All Addictions
12-Step Study
Workshop
12-Step Study
Workshop
8/30/2018 0 Comments Recording For August 30, 2018(week 346) 30 August 2018 12 Step Study Big Book All Addictions Workshop
Call back number: 641 715 3900 pin no. 95666# (available for a week) Open Study Buddy group on Sundays 11-12am EST. 319 527 3511 pin no. 587213# Tuesdays 8am EST Reading the AA literature: Living Sober & As Bill Sees It. Everyone is encouraged to come to this awesome group. To listen to the recording: 641 715 3900 pin no. 298913# However, next Tuesday September 3 2018 We will be finish step 12 from 12 x 12. Donations towards the cost of the website please send via Pay Pal on the website or mail a check to: Stephanie Whiting P O Box 531 North Pembroke MA 02358 If you are new to the workshop (or not receiving the questions) please phone Sue W *HS Ruddock on: 434 987 4346 and email her at: [email protected] If you do not have a members’ list ask Sue to email it to you to enable you to phone other members. If someone is no longer on the meeting it is an opportunity to ask if they would be interested in joining the next Big Book workshop which will starts September 13 2018 IMPORTANT: The next Big Book Study Group will start on Thursday 13 September 2018. Pass this message onto anyone you think may be interested in joining. To ensure we finish the 12th step and tradition by September 13, the next workshop will be on Tuesday 8-9am EST (instead of Living Sober) and next Thursday the workshop will be two hours 8-10am EST. The Tuesday recording will be on the Tuesday callback number (see above). Step 12: “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.” 12 x 12 Step 12 page 120 line 11 until page 122 line 12: Free of marital responsibilities, they can participate in enterprises which would be denied to family men and women. We daily see such members render prodigies of service, and receive great joys in return. Where the possession of money and material things was concerned, our outlook underwent the same revolutionary change. With a few exceptions, all of us had been spend- thrifts. We threw money about in every direction with the purpose of pleasing ourselves and impressing other people. In our drinking time, we acted as if the money supply was inexhaustible, though between binges we’d sometimes go to the other extreme and become almost miserly. Without realizing it we were just accumulating funds for the next spree. Money was the symbol of pleasure and self-importance. When our drinking had become much worse, money was only an urgent requirement which could supply us with the next drink and the temporary comfort of oblivion it brought. Upon entering A.A., these attitudes were sharply reversed, often going much too far in the opposite direction. The spectacle of years of waste threw us into panic. There simply wouldn’t be time, we thought, to rebuild our shattered fortunes. How could we ever take care of those awful debts, possess a decent home, educate the kids, and set something by for old age? Financial importance was no longer our principal aim; we now clamoured for material security. Even when we were well re-established in our business, these terrible fears often continued to haunt us. This made us misers and penny pinchers all over again. Complete financial security we must have—or else. We forgot that most alcoholics in A.A. have an earning power considerably above average; we forgot the immense goodwill of our brother A.A.’s who were only too eager to help us to better jobs when we deserved them; we forgot the actual or potential financial insecurity of every human being in the world. And, worst of all, we forgot God. In money matters we had faith only in ourselves, and not too much of that. This all meant, of course, that we were still far off balance. When a job still looked like a mere means of getting money rather than an opportunity for service, when the acquisition of money for financial independence looked more important than a right dependence upon God, we were still the victims of unreasonable fears. And these were fears which would make a serene and useful existence, at any financial level, quite impossible. But as time passed we found that with the help of A.A.’s Twelve Steps we could lose those fears, no matter what our material prospects were. We could cheerfully perform humble labor without worrying about tomorrow. If our circumstances happened to be good, we no longer dreaded a change for the worse, for we had learned that these troubles could be turned into great values. It did not matter too much what our material condition was, but it did matter what our spiritual condition was. Money gradually became our servant and not our master. It became a means of exchanging love and service with those about us. When, with God’s help, we calmly accepted our lot, then we found we could live at peace with ourselves and show others who still suffered the same fears that they could get over them, too. We found that freedom from fear was more important than freedom from want. Soulwork Look up: prodigy, miserly, spendthrift. Q1. In sobriety are you throwing money in every direction to please yourself and impress others or are you miserly? Q2. Is money still a symbol of pleasure and self-importance or is it just a means for living sober and using your money for God-honouring purposes? Q3. Is money an urgent requirement for you right now? Q4. Are you looking to God or to money for your security? Q5. Write on this: • I am not where I want to be in my recovery AND I’m grateful I’m not where I used to be. Q6. And (a) write on your situation with money AND (b) about where you want to be Number One - (e.g. home, community, family, etc.) •Do you want to be number one in your family of origin? in your Step group? Where? (See AA 12&12 p.122, 49th ed., para 2 sent. 2: “He wants to be his country’s number one man.”) Q7. THAT’S recovery: “He learns that he can be content as long as he plays well whatever cards life deals him.” (AA 12&12 p. 122, para 2 sent. 5) •Are you there? Write on this. ( Bring this to G-D in Quiet Time, share it with your buddy, write on it.) Q8. “He’s still ambitious, but not absurdly so, because he can now see and accept actual reality.He’s willing to stay right-size.”(AA 12&12 p. 122, para 2, last 2 sentences.) •Are you ambitious in the right way? (Pray never to stop wanting to be ambitious) OR •are you trying to be a first-rater, trying to go to the top of the heap? (Says STEPHANIE: I like to be in the middle of the heap so I have people to look up to and people I can help while we are walking side by side. Q9. Are you willing to be right-sized? Are you willing to have people see into you? (in-to-me-see ▶️ intimacy).
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Our live phone meetings are every Tuesday at 8:00 AM EST. The phone number for these live meetings is (712) 775-7031, and the meeting ID number is 714744988#.
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P O Box 531 North Pembroke MA 02358 |
You can listen to our recorded meetings at (641) 715-3900, pin 95666# for our Tuesday Big Book Step Study workshop. You can also hear our Thursday Big Book Study recordings at (641) 715-3900, pin 298913#. These meetings can be accessed at any time.
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