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Freedom From Bondage Freedom from Bo***ge of self, Bo***ge of addiction, This IS NOT a CA website. I am, however an active CA member.

This page is used to discuss recovery issues and/or Big Book Discussion(what saved my life), and this page is not meant for a bunch of euphoric recall. In addition, some posts may be purely opinionated. Personally, if it ain't in the big book of AA, then it's not been proven as a means of recovery material, therefore not true. Please ask any questions you may have concerning recovery!

10/08/2026

Oldtimer said, "Our whole attitude and outlook on life will change when we embrace our role as agents for God, who live in service to Him and our fellow man. When we do so, we find we are a channel of His peace, and we are strengthened when His power flows through us to others.

It is easier to get through tough times if we know that someone down the road will benefit from our difficult experience. This is what is meant by "a problem shared is a problem halved." We live our lives not simply for ourselves, but for others who will come into the rooms of recovery in need of the experience we have gained. We demonstrate to them the depth and weight of the grace God offers.

Service is the calling card of the grateful, and it is through service that we bring hope to the hopeless and help to the helpless. In Step Three, we agreed to bear witness to those we would help of God's power, love, and way of life. This attitude adjustment moves us from fatal selfishness to a selflessness that benefits our spiritual life.

As our teachable spirit awakens us to God's providence, we become teachers of providence, sharing a message of redemption with those in dire need of a healing grace. We no longer embrace a "why me" attitude when hard times come our way, but instead, we open our minds to the lessons we are to learn from difficulties.

God only wants us to be happy, joyous, and free, yet we choose to deliberately manufacture misery when we choose our will over His will. We create our problems with the gift of free will God granted us, yet He allows for it because He knows if we return to His way of life, our difficulties will work towards His plan—a plan that leaves us reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him in the next.

When we grow through our difficulties with grace, we take the pathway to peace. When we share our experience, strength, and hope with others so that they might be encouraged to turn their will and lives over to God, we act as agents for a Benevolent Employer that fulfills our needs as they arise.

When Bill Wilson stood outside the bar in the Mayflower Hotel contemplating a drink, he thought of his Third Step decision and turned his thoughts to the alcoholics who would lose their chance at recovery if he gave in to the temptation of the first drink. Instead of taking the drink, he took the actions that ultimately led him to Dr. Bob and the founding of AA. As a result of this selfless attitude of service, millions of alcoholics and addicts have recovered from a hopeless state of mind and body.

So it is with us today. We are encouraged not to leave before the miracle happens. The miracle happens with an attitude of gratitude that moves our perception from victim to victor. The feeling of uselessness and self-pity disappears, and we see how we can we can be useful to others by sharing evidence of God working in our lives.

Now the wreckage of our past is transformed from trash to a most valuable treasure when we use it to help another alcoholic or addict benefit from it. This change in our attitude brings about a change in our perception of and our reaction to life. With each passing day, when we share our victory over our difficulties with others, we are demonstrating God's omnipotence. We come to better understand our Third Step decision every time we bear witness to those we would help of God's love, His power, and His way of life."

10/06/2026

Oldtimer said, "There are two sides to the alcoholic/addict coin of insanity. There is the obsession side, where we have a mental compulsion that overrides reason, logic, and common sense, which dooms us to use , drink or both, against our best interests. No human power can relieve us of this mental obsession; God could and would if He were sought. On the other side of the coin is an agnostic self-sufficiency that lacks knowledge of God's power and Eases God Out of our life. It is our bo***ge to this dysfunctional cycle that leads us back to the bottle and delivers us to the addict/alcoholic pit.

When we run our lives based upon self-will, we are empowering the alcoholic/addict ego, where the insane idea of the first drink,hit,line,pill,needle exists. The longer we are bound to the addict/ alcoholic ego, the higher the probability that we will return to using,drinking or both. The longer we keep God out of our lives, the lower our chance at recovery from a hopeless state of mind and body.

When we allow the alcoholic/addict ego to guide us, selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear dominate our lives. In this state, we are always in collision with someone or something, even when our motives are good. As a result, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. We then retaliate by taking another hit,drink,line,pill,etc.which results in pitiful, incomprehensible demoralization.

These four maladies fuel the mental obsession with drugs and or alcohol. For a hard drinker or user self-sufficiency works; their problem is alcohol,drugs or both, and once they stop using and boozing , the problem is solved. Self-will is not an issue for them. But for the hopeless addict/alcoholic whose solution to life on life's terms was found in the bottle,hit,line,pill,etc. the real problem appears when alcohol and drugs disappears from their life.

If nothing changes, nothing changes. We repeat the folly of self-sufficiency while expecting a different result. When we rely on self-will, we simply think our way back into a oblivion. If we are to be free of our bo***ge to addiction, we must be free of the bo***ge to self—the old ideas, emotions, and attitudes that prevent us from seeing and acting on the truth about alcohol and drugs .

We alcoholics and addicts made a god of drugs and alcohol and centered our lives around the drink. Without it, we drift aimlessly, heading nowhere until we meet our doom with the next drink or drug in whatever form, which ultimately takes us to the gates of insanity and death.

In order to solve the riddle of the two-sided coin of this insanity, we must place our faith in a Power greater than ourselves and follow the Good Orderly Directions The Steps offers, so that we might experience a psychic change that relieves us of our obsession with drugs, alcohol or both and brings peace, harmony, and order to our lives.

We have lost the power of choice over our addiction to alcohol and drugs but we can choose our way of life. We can continue to live a life run on self-sufficiency, constantly relapsing and going on to the bitter end, hoping against hope that we aren't real alcoholics ,real addicts of the hopeless variety. Or we can choose to live one day at a time on a spiritual basis.

The Good Orderly Directions the Twelve Steps provide restore our sanity on both sides of the coin and deliver us to a fourth dimension of existence where we find freedom from alcohol and rebuild a life that gets infinitely more wonderful as time passes.

09/10/2026

In the journey of Alcoholics Anonymous, it can be easy to lose sight of the deeper purpose behind the Twelve Steps. Sobriety is the essential beginning—the freedom from alcohol that makes a new life possible—but it is not necessarily the destination. The greater goal is serenity: a state of inner peace in which we learn to accept life as it is, release what we cannot control, and live with greater harmony, gratitude, and purpose.
Serenity is more than simply feeling calm. It is an inner condition in which our thoughts, actions, and spirit become aligned with what is good and true. The Twelve Steps offer a path toward that alignment, but the path must be lived, not merely understood. Through honesty, humility, compassion, responsibility, forgiveness, and service, we gradually develop a virtuous way of life. These virtues become guideposts, helping us move beyond simply avoiding the drink and toward becoming the person we were always capable of being.

Sobriety is therefore a first step toward a higher consciousness and a more awakened state of being. When we learn to live with integrity and surrender our need to control everything around us, the human experience begins to take on a different quality. We become less governed by fear, resentment, ego, and impulse, and more capable of experiencing love, gratitude, connection, and peace.

And perhaps the most beautiful part of this transformation is that it does not happen in isolation. A person who has found genuine serenity becomes a quiet beacon of light for others. Their presence can offer hope without preaching, strength without force, and peace without explanation. In this way, recovery becomes more than the preservation of sobriety—it becomes the creation of a life so fully and consciously lived that it illuminates the path for those still searching for their way.

09/10/2026

Oldtimer said, "We can speak of God with our lips all that we want, but the true reflection of our understanding of God shows in the way we move our hips. Are we fearlessly walking hand in hand with Him on the road to our happy destiny? Do we navigate the valley of the shadow of death in a closer walk with Him? If so, our treatment of our fellow man will be full of grace, love, kindness, and respect. If not, we should question our understanding of God.

If we are judgmental, we are reflecting a belief in a judgmental God. If we are resentful, we are reflecting a belief in an angry, spiteful God. If we are selfish and fearful, we are reflecting a belief in a limited, uncaring God, lacking infinite abundance. If we are going to play the role God assigns and act as agents for His ever-advancing Creation, we must take into consideration the valuable suggestions the Big Book offers us.

God is the Director who oversees not only our lives, but all of Creation from the Alpha to the Omega. He has the script for how it all plays out. When we assume the role He assigns, we will intuitively know how to handle situations that used to baffle us, and we are rewarded with peace and serenity in the presence of chaos and confusion.

He is the Principal, the One who has all power. When we keep the spiritual channel clear, His power flows into our lives and purifies our hearts and minds. As a result of living His way of life, our hearts undergo a transformation that leads to behavior modification, which brings about a spiritual awakening that rearranges our ideas, emotions, and attitudes. We move from self-centered to God-centered and live our lives in service to His world.

He is the Father of Light who loves His children when they do their worst because He knows that, in every situation, we do the best we can with the yoke and burden we bear. His yoke is easy and His burden is light. He lifts our burdens when we let go of them and yoke ourselves to His will. God only wants us to be happy, joyous, and free. We create the misery that bedevils us. When we avoid such activity, we are blessed with His infinite grace.

And, finally, He is our Employer who provides what we need, so long as we keep close to Him and do His work well. We have a history that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that we don't know what is best for us. So in gratitude we thank God for that which He has given us, that which He has taken away, that which He has left us with, and that which He has kept from us. Eventually we learn that not getting what we desire is truly a blessing in disguise, and that our greatest blessings come wrapped in boxes that we initially found unpleasant until we opened them to discover the gift inside.

When we draw near to God, He reveals Himself to us in the face of everyone we meet. We no longer use people, but become lovers of people and users of things. We have no cause for anger, malice, or fear, for God surrounds us wherever we go. And whatever need we can perceive, we find that even if we don't fulfill it, His Grace is sufficient!"

08/29/2026

Oldtimer said, "The alcoholic/addict mind isn't comfortable with the truth, so it seeks comfort in delusions. It takes flight from reality and pursues any delusion that will enable and support its pursuit of the pleasure drugs and alcohol delivered. Addict and alcoholics can only use or drink when we reject the truth and accept the delusions of our alcoholic/addict mind. Thus did we come to dwell in the valley of the shadow of death.

Every drug or drink we took put greater distance between us and the Sunlight of the Spirit, and just as a plant withers and dies without sunlight,addicts and alcoholics wither and die as we withdraw from the presence of the Father of Light. We had found a new god upon which we pinned our hopes, but our pursuit of pleasure only delivered us to the pit where the pleasure of alcohol and drugs abandoned us and left us in the company of the four horsemen of the apocalypse—terror, bewilderment, frustration, and despair.

We paid a high price for low living until we finally made the final payment our lesser god demanded in return for the temporary bliss it provided. In our march to the grave, our mind rejected the reality of our condition and rationalized, justified, and minimized our deteriorating lifestyle.

Rather than accept the truth, it rejected those who carried it to us. The warnings of doctors, employers, and the courts fell upon deaf ears as we displayed unwavering faith in King Addiction. Frothy emotional appeals from our loved ones failed to halt our delusional flight from reality that was destined for a fatal crash.

Even the abject reasoning of alcoholics and addicts, who graciously offer the sick and suffering addict/alcoholic their experience, strength, and hope, often fails to break the chains of bo***ge that leave them trapped in a spiral of self-destruction. Only when WE come to the conclusion that our mind is out to get us are they able to accept the truth of their condition and the remedy the steps offers.

In a moment of clarity, we are presented with a hope for a new life of freedom and a happy, joyous existence in the fellowship of the spirit. This requires rigorous honesty. Our addict/alcoholic mind is a skilled master at twisting the truth, and with every twist of the truth, a new link is formed in the chain that binds us to addction. But with each step we take towards the truth, a link is broken in our chain until we find the freedom we seek.

The truth sets us free, but our release is marked by much pain as we seek to hold onto our old ideas, emotions, and attitudes that often ferment into another drink,hit,line,pill,needle,pipe,etc. the longer we hold onto them. We must let go of our old ideas, emotions, and attitudes and let God plant the seeds of truth in our minds. And so long as we nurture these seeds and remove the weeds of delusions that spring up from time to time, our minds bear the fruit of the Spirit, and we dwell in the World of the Spirit in communion with the Author of Truth and our fellow travelers who escaped the clutches of death and found life more abundant."

08/25/2026

Toxic attracts Toxic.

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