Early AA Akron group posed for press photo in 1942

AA Founder’s Day Celebration:
June 10, 11 & 12, 2011 Akron, Ohio

On-site registration will begin Friday, June 10th at 8:00 a.m. in the Student Union. PLEASE NOTE – ALL ONSITE REGISTRATIONS WILL BE CASH ONLY! This year marks the 76th anniversary of the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous here in Akron and one that promises to bring exciting changes both in the conference and the registration process.  Here is a link to the Founder’s Day website:
http://foundersdayregistration.akronaa.org/

If you need help now for an alcohol problem, drinking, or alcoholic addiction — please go to www.step12.com

Are the 12 Steps Only Suggestions?

Can you imagine the reaction in a meeting, if  Bill W.,  the Co-Founder of AA, said the following in a meeting today — as he wrote in the book, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions:

“Unless each A.A. member follows to the best of his ability our suggested Twelve Steps to recovery, he almost certainly signs his own death warrant. His drunkenness and dissolution are not penalties inflicted by people in authority; they result from his personal disobedience to spiritual principles.”
~Bill W. pg 174, 12&12

Oh what an order!

When I read the above quote from Bill W. in the 12 &12 this morning — I wondered what the Fellowships of today would have said to him if he said that in one of their meetings. OMG! Bill! Love & Tolerance! Progress rather than Perfection! You’ll drive the newcomers out Bill! — those are only suggestions!!! Easy Does it! Bill! You sound like one of those Big Book Thumpers!

Bill W. is a C0-Founder of AA. He wrote the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous — for the original Pioneer’s in the Fellowship of A.A.

If you need help now and you are searching for help with an alcohol problem, addiction, or alcoholism — please go to www.step12.com

It is suggested we use the 12 Steps in the same way that a parachute instructor suggests that we use a parachute when we jump out of an airplane, we don’t have to take the suggestions, but there are definite consequences if we don’t.

TWELVE SIGNS OF A SPIRITUAL AWAKENING

1. An increased tendency to let things happen rather than make them happen.

2. Frequent attacks of smiling.

3. Feelings of being connected with others and nature.

4. Frequent overwhelming episodes of appreciation.

5. A tendency to think and act spontaneously rather than from fears based on past experience.

6. An unmistakable ability to enjoy each moment.

7. A loss of ability to worry.

8. A loss of interest in conflict.

9. A loss of interest in interpreting the actions of others.

10. A loss of interest in judging others.

11. A loss of interest in judging self.

12. Gaining the ability to love without expecting anything in return.

~Author unknown

If you need help now for an alcohol problem, drinking, addiction, or alcoholism — please go to www.step12.com

April 21, 2011 — Charlie P., (of Charlie and Joe Big Book Study) passed away last night. I doubt that I would have been able to stay sober and find the good life that I enjoy today had it not been for the work and efforts of you Charlie! You saved my life and helped me to find a new one! I am, and will be forever grateful, to and for you!

Charlie P. and Joe McQ, RIP, from Arkansas, USA, carried the message of Alcoholics Anonymous — the Big Book, to literally hundreds of thousands of members in our Fellowship in dozens of countries all around the globe. Many in our Fellowship have been helped and had their lives transformed as a result of following along with Charlie and Joe, in their Big Book Studies, that were often performed at Conventions, Round-ups, Retreats, Conferences and onboard Sober Cruises.

I believe that Charlie and Joe — were the spark and the flame, that generated a much needed fire in the belly of the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous — to get back to the basics of recovery by Taking the 12 Steps — using the Big Book, as the guide and source for the precise instructions on “Having Had A Spiritual Awakening as THE result of THESE Steps. Their efforts and work was reproduced on millions of CD’s, cassette tapes, and MP3 files that have been downloaded to continue to carry the message of transformation, change, recovery and hope.

I’ll continue to follow up with funeral and memorial service information as it becomes available.

~Dallas B.

If you need help now for an alcohol problem, drinking, addiction, or alcoholism — please go to www.step12.com

So.  You think you have a problem?  Really?  Watch this video and then tell me about YOUR problem.

LOOK AT YOURSELF AFTER WATCHING THIS.mp4

The 12 Steps are a formula to produce change and transformation.

“Then they outlined the spiritual answer and PROGRAM of ACTION which a hundred of them had followed successfully.” ~pg 42, Alcoholics Anonymous.

If you’ve tried AA, NA, OA, GA, or some other Anonymous Organization with the hopes of solving your problem — and it hasn’t worked the way you thought it should — perhaps you tried to focus on changing the thinking with thinking. It’s the ACTIONS that produce the change.

It’s not about what I think. It’s about what I do. It’s about the way that I live. The way that I treat others. It’s about the actions I take.

If I’m suffering from some addiction or obsessive compulsive disorder — the problem centers in my thinking!  Therefore, my thinking — can not solve my thinking problem — because my thinking has a problem!

I can’t think myself into the right actions to recover, to get well, or to get better — but I can take right-actions that will cause me to recover, to get well and to get better.

It’s the actions that produce the transformation in my personality and in the way I think — that keeps me away from the next drink or the next obsession.

Some people have concluded: “Okay.  I get it!  I’ll practice the 12 Steps!”  Then, they practice and practice and practice… and they become frustrated because, if you ask them, they’ll say “It didn’t work!”

Most often — what they’ve done is tried to practice something that they have never done before!  They tried to PRACTICE before they TOOK the 12 Steps!

What does that mean?  If you’ll read page 58, of the book, Alcoholics Anonymous, it states: “If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it-then you are ready to TAKE certain steps.”

It does NOT say PRACTICE certain Steps!  It DOES say TAKE certain Steps!

There is a difference!  Imagine trying to practice swimming — before you ever learned to swim and went for your first swim?  Imagine practicing riding a bicycle — before you’ve ever been on a bicycle!  You can’t do it.  You might be practicing — in your mind — but, you never physically went for a swim or rode a bicycle!

It works the same way with the 12 Steps.  For the 12 Steps to be effective and for them to work — you have to TAKE the 12 Steps — BEFORE you start practicing them.

TAKE the Steps!  Then, AFTER you have TAKEN the 12 Steps… you can begin to practice them!

~Dallas B.

Note: If you need help now for an alcohol problem, drinking, addiction, or alcoholism — please go to www.step12.com