My Message to Friends of Bill and Bob Facebook Group

It seems there is some confusion to my motives among some members of our group.  I want to clarify.  I also invite writers to share their experience, strength, and hope by sending me your articles to put into print.  Join the group here https://www.facebook.com/groups/2247449301/

Care and fear are two different things.  I care about all your opinions and beliefs.  I care about my reputation and what you think of me.  This makes me human not weak.  Can I control it?  Of course not.  Can I make you like me or change your opinions?  No only you can do that but I can shed light on my own motives.

My name is Lori, I am a recovered alcoholic. 
I got sober by several methods including  AA/rehab/therapy/white light exp./steps/spiritual seeking/and fellowship.   I advocate all of these tools including church. As for AA if you go to RFH you will see step work experience and articles all over the website. I believe in living the steps not in dependency on AA after years and years of step work and learning. The 12 steps and fellowship are AA recovery.   Meetings are gravy they are not the program of Alcoholics Anonymous as it’s outlined in the Big Book.  However meetings are a helpful tool in many ways.  
Fellowship is a vital component of recovery as I well know. I am not anti AA but I am anti AA dogma that isn’t in the Big book yet is hailed in AA across U.S. If you love the little titbits of false beliefs called AA rhetoric that have worked themselves into many people’s belief system that are no where in the Big Book or 12×12 and even refuted by our literature, you won’t like my writing. If you love status quos and misconceptions, you won’t like my writing.

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Why Addiction?

 

My name is Laura Edgar.  I got sober in 2006 and have stayed sober in AA and with therapy and spirituality for 7 years then I quit going to meetings.  That was about five years ago, I am still sober presently  and have nearly 12 years with very few meetings in the last five years.  Do I recommends this?  No.  Do I believe you can do the same?  Absolutely and here is how.

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Can An Addict Really Quit Drugs On Their Own?

Charlie Sheen states he quit drugs by his own power of thought.

Update: Apparently according to online sources Charlie Seen did stay sober on his own for eleven years until he was diagnosed in 2016-January with H.I.V. Some articles state his sobriety was a farce.  The news of his HIV threw him into a deep state of anxiety and relapse apparently.  Recent information states he detoxed at his father's Malibu home in 2017-April.  Hopefully since then he is finding spiritual help.  Recent info says he is sober now and doing charity work as an HIV solutions advocate.

2011-Charlie Sheen stated that he quit drugs by his own self will.  I must admit I know people sober for long periods of time who have done it on their own.  Granted…this does not allow for any work on the core reasons for the need to numb ones awarness on a regular basis.  Nor does it introduce emotional coping skills that work for many addicts.  The article below is so accurate in my opinion I had to share it with you.  Taken from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-you-cure-yourself-of-addiction/ and written by:   By Nina Bai on March 4, 2011

I am especially impressed with the accuracy of the statement made by: “Scientific American spoke with Sally Satel, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research and lecturer in
psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine, about quitting drugs without professional treatment. Satel was formerly a staff psychiatrist at
the Oasis Clinic in Washington, D.C., where she worked with substance abuse patients.”

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Addiction Cunning & Baffling Indeed

THE BAFFLING PART OF ADDICTION EXPLAINED. How does an emotional pain morph into spiritual blindness and darkness that would cause a man to self destruct?
Clearing up the EMOTIONAL wreckage of the past makes us less vulnerable to actions of fear and hurt toward self and others. Confessing our greatest fear(s) DOES render them powerless over us. In this sense we ARE as sick as our secrets. Shame is the leverage of darkness. Yet “shame” is something humans seldom want to explore within themselves to irrigate it with light. Why?

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AA Juggernaut #2

Please try to apply this to yourself or it won’t do you any good.  Open your mind to free your identity.

Prayer and step three are a prerequisite to all recovery steps and exercises for guidance and direction, for revelation, and epiphany, for self awareness and cutting through the ego .
AA status quos are the AA Juggernauts  that can kill you.  We must allow ourselves to become vulnerable emotionally if we are going to heal.  We must not allow our intellect to stifle what our heart needs to say.  The AA Juggernaut is to follow socially acceptable rules during our recovery process.  By this we would cover up our heart and hide it from real recovery.

My recovery from addiction in short has been about

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The Most Valuable Lesson in Recovery

You are beautiful and there are ways to teach your heart to believe it.

Truly Step Eleven has brought me the most enlightenment, healing, self awareness, and fulfillment of all the 12 steps.  Granted, the other eleven steps are necessary for recovery.  But had I not spent years in meditation I would not know myself or my Higher Power very well.

My Higher Power is light and life.  I am light and life.  Connecting to my H.P. during prayer and meditation allows me to absorb the gifts the Spirit has for me.  The most wonderful experience and closeness to The Creator I have ever

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Why Dale K Re-wrote The First 164 Pages of The Big Book

 

Why on Earth did Dale K think he had the right to change our treasured Big Book?

Some background info.  Who is AAAgnostica and Tom B?

Read original aaagnostica article here

The AAAgnostica site advocates the book “Secular Sobriety” by Dale K which is a rewrite of the Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book text.    aaagnostica.org and writer Tom B. are an open minded, free-thinking organization geared toward alcoholics Anonymous.  They impress on us the fundamentals of a godless recovery for those who need it. (Tom B always uses a small “g”)  The website’s “about” page states this: “When we use the word “agnostic” in relation to AA – or words like “atheist” or “freethinker” – we are simply referring to the specific wisdom of groups and individuals within the fellowship who understand that belief in a “God” (of any understanding) is not a necessary part of recovery from alcoholism.  They advocate freedom of choice where religion and spirituality are concerned and admonish religious dogma and social prejudice that lives in the rooms of AA.    Here is their email if you wish to contact them.  Thomas B writes most of the articles on the site and wrote one promoting the book “Secular Sobriety”.

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We’re All Here for the Very Same Reason

AA Can you help me unravel my latest mistake? Damn right we can.
“You’re a little late..I’m already torn, torn.”

It is progress to realize one is emotionally torn. This is the first step in emotional healing. Emotions, Body, and spirit in us are as one….We need not label our emotions “bad” or “weak” but rather embrace them as part of us. Take up the defensive angry screaming ego known as the “committee” and nurture that part of ourselves with Love, comfort, and assurance. During step eleven meditations I can reassure that part of me which is defensively reactionary when fear is triggered.

My “addict” (persay) wears a stone cold armor of defense and blame so I

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A Note to my Alcoholics Anonymous Family

Alcoholics Anonymous Family,

There is so much in this world to fear. The more research I do on the condition of the Earth, food, pollution, radiation, food additives, toxins, malnutrition due to processed foods the more I am learning about THE BIGGEST PROBLEMS in 2017. So I regroup & choose faith and hope to kwell the horrible uncertainties of the future. My HP has got my back. And I know the tools that bring me back to the safety of “NOW”. Writing is one of my tools. So with all the dangers around me I moved myself on to the solutions just like my favorite AA cliche’ states; “Out of the problem into the solution”. And my 2nd fav. “Move a muscle change a thought”. 3rd “the program works”.

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