alcove Group
http://www.aa-alcove.org/phpBB/

~AA Canada Forum
http://www.aacanada.com/forum/

~AA Forum Group
http://aaforum.org/index.htm

~AA Living Cyber
http://aalivingcyber.coreoperations.net/index.php?op=forum
~AAOnline.org.uk Forum

~AAOnline.org.uk Forum
http://www.aaonline.org.uk/scgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi

~AAOutreach
http://www.aaoutreach.org/forum/

~Alt.Recovery.AA
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.recovery.aa/threads?gvc=2

~AA Roundtable Forum
http://www.aaroundtable.com/cgi-bin/meetings/ikonboard.cgi

~Alkie's Soapbox
http://www.alkies-soapbox.org/

~e-AA
http://www.e-aa.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi

Ghost In The Machine: An extremely inebriated gentleman staggers through the front door of a bar and orders a drink. The barman refuses him and asks him to leave, which he does, only to come hurtling back a few minutes later through the side door. Again, the proprietor tells him, "Sorry, but you're too drunk to serve, sir, you'll have to leave." This time he comes stumbling through the back door only to meet the same results, whereupon he wails, "Maaaaan! How many bars in this town do you work at?"
-Archie, AA Beginners Club
http://health.groups.yahoo.com
/group/aabeginnersclub/

Alcoholics Anonymous

Solace Without Alcohol

Back in my early twenties, when my alcoholism really began to take hold, I could still "feel that warm thrill of confusion, that space cadet glow," as Pink Floyd would say. But like many day-in, day-out alcoholics, there was no joy for me in my drinking the year or two before I admitted I needed help. In the end, it was just a resentful trip to the liquor store, drinking alone, getting numb, resenting I had to drink, and waking up the next morning feeling like I'd been stepped on by an elephant.

These days, I don't have to take that trip any more. And while I can't say I jump out of bed every morning and do cartwheels at the prospect of each new day, I do have the self-respect of facing everything life throws at me -- the joys and the sorrows -- completely, and fully, present. For me, that's not a small thing.

I also find that when I'm living the Twelve Steps as best I can, the joys resonate longer, and the sorrows fade more quickly.

Honestly: I don't think I'll ever re-experience the quick-fix euphoria my early days of drinking gave me.

But I also see that fix for what it is: a lie I crawled back to again and again, always hoping it would be true to me, and always feeling it cripple my spirit just a little bit more.

The kind of euphoria I get off on these days is watching one alcoholic helping another, and if my own house is in order, getting the opportunity to help another alcoholic myself -- or simply to help another human being.

It's the kind of euphoria that, for me, builds imperceptibly inside me, and strengthens my spirit the same way working out sculpts a body builder.

Alcohol never did that for me.

Never will.

-Joe@aalivechat.com

Seen On The Web

Minty Fresh: Some people drink deeply from the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
-Windspirit, The Recovery AA Coffeehouse
http://groups.msn.com/TheRecoveryAACoffeeHouse/
hearedatmeeting.msnw

Turning Point: I'm approaching 8 years sobriety, by the grace of God. But around ten years prior to that I was in a pub at Newtown with a work colleague and we were both very drunk. Now he tells me that I'm an alcoholic and we both then burst into laughter.

But the next day instead of a blackout I remember everything. Most strange. I then start to hear ads on the radio, "If you have a problem with alcohol, etc." I hear colleagues saying whatever you do don't go drinking with him, he'll get you thrown out of the club/pub, borrow money and forget to pay it back and hit on your girlfriend, etc.

The realization that he was in fact me was startling.

It was the combination of these things and others that led me to show them they were wrong and stop drinking for a month. I lasted 3 days and they were terrible. But after that and for quite a few years I kept trying and failed. Always I failed until it dawned on me one day that I was not my own master.

Alcohol controlled me.

I then went to St. John of God, and here I stand almost 8 years later, not only sober but I believe recovered.

What I'm trying to say is, did my spiritual growth start that day in the pub at Newtown?
-James, Alkie's Soapbox
(http://www.alkies-soapbox.org)

Fixer Upper: When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to look like a nail.
-Windspirit, The Recovery AA Coffeehouse
http://groups.msn.com/TheRecoveryAACoffeeHouse/
hearedatmeeting.msnw

Getting Over The Age Thing

When I first got into the program, I found it difficult to open up to people who weren't in my age group. I also found it very difficult to open up to people who weren't exactly like me. In fact, I remember feeling extremely resentful when attending my first outdoor AA Round-Up, and discovering that the keynote speaker was a woman. How could this person possibly speak to anything that I was thinking, feeling or going through?

Over time, those barriers melted away for me. I stopped looking at ages and genders and similar characteristics. Instead, I focused solely on straining to hear something -- anything -- from anyone in the room that would help me stay sober just one more day. They could have had six green heads and zoomed in on a purple skate-board for all I cared. If they had
something to say that helped keep me sober, I was grateful they showed up.

I'm the same way today. Sure, I love listening to and reading the insights of oldtimers who come out with those finely wrought gems of insight. But I'm equally inspired by a twenty-something newcomer with 29 days, because I know the courage it takes to keep believing in the program while fighting the cravings and trying to make sense of the sober life for the first time.

More than anything, the one tenet of Alcoholics Anonymous that kept me coming back -- and keeps me coming back to this day -- is that simple, beautiful, eminently efficient declaration: the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. You're a member if you say you're a member.

-Joe@aalivechat.com