We already know about all the faith-based programs, Gary, but thanks for playing. Sorry if most of us are not interested in your Baptist churchs' fundamentalist version of redemption. In fact, I'm guessing most of us are repulsed. As a general rule, I don't listen to fat white male fundies in ill-fitting suits who divide their time between railing against female reproductive rights, multi-culturalism, and gun-control measures:
Your God is not our God, so please stop attempting to ram It down our throats. OH NO! HE HAD A PONYTAIL DOWN TO HIS WAIST AND HAD BEEN FAR AWAY FROM GOD!!
There are people from every possible background that get sober, from atheists to fundamentalists. If you are sober and happy that is what matters. I know a lot of sober people and none have told me that I need to believe what they do to stay sober.
"Don't blindly believe what I say. Don't believe me because others convince you of my words. Don't believe anything you see, read, or hear from others, whether of authority, religious teachers or texts. Don't rely on logic alone, nor speculation. Don't infer or be deceived by appearances."
"Do not give up your authority and follow blindly the will of others. This way will lead to only delusion."
"Find out for yourself what is truth, what is real. Discover that there are virtuous things and there are non-virtuous things. Once you have discovered for yourself give up the bad and embrace the good."
There are people from every possible background that get sober, from atheists to fundamentalists. If you are sober and happy that is what matters. I know a lot of sober people and none have told me that I need to believe what they do to stay sober.
"Don't blindly believe what I say. Don't believe me because others convince you of my words. Don't believe anything you see, read, or hear from others, whether of authority, religious teachers or texts. Don't rely on logic alone, nor speculation. Don't infer or be deceived by appearances."
"Do not give up your authority and follow blindly the will of others. This way will lead to only delusion."
"Find out for yourself what is truth, what is real. Discover that there are virtuous things and there are non-virtuous things. Once you have discovered for yourself give up the bad and embrace the good."
The Buddha
It sounds like the Buddha didn't need anybody but himself to get through his strongholds, which I'm sure he had. God forbid.
Read it Bob, come on Robert, read it...you decide who Buddha is relying on. Any addict, including myself, can tell you where their brilliant thinking got them.
Geez Gary, how about you not being a weird-assed multiple personality pathological liar? You've been called out on this so many times it's embarrasing.
Speaking of rating "creep"...I always called General Dynamics 5.10c and have ben back on it twice since 2007 and can't seem to repeat it! Am I that fat now or was I that much better twenty five years ago? Then again, it is now rated 5.11 which seems to explain why I'm having a difficult time on it now. I'm going to lean more on the former than the latter.
aww man, you two have lots more than that in common! ID, when did you move from NJ back to SD? Seems you both climbed at Woodson in the early eighties, moved to NJ, served in Iraq at a bit of an advanced age, and then simultaneously move back to SD! That's amazing!
bvb, please stop this. I've seen you do this on many threads, and you always do more harm then good. I understand your intention, but this is NOT what this thread is for.
This is not the place for you to play Internet Ranger, OK? This is a very serious topic for those of us fighting this disease, and it's managed to stay clear of the ST cesspool until now, for the most part.
The more you feel you HAVE to post, the more HE posts, and the thread gets destroyed. Walk away from this and do us all a favor.
No, Vegasclimber is totally right. But if asshat goes all Apocalypto on us again I can't make any promises. He's like the crazy lunatic screaming in the middle of the meeting. Sooner or later you gotta call the cops.
bvb, thanks much. If he goes off again, maybe it would be less intrusive to start a different thread to expose the issues. If you react, he will react, etc etc as I said. Appreciate your understanding.
Psi, grats on the 2 years plus! The two year mark was kinda tough for me, that's about the time I had been sober long enough to remember some of the stupid sh#t I did when I was drinking.
I made my 8 year mark on Xmas eve, I wanted to thank everyone here at the supertopo that gave me awesome support and advice when really needed it. I was going through a rough time.
Nice work on the 8 years! Holidays are a tough time to have a sobriety date, even when things are going OK. Glad you made it through your rough patch sober. Another victory!
Keep doing what you're doing then! One day at a time, one minute at a time, whatever needs to happen. Remember, don't pick up the first one, and you will never get drunk. Keep it simple right now, our brains like simple.
Hope you have a good support system in place, that helps a lot. Winging it isn't much fun.
am Griffith Wilson (November 26, 1895 – January 24, 1971), also known as Bill Wilson or Bill W., was the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), an international mutual aid fellowship with over two million members belonging to 100,800 groups of alcoholics helping other alcoholics achieve and maintain sobriety.
In November 1934, Wilson was visited by old drinking companion Ebby Thacher. Wilson was astounded to find that Thacher had been sober for several weeks under the guidance of the evangelical Christian Oxford Group.[17] Wilson took some interest in the group, but shortly after Thacher's visit, he was again admitted to Towns Hospital to recover from a bout of drinking. This was his fourth and last stay at Towns hospital under Doctor Silkworth's care. It was while undergoing treatment with The Belladonna Cure that Wilson experienced his "Hot Flash" spiritual conversion and quit drinking.
In the 1950s Wilson used LSD in medically supervised experiments with Betty Eisner, Gerald Heard, and Aldous Huxley. With Wilson's invitation, his wife Lois, his spiritual adviser Father Ed Dowling, and Nell Wing also participated in experimentation of this drug. Later Wilson wrote to Carl Jung, praising the results and recommending it as validation of Jung's spiritual experience. (The letter was not in fact sent as Jung had died.)[30] According to Wilson, the session allowed him to re-experience a spontaneous spiritual experience he had had years before, which had enabled him to overcome his own alcoholism. Bill was enthusiastic about his experience; he felt it helped him eliminate many barriers erected by the self, or ego, that stand in the way of one's direct experience of the cosmos and of God. He thought he might have found something that could make a big difference to the lives of many who still suffered. Bill is quoted as saying: "It is a generally acknowledged fact in spiritual development that ego reduction makes the influx of God's grace possible. If, therefore, under LSD we can have a temporary reduction, so that we can better see what we are and where we are going — well, that might be of some help. The goal might become clearer. So I consider LSD to be of some value to some people, and practically no damage to anyone. It will never take the place of any of the existing means by which we can reduce the ego, and keep it reduced."[31] Wilson felt that regular usage of LSD in a carefully controlled, structured setting would be beneficial for many recovering alcoholics. However, he felt this method only should be attempted by individuals with well-developed super-egos.
The Buddha
Let us know!