Big Book quote for the quarter

Being convinced that self, manifested in various ways, was what had defeated us, we considered its common manifestations.

Resentment is the 'number one' offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else. From it stem all forms of spiritual disease, for we have been not only mentally and physically ill, we have been spiritually sick. When the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically.

-Big Book Page 64

Resentment is an emotion of anger felt as a result of a real or imagined wrong done. The origin of the word is from "ressentir” the French “re-“, a repetitive or intensive prefix, and “sentir” which is to feel. The English word has become synonymous with anger and bitterness.

It is an emotionally disturbing experience that is being felt again or relived in the mind. When the person feeling resentment is directing it at himself it appears as remorse.

Remorse and resentment are states of mind that destroy love and create suffering. They seem to be caused by what happened but they are not. They are caused by how we relate to what happened.

Fortunately, since we create them, we can also release them.

Spiderman?

A friend of mine recently said to me, “Hey, don’t miss the movie Spiderman III, it may be targeted at kids, but it carries a powerful recovery message!”. So, even though I haven’t been in a theater in a while, I decided to give it look. It’s a slow starting movie, but after a time I began to see what my friend had been talking about.

With all it’s bad guys and colorful characters, it’s action and special effects, the true villain in this movie is not mentioned by name. That enemy is resentment, our most frequent and lethal enemy as alcoholics.

Let me tell you a little about the movie. There’s this mysterious black ooze from outer space which finds it’s way onto Spiderman’s body and binds to him like a virus, he then makes himself a full body costume out of this ooze. Any time he wears the costume it makes him feel strong and powerful, but it causes him to give in to rage and to revenge, and there’s rage and resentment everywhere in this movie. People who hate each other, people who are going to attack each other. Resentment, in the form of this ooze, becomes a force that starts to consume people. People begin to hurt each other, even people who should care about each other.

A force that consumes someone and causes them to destroy relationships and unity, and ultimately themselves, by giving in to the self-centered dark side. That’s a true comic book parable of the Big Book’s teaching on resentment, especially that from pages 60-68, including this months quote, “From it stem all forms of spiritual disease”. It’s our ultimate adversary.

As Spidy finds out, resentment itself is a form of intoxication, especially with a bit of rationalization thrown in. It’s a real power rush to feel I’m “the good guy” in a good fight, and to get my revenge against the bad guy. All I need do is convince myself that I’m not really acting out of anger and resentment. Being among the worlds best at self-justification I can do that without even being aware of the effort. “I don’t need to open my mind and examine myself, they are the guilty ones!”. Pure justice…as executed by me of course. I become the knight in shining armor, avenging evil while showing only my brightest virtues. Sound familiar? It should, it’s the tool we use for shifting guilt around known as “blame”.

Anger is a valid human emotion, it’s going to happen. But it requires action on my part to deal with it before it becomes resentment or to rid myself of it afterwards. Turning my anger over to God is a good beginning, but as the Big Book say’s it’s only a beginning. I can’t simply say, “ok God it’s yours now, I’m not going to feel it anymore” and expect that the feeling will simply vanish forever. I have to deal effectively with the origin of my anger if I ever want to be free from it. Until I do, it is my master and I am it’s slave. That’s why step four, and later step ten, are not options but a necessary part of recovery, taking the fearless and searching written moral inventory of: who I resent/ the cause/ what parts of my self it affects/ what my part in it was/ and where I was or am now being selfish, dishonest, self-seeking, fearful, or inconsiderate. The five column approach.

Being willing to take that inventory with the utmost honesty and a completely open mind, and perhaps the help of an impartial viewpoint from a fellow alcoholic who’s done it, that’s part of how we gain freedom from the bondage of that “black ooze” of resentment and from the bondage of self.

The other part of gaining that freedom is in my being willing to bestow to others some of the love that God has shown me in the form of His grace. To forgive others as He has forgiven me. After all, if I want to keep that, I have to give it away. To accept or expect forgiveness for my sickness while passing judgment on others is to be hypocritical.

The darkness of resentment with rationalization, justification, and blame, or the light of grace with willingness, honesty, and open-mindedness. I can choose either one. But remember, light overcomes the darkness, not vice versa.

-Caruth

How important is it?

The first two years of being sober were a very hard thing for me. It was all about making changes, and finding the right way to change. A thought came to me that almost anything might be better than what I had now. Trying to get along in life and not to drink over everything that happen to me. I had to come to believe that I was not the center of it all.

What is God’s will? And why would God have anything to do with me, I was a bad ass, or so I thought. Can I be wrong about all of this? Has God given me another chance? What a deal all these things happening at once. Is it true that God can do for me what I can’t do for my self? I slowly came to understand that God’s love can overcome anything.

It’s very important to understand that God only wants what is good for us. And another important thing is that I have to get busy on the steps to deal with all these things that are coming to me. So it is very important to get into action. This brings me to step one. Getting it from my head to my heart where it belongs was hard. I talked to a lot of people about that step and did the reading in the Big Book, and damn, it asked some question about my drinking. I answered them and talked to my sponsor and to God about it and that was when the first honesty came into my life. Yes I am a drunk and this I believe to my inner most self!

It was time for step two. Came to believe that I’m insane? That brought about a lot of thought. It was easy to see that some areas of my life are pretty crazy. Like thinking that its all about me and that all things were centered on me and what I wanted. Drinking when I know that it was killing me. Doing some of the other things that were hurting me and others. I had to spot that. But how? I was not able to take care of myself and I had to drink to make it seem all right to be me. That was sad.

I’m now about to take step three…but how does one turn his will over to the care of God? I’ve been in self will for so long. Just how do I do it? This is where the Big Book comes into life in a strong way, and looking at the 12&12 to help me too. Talking to others is also a good idea. It did not come easy though, because I slip down into self will without knowing it. I still do, but its a lot better than it use to be. I made up my mind that I will not have to turn my will over to God every day, but that I might try to stay in God’s will. I was getting better, but one must keep on keeping on. No matter how long that I’ve been doing this I still have to keep trying.

Now I’m at the step four. What an order! One of the important things to do in this deal is the house cleaning, and step four is were I find out exactly what needs to be done. After step three we go right into step four, so I took pen in hand and the Big Book and went to work. I did not have too much fear about this step, and I got in touch with a lot of things that were trouble to me and my thinking. The people I’ve hurt and the things I’ve done were very sick and I’m not going into that, but the step has to be done. This took about a month to do and it set me up for the next step.

Step five is for me to get rid of some of the things that block me from the sun light of God’s love. I did this step with a lot of people over the years. The simple thing is that it helped me to stay free. So I might ask, “How important is it? Do you want to live free of the past?!”. I like being free today. Sharing with a new comer about my past helps a great deal too. Letting them know that they are not the only one that did sick things, so sharing became very important to me.

We are now set up for step six. Letting go of our defect. This step takes a lot of willingness on my part. Do my defects cause me a lot of problems? Yes they do. I found out what my defect are and now I am willing to let go of some of them. But wait, That’s not what the Big Book said to do. Now let me see, so that is just not the way to do it. Hmm, am I still not letting go of some of those that stick their ugly heads up now and then? I do a lot of praying about that. Prayer is one of the things the big book said to do. And then there is step seven, finally letting go of them, “God I need your help!”. So this step may come slow, if we become willing to let them go.

-John

What has AA. Done For Me

This is what AA has done for me. A life I have never know, a life without drinking.

To be sober and to be able to cope with life. You know, I never thought I would make it for thirty days, now its over twenty years. To be sober, what a life! All this because I made a choice, to go to God and to AA, to get a sponsor, to work the steps and traditions, and to join in the fellowship.

Thank God for the Big Book and all of AA. I just love the freedom and I am richly blessed.

-Anonymous

Report From Your Intergroup

May 2007

May has been a slow month. Group contributions are down. And sale are also down.

So far this month we have had about fourteen people come into to the office. Some of them are new comers, it’s nice to be able to carry the message to the new people. That is one of the big rewards that I get from working in the Intergroup. To see some hope come into the eyes of the new person. Then to see them at a meeting and see the hope that is on the faces of the new person.

Here are the hours that were put into keeping the office open.

Steve 44 hours

Greg 44 hours

John 164 hours

Total of 102 hours

Not to bad for carrying the message. My many thanks to them And to the people that took care of the phones after hours.

I hate to keep on talking about the lack of money to keep the office going. Once again we are in need of so many things at the office and we need the money to get them. Please help us out getting the money to keep on going.

We are still falling short on our news letter articles. Please send any short stories of you experience, strength and hope, or perhaps some announcements and news, to us through the web-site at www.aa-fort-smith-arkansas.org. Just click the blue email address at the top of our home page, or the “Comments and Suggestions” option on the left hand side of any page and a blank ready to write email will come up on your screen with our address already in it.

You can also now use the web-site to volunteer for any service work you’d like to do, to add meetings to the meeting schedule, or to request changes if your group time or place changes (Please click the “Online Meeting and Service Work Forms” option on the left side of any page and fill out the brief form so we get complete information about who you are and what you want to do).

Thanks to God and all the people who are helping out in making things better!

-John, Intergroup

Upcoming Events

*******************

Ben Geren Park 4^th of July Fellowship

July 4^th 10am-6pm, Ben Geren Park Pavilion, Fort Smith. Volunteers needed, call Terry L. 479-883-2500.

67^th Annual “Old Granddad” (oldest convention west of the Mississippi)

Arkansas state AA convention July 27-29, Arlington Resort Hotel, Hot Springs (Rooms 501-623-7771). Registration $15 opens 4pm Friday. Speakers, dancing, golf, sight seeing.

Autumn in the Ozarks

September 14-16, Bel’arco resort, Bull Shoals, AR. 870-445-4242. Pre Registration Friday 2pm $12, Registration at the door $15. Theme “Walking the Talk”. 6 speaker meetings, camping, hiking, fishing, boating, golf, tennis, sight seeing. Lots of nearby dining available. See website www.autumnintheozarks.com