Anonymity and the Tradition of Principles Before Personalities – Wakefield S.

Okay, welcome everybody to this Possibilities and Promises session of EUROPA. My name is Jona and I'm an alcoholic from Stockholm. This is the AA preamble. Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strengths and hope with each other that they may solve the common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for a membership is a desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for AA membership. We are all self-supporting through our own contributions. AA is not an ally of any sect, denomination, politics, organization or institution that does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorse nor oppose any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety. About anonymity. Our public relation policy is based on attraction rather than promotion. It always maintains personal anonymity at the level of press, radio and films. Thus we respectfully ask that AA speakers and AA members do not be photographed, videotaped or identified by full name or audiotapes, and in published or broadcast reports of our meetings, including those reports on new media technologies such as Internet. The assurance of anonymity is essential in our efforts to help other problem-drinkers who may wish to share our recovery program with us, and our tradition of Anonymity reminds that AI principles comes before personalities. The meeting at Europa are being recorded, so we ask that you only identify with your first name and city when you're sharing. This is a topic meeting. Topic meetings begins with speakers sharing on the topic followed by open sharing. When topic meetings are open for anyone to attend, participation is limited to those who have decided to stop drinking. So please welcome our first speaker, Wakefield. I'm Wakefield, I'm a real alcoholic of your type and kind from Seattle, Washington. Hi! Can you hear me okay? Yes. I am really surprised that there's no copy of the big book up here. And so I hope that No one's offended, but I'm going to read the ninth step promises from my phone. I did this once in a meeting and somebody said, oh, you're just showing off that you have a fancy phone. And I was just thinking, no, I'm just happy to be able to carry the big book with me wherever I go. So let me ask first, it's kind of a workshop format. Does anybody know what the sentence is in the big book just before the promises? Exactly. I'll read it so everyone can hear it. I think... as God's people we stand on our feet we don't crawl before anyone I will read them in a second but in the US almost every meeting I've gone to in July has been about the 7th step and I have a real problem with the 7st step because I have problems all the time. The seventh step, it asks me to be willing. It says, I am now ready that you should take away, that you shouldn't have all of me, good and bad. And then I have to give it up. And I can have my character defects removed only as they stand in the way of service to other people. I just want them gone. If they stand on the way to God, way of service to other people at 3 o'clock. They might not be in the way to other people at 5 o' clock and there I am back with my character defects in front of me. And so 8 and 9 were really, really hard for me because I am not someone who really gets along with other people. You know it was easier to drink than to be around other people. But the 9th step promises say if we are painstaking about this phase of our development we will be amazed before we are halfway through. We're going to know a new freedom and a new happiness we will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it we will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace no matter how far down in scale we have gone we will see how our experience can benefit others that feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear we will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows self-seeking will slip away our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them. I am the kind of person that thought that the day that I got to AA because I had done the hard work of showing up that I should get all of the promises I should give all of my life I should do all of good things that AA offered so what I decided to share today was the fact that they told me when I got here to go find a sponsor and they said find a sponsored who has everything that you want and that's a person you need for a sponsor So I'm a gay guy. I found this really cute sponsor who had a really nice car. He had a great job and a good boyfriend. He had everything that I wanted. And I thought that's what the promises of AA would give me if I had him for my sponsor. Our relationship lasted a year, and he came home from a cruise on a ship and said that he could no longer be my sponsor because he had wanted to drink the entire time that he was on the cruise and he didn't feel he could do that and come back and face me because he'd made a commitment to me and to AA and unfortunately he went out the next week and drank and just a few months later I attended his funeral what I know today is that there was a lot of truth what he said has helped me stay in this program because once you make a commitment to other people, you start to get the promises. You start to work the steps. Now I have a sponsor. He has a sponsor I sponsor five guys in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and I never have to ask them what step are they working because they all sponsor somebody. That's one of my rules. I won't sponsor you unless you sponsor other people So I just asked him, I said, so what step is your sponsee working? Oh, she's on step three. She's been on step four. Step three forever. I think that's, you know. And I say, so What are you getting out of it? Because I know that that's the step that they're working. So I asked all of my sponsees about the ninth step. And they all came back and said, You know, it's really crazy for you to ask. You worked us through it. You had us put down on paper what we thought we wanted to say, and then you took a red pen to it, and you just crossed out wherever it was selfish and said this is not about, you know, you getting the other person to make amends. This is about you actually owning who you were and your part in it. And I think sometimes that's really, really hard for us as alcoholics because, you Know, I'm, I was a kind of alcoholic. If you, if you had the life I did, you would have drank like I did. You know, ifyou had the day that I did you would've drank like i did and what I know for me is that the things that I read to you have started to come true and sometimes I see them and sometimes i don't. Do I have lots of money? I have enough money. I have food. I have a home. I don't own it. I don' t have a car. There are things that I think that I want, but the promises don' s say you get the things that you think that you want. It tells you that fear of economic insecurity will leave you. Now, you know, I don''t have any fear of economic security, even in today's world economy. I just have a knowledge of finally being able to move into action I thought I was going to retire I know this is a young people's meeting but my sponsor tells me to always share the fact that in the United States we have this thing called Social Security and they send you a letter every year showing where your earnings have been and what they've put away for you in terms of savings, and from the time I got out of college until the time I stopped drinking, it was a downward slope. And since I've been sober, it's been a consistently upward slope. And I thought I was going to retire at age 60. I'll be 58 next month. And the economy has said that I won't be able to retire. So now I'm having to think about what is my economic future? Do I have any fear of it? No, because I've taken care of as long as I don't drink. Somehow or another, if I work the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, I get to have the things that I need, never, almost never, the thingsthat I want. I still want the cute boyfriend. I still wants a car. I still, I still went all of those things, but none of those things give you inner peace. I know lots of people that have lots of, lots of things, but people always say, Wakefield, you seem so content. I am absolutely and unequivocally content and it's because I have worked the steps. I still work the steps You know, if somebody were to ask me for any advice on the ninth step, my advice would be you should be a meeting-dependent alcoholic. In other words, what you used to do to always make sure you had a drink, you should always know where your next meeting is. Now I will tell you these fancy phones have little apps that you can get that will tell me where the next meeting ends. But with the internet today and with phone numbers, we should always be connected to someone who can help us stay sober. And we should always use our phones for that purpose. If you don't have at least five alcoholics in your phone, you must be your first week in the program. But I would encourage, if you want the promises to come true for you, to practice calling other alcoholics. And actually just call somebody. Don't wait until you need something. Call somebody and say, Hi, this is a practice call. And they'll say, what? I don't need anything, but I'm practicing using my phone so that when I have the moments where I can't see the promises coming true, I can talk to another alcoholic. And it's much easier to call them on that day and say, this is not a practice call, it's the real thing. Can you just hang out with me on the phone for a minute? And so it's been a pleasure sharing, and I'll turn it over to my colleague. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Cancelia. We welcome our second speaker, Irma. Hello, my name is Irma, I'm an alcoholic from Vilnius, Lithuania. they want to think for this year it was really good i have on the mood of promises now in perspective in my life um i know when i was thinking about my share um it just was like one hour before um i was speaking words the key for my perspective and promises in my life and my sobriety. And it's not good to say that this is, it was my past till 22 while I was drinking and I didn't know that I'm an alcoholic. And then I became AA member. So when I, so this is black and white, but it helps me to understand where I am now. I didn'T know how to drink from my childhood, from my first drink. I just got drunk, I got drunk from my first drink. So now when I'm in the program, I just realized that this is a genetic problem. And I wasn't happy all my life until I came to the program. I had good moments. I was traveling. I have friends. I went to school. Everything was good. But it was like, and what? What's more? What I can get more? I want more. Where is the happiness? and I found alcohol for that reason so I wasn't like fearful I could speak with people I couldn't drink alone because I was sad and whatever and in the last year before coming to the program I I don't know what happened just in six months I lost everything it was in the last year of my bachelor. I was writing pieces, I was working and like my future like not a dream work but it was okay and I lost everything in six months because in the September I said I will show that guy who left me how I have to live and how I will build my life. And what happened, I just ended up with a boat shaped here, shivering and drinking and smoking and full of fear and negative thinking and it just was so bad that the only reason which I saw it was to kill myself. I was 22, I was finishing my university and all the perspective was all the life perspective was in the future but I didn't see the meaning to that and the only thing what it was looking is like how to end that how to end this pain which I was carrying for 22 years and yeah this was the step and I start to look for the help. If I wouldn't find the AA, probably I wouldn´t be alive today. And this is the promises and perspective with the AA program which I have as a young person. I have a perspective for the new life. now I'm two years old but two years and three months and everything's changed in these two years. I'm traveling at the beginning of my sobriety, okay I'm stuck in Greece for all my life, I will never go abroad again. I was thinking I will never have fun in my sobriet because I get sober with older people. I thought that that I will never have friends, boyfriend. I would never have a job because I lost because I was drinking, because I'm alcoholic. Now I won't have the job. It sounds insane but I have this thinking. I thought that this fear and anxiety will be all the time with me and I just will be bad feeling person all my life. And then I saw these people in AA that were smiling and felt relaxed and they have family, work. I just was thinking like maybe I can have this too and this was like a promise for me. If I will work the program, if I will do the steps I can have my new life as a young person in the EA. I can rebuild my life from cleaning this 22 years and like, okay now I will learn how to clean the bath again. Now I will do my back again. Now I'll learn how go to the bar again not drinking. And I started to learn new things And I'm really thankful for my sponsors who brought, like, I have a strong program, but it was a bit in different days, not like in the big book. But I think this is what I learned. This is this promise that I live one day and I am waiting for what life brings to me. And now I have sponsor from USA And she came to AA as me, 22 or 23 years old. And now she has a family and a work career. And I'm redoing the steps together with her. And I am traveling here. Today I'm here. And probably I will visit some AA in different countries. And probably go to study again. And this is for me a promise and perspective. And the most important, which was at the beginning, I have peace with myself. This is one of the most importance. It's not the work, it's not to job, it's the boyfriend, it' not the apartment, it's no the country. This is the peace with my self and that I started to accept myself who I am Because I always thought, you are better and you are better and have more and I'm the worstest. And now I start to accept myself and I know what I like. I know how I am acting in some kind of situation so I can predict what can happen. And for me this acceptance of myself means a lot with this inner peace and going to the people going to you and speaking with you because I'm still I have this fear of going to the People but I know it will be okay because in these two years nothing bad has happened just going and this is a promise this is a perspective and the other thing is that before I came to AA had this dream I'm really into the films and I was thinking if I will get sober I will work with films now I'm working with films and this is again a perspective it's a promise if I keep coming back and work with the program I will have what I should have And I can trust my higher power now, what I couldn't do before. And everything is not that I don't have it. It's like I see the changes in my life and this is like a promise for me. That everything will be alright or that everything will as it should be. And I just have to live one day, do steps, call to AA members, do fellowship, do service. And it's wonderful. So thank you that I want to live today. All right. Thank you. the meeting is now open for sharing in order to give everyone a chance we ask you to limit your share to three minutes please come up to the front to share who would like to begin Maybe they still have lots of questions about the crisis. Does anyone have a question? Okay, does anyone want to share? Hi, my name is Michael and I'm an alcoholic from Copenhagen, Denmark and thank you so much for your stories, both of you sharing was very inspiring and very good to listen to. One of the things that I noticed a lot when you were talking about the promises coming true. As far as I understood, you're not really noticing it. Because I had that experience as well. At some point I was reading these promises. We also read them at all the meetings in Copenhagen. They usually get read out at the end of the meeting. And I was sitting there one day and I'm like, when does this happen? When am I going to get all this? I've been through the steps and I've done the thing. I'm walking the walk as far as I can and doing all this. But I'm not getting it. Why? Why am I not getting And somebody told me, well, there's nothing to get. It's about what you give. And I started trying to give more. And eventually I started noticing that actually, yeah, my finances weren't all that great, but I wasn't afraid of them anymore. And yes, I did have a lot of these things that I actually needed and just, I wasn't afraid anymore, I was nervous about walking up in front of a crowd for instance. I wasn´t nervous about dancing sober for instance and doing these things, that I was actually very nervous about before, even with 15-20 beers in me. I've only been sober now for 14 months. Before that I had 9 months and then I re-left and all of that can't work so I won't go into it here. So I'm very new in the program but it really is... I'm fortunate enough to have come into a home group in Copenhagen which is a men's group pretty hardcore, which is a good thing. They keep each other accountable. And I just had a guy throw a pen at me because I'm talking about my fourth step again. But it's all in good spirit and love in my heart. So I've got a really good sponsor and I've Got A Really Good Home Group that helps me get going pretty quickly. So with that, you know, me getting pushed into doing the actual work and also getting the rewards. And I can only say, I mean, if it's this good as it is, already now, I cannot wait to see what's in store for me. Thank you so much. Maybe I just did this because I was sitting on the floor and I needed to stand up to give myself blood. But anyway, it came to my mind that it would be a good idea to share how I use Promises with my sponsors. We haven't done it that long time, but the idea is that we have promises on a paper and I ask the questions like Is it happening in your life or not? And we kind of put the check marks. And for them it has been very important thing. Of course this is not my idea, somebody did that to me. me and it felt really, really good. But anyway, we are doing it with them because it seems that even though their life is getting better and better in my perspective, they are not kind of noticing it but when we are going through this checklist sort of thing the change becomes obvious for them as well. And we can continue doing this kind of on a regular basis to see how the sobriety is going and so on. My chart is, I'm from Finland and there are some words in English that there's just no muscles in my mouth for that. But anyway, the sad thing is that at the moment I don't have a sponsor who would do that sort of thing for me because I would desperately need some sort of I would need somebody to check on me how I'm doing on a regular basis because I'm the last person usually who notices if I'm not doing okay and now again in this sort of situation that I have been listening how you people share here and I'm like shit I have noticed that I haven't been doing the stuff that I am supposed to be doing to make me feel good and make my life good and so on and that has happened quite a lot when I come to conventions or big meetings like this that I notice that how I'm doing and that's why I left before 10 o'clock last night to go to one place where I'm staying to be by myself because I felt like everybody else is so fucking recovered I'm like this miserable thing and what happened there was this one guy it was you you shared my story today and I thought after that I'm really really good and I know that this is the exact right place for me today, thanks Hi, my name is Joel. I'm an alcoholic. My home group is Young People into Action Gothenburg. And wrestling my lores, I started to study this real close to heart because up to a couple of months ago I was really trying to wrestle my lures. A long time. And I almost relapsed because of it. I thought I lived in a town up north and I tried to see what I could get out of the group. What I could get, instead of what I could give to them. I started to resent all the people there and stopped doing the work. Stopped doing the actions that I needed to do to be in contact with God and be in recovery. A couple of months ago, I started working the program again with a new sponsor in Gothenburg. And from the beginning I felt like, I have to do another fourth step. I have a new inventory about all the things I've been doing. But that was not happening. All the things that I actually needed to do was start doing maths again. Start working my ninth step. Start trying to incorporate this principle of AA into my life. Not only on meetings where I can say words but outside I wouldn't do the actions, because I know this intellectually, but I have to know it in my heart as well. And one thing that my sponsors used to say to me is, action is the magic word, words are not the magic action. Because I know the words, but I'll have to do the action as well, otherwise I will relapse. I will lose contact with God and through His program all these amazing people I'm going to get to know here. And that's not, I don't want that. I wanna be a part of this. I wanna a part AA, young people in AA. I wanna all over the world meeting new friends and just having a gloss. Because this new way of living is amazing. I love it and hopefully I'll be able keep in touch with god work do the word and just not i'm not just saying words saying what i need to do say i need to do my 10 step i need it in my 11th step during on the night i need to do that let's step on the morning i need give this program away so i can keep myself i actually have to do these things as well i can't just say it i have to to do the actions as well. So, hopefully you will not have to experience like wrestling with Laurels, because it's not worth it. I promise you, it's NOT worth it! Yes, you're sicker... Oh shoot, I was so bad, so ill. Oh my god, so... I'm just glad to be here, and I hope you all have a blast. I am. So thank you so much. Hi, my name is Jade, and I'm an alcoholic. Thank you for sharing some of your stories. It was last year. i have been sober for like five and a half year and i've been working in this program living in this program uh i haven't had one and other people outside and i was educating myself and i Was going on meeting almost every day and yeah praying to god so much every daily every morning and i WAS thinking what is wrong with me i'm still going up and down in my mood i'm depressed i'm angry i hate people i'm self-destructed and everything this darkness and then after a few things happening to me i realized um in october last year that i haven't uh i haven'T really turned myself into god like totally i was still i was i'm making my own will like working and you know all these kind of things so i went into a church and i just on knees on my knees and uh and they helped me there and i prayed blah blah blah and there took me like three months more after that and i felt there was something happening to me because i it was so hard things happening tome so i so i'm very happy that i realized that that thing And after three months more, I felt there was something different happening. And then the light just like this. And there was nothing new in my sobriety and all these things. And it's so hard for me to explain, but the difference before and after is so big that I cannot believe that this is true, actually. I've been almost every day, I've be in a good mood and I have had a few hours, maybe some seconds, some minutes, but it's going like that and there is something happening. I realized there was so much things just like that and I'm so, I'm not, I'm still like, i'm so much more careful with myself now and with everything i do and blah blah i'm not afraid that is not the thing because then it should be wrong again but i think but uh i i enjoy life and i the difference now is that i want to live i don't want to die and now i know after and i was thinking thank you god for all this like five and a half years soon it will be sick but anyway i know i have done everything i've listened to other people even if some you don't listen but i listen uh anyway so and everything and and that so i think i'm the living proof also that it really works and I have done all and I'm still doing this and helping people and all these kind of things and I'm so happy, really I'm very happy that the light has come in thank you so much Hi, my name's Christian. I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Christian. The promises, you know, I came in and out of the rooms for a long time and the promises were always there on the wall and they were always read and they never meant shit to me. You know, they were just a bunch of words just like all the other slogans and really as good as it got for me as I came in and out of the rooms was just like stopping drinking for a little while and, um, feeling better, you know, get myself out of The Jackpots that I was in that brought me back into the rooms each time. Um, but it wasn't until, you know, uh, I guess a few years ago when, uh... it was all about sort of letting go, you know and letting go is another slogan just didn't mean anything to me but what happened to me is that i just i just gave up i gave up everything and the big book talks about you know we have to let go of our old ideas and until you let go all of them you know the results are nil and there's you know there's stories to to uh to bear this out in the big books you know it's like the people that hold on to those you know notions a couple of notions because they've been holding on to him for so long. And that was me. I was holding on to him and, uh, I didn't like decide that I was going to let everything go. And then it went away, you know, that would have been good, but it didn't happen that way. It just, it was, it Was critical mass of, of absolute misery for me. And, uh I shared this in the last meeting, um, you Know, I was in the fetal position and, and I'd never reached out for God because you know I just never needed God and I was lost and everything that I had always tried and I had tried this stuff since I was a child and I put up these walls since I Was a Child to protect myself they just didn't work anymore as an adult and in fact, it not only didn't work, they were killing me you know, and rather than go back and drink, I sort of lived with myself for a while, long enough to realize that everything that I believed, everything was wrong and so there was a point i don't know if it happened in a day and it didn't angels didn't come down from the sky or anything but it was clearly a point in my life when i just i gave up the ghost you know and i didn't know what was on the other side of that but i gave up man and uh i did not have high hopes for what was going to happen you know at doing that but to, you know, I just, I was so sick of feeling the way I was feeling. And it was that point that I was open for the program and I was opening for God. And I was opened to actually begin to understand the promises and the promises started happening. You know? Um, I don't know if I had this like point where I looked at them and said, Oh yeah, you can check that off and that off. But they came, they came true in ways that I never thought, I never imagined that they would happen, you know? And I think letting go for me, it's mostly about... It's mostly about... I spend a lot of time... I still do this. You know, I have to let go all the time. I spend all the other time thinking about what other people are thinking. I try to predict, you now, what's going to happen. I tried to... I create scenarios in my head that, you know, upset me or pissed me off so that I can raise my defenses and protect myself. And that's before I get out of the shower in the morning. And so I come down, I see somebody that I haven't even seen that day and I'm already pissed off at them because of this scenario I created. That's the kind of shit that I do. That said, that's a dangerous place to the dysfunctional playground. It is my mind, you now, and running go means that, you know, I don't predict. I don' t forecast. I don''t sit and think about things that I've done and try and change them, make the scenario different. It's gone. It's done. You know, I don'T create dialogues in my head that don't exist in reality. I do that, but... On the days that I get closest to letting go, I let those go. And the first time that I was doing that, first time that I actually really letting go It felt like I was cheating because I had spent all my life doing this, protecting myself in ways, expelling all this energy for things that I just couldn't do anything about or didn't exist. I'd create them. And so, yeah, it was like cheating. I was like, what the hell? I got all this extra space in my head. What do I do with that? But then I realized it wasn't cheating. I was opening the door. And it's an inside job, you know? AA is an inside job, but ultimately it has to be about an outside job. It has to do with getting the fuck out of my head and out of myself and it has to do about other people. But that was my journey and that was how the promises began to come true. And again, it was in ways that... I didn't even imagine. I was like, oh, that's what that meant. you know. So, anyway, thank you. Thank you. Hey, I'm Jusvina and I'm from Hawaii. Hi, what's up? A year ago, I was in another convention and shared about my last creative just a few days back then. And that's a year ago. It promises to me What do you do? In my life, the promises are happening in small pieces that I can manage one day, and the promises, in the beginning, I read them, yeah, yeah. Maybe it works for you, but it will never work for me, blah-blah-blam. I don't care. But today I have... Okay, what I want is not really what I need. Obviously. What you do is really inspiring to me. Because the promises are working for you. And I trust you guys. And some of you will become really close friends and I trust you. So if I do what you do, the promises will happen for me too. Not just on a daily basis but you know, it's a big thing. And I see you can manage a new relationship, you can have new work and you get a new apartment and you know you get up in the morning and do what you do every day and the promises work with you so I believe that it will work for me too if I do what I do and that's inspiring to me. Thank you. Thank you for your lead. Thank you, especially you, Irma. We have almost the same time, so it's like... I won't fix it, but we don't really see the country. So anyways, when I When I first came here, I was going to this group and people were like I have this new car and this new stuff and I'm so happy and I was really annoyed about that because I was like I'm never going to get these things and now I know because I didn't think I would be in this service. So, and well I have a new apartment so we're living in that, in my apartment for like five days or so and it's so strange you know it's just and it is really new you know and the people that live there are really fancy and And in the beginning I couldn't really relate to them because I was like sneaking, and I still do sometimes, like sneaking in. I always come in late, like 3 in the morning, because I feel like a alcoholic, you know? But this is the thing, it's like I have to force myself to believe that I'm actually worthy to live there, because when I was drinking I didn't think that a good thing happened to me now I have to destroy it I have drink I'm really nervous so I just have to stop talking about it but I'm very thankful to be here and thank you guys for being here too keeping me sober and we're being sober together thank you Thank you. That's all the time we have. Thanks, everyone, for being a part of this meeting.