Hi Everyone!

Thank you for your participation and sharing during our meeting this week.

The telephone conference numbers for our group are:

Telephone conference number: (712) 775-7031 Access Code: 397-681-282

Playback recording number is: (712) 775-7029 Access Code: 397-681-282#

Playback reference number: 25

Here is the link for the MP3 of our meeting. This link will only be available for a limited time. But, participants may download the MP3 of our meeting directly from the telephone conference line.

To listen to past recorded meetings, please go to the Recordings tab on the blog.  Our meetings are stored on MediaFire, a cloud storage service.

As a reminder, our group takes place on Sunday mornings at 5:30 AM EST.

Please join us as we “trudge the Road of Happy Destiny.” (AA Big Book 164:3)

LAST WEEK, we did our first Steel on Steel Meeting. This group is only open to committed members of Emotional Sobriety & Food and is NOT recorded.

I made a new Steel On Steel format for our group, which is in the process of being edited. I would like to post the format as a blog page, but, I think that I have too many tabs!

I encourage anyone who would like to explore this spiritual exercise to find 3 other people and use any of the various formats that are available on-line and on this blog.  As it says in the AA Big Book: “The spiritual life is not a theory, we have to live it.”

THIS WEEK, we read and discussed the first chapter in The Unpopular Guide to Step 5.

Here are some of my notes from our meeting:

We all have a story about ourselves, which we believe is true.  As addicts, we use our past experience to justify our addictive behaviors. For example, “if you had my life and went through everything that I went through, then of course you too would need to escape into the food, behavior, substance, etc… “

 

However, in Step 5, the healing comes through sharing our story with another person, without trying to justify our behaviors.  When another person listens with compassion, and validates our suffering, we become free to let go of the story, and take responsibility for our actions.  We cannot change our past, we can only change how we respond to what happens to us.

Aidel highlighted the difference between program and therapy. Therapy can help us understanding our resentments, but program helps us to let go of our resentments. This is a program of action.  As it says in the AA Big Book, “self-knowledge avails us nothing.” (pp. 39:1)

Ossnath asked a wonderful question: After Step 1, does it make a difference what Fellowship we are in for the rest of the Steps?

This question highlights the difference between “fellowship” and “program.”

The fellowship of the 12 Step program is “a group of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other.”

The 12 Steps of program are “a group of principles, spiritual in their nature, which, if practiced as a way of life, can expel the obsession to drink and enable the sufferer to become happily and usefully whole.”

The fellowships may differ, but, the program of recovery as outlined in the AA Big Book is the same.

Identification, however, is critical for recovery. In order to not be distracted by the details, the question to ask is: What core addiction do you most identify with? Where will you be most willing to listen and do the work necessary to work a program of recovery?

NEXT WEEK, we will read and discuss the next story in the AA Big Book, Crossing The River Of Denial.

Homework: Next week, if you have not already done so, please complete your 5^th Step.

I am so grateful to be sharing this journey with all of you!

Thank you all for sharing your experience, strength and hope.

“Together we can do what we can never do alone.”

In love and service,

Shira