2016 Alcoholics Anonymous Financial statements
This financial statement is public record at https://www.aa.org/assets/en_US/en_gsofinancialinfo.pdf
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Bill W. Preserves the Top of the Triangle
Disclaimer: Recovery Farmhouse is not any sect of Alcoholics Anonymous. RFH is providing information to anyone interested in recovery addiction step work and 12 step programs. This article is for informational purposes only and means to incite no accusations against AA or its non addict paid servant board of directors and officers.
How did Bill Wilson preserve the power of the top of the Triangle of AA meaning the group’s members authority?
click here to read BILL WILSON’S ANSWER (OR click “continue reading” below if you’re on the homepage.)
Clearly the largest part of AA’s income comes from literature sales therefore my next article will be on how group members have or have not any power whatsoever related to those millions of dollars or any say at all in what that money is used for. Clearly the Big Book proceeds go to the family of Lois Wilson as she instructed in her will. She did leave much of her estate to the Stepping Stones foundation. The Foundation, created by Lois Wilson in 1979, maintains the home, its contents … “If the fellowship is an extension of my family then Stepping Stones is home.”
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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.
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?
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
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
Humanities Fall
And I thought it was just the addicts cross to bear.
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
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”.
Recovery from Addiction
Jails, Institutions, and Near Death
Spring of 2006 I spent 2 months in jail getting sober for the last time. I spent my time locked up reading the Bible, The Big Book, writing ‘Paradise for the Hellbound’, and praying that the judge would sentence me to Bridgehouse. Bridgehouse (B.H.) is a rehab center owned by Meridian Behavioral Healthcare. I had been on the Methadone program there and I sent letters to my doctor to get me into rehab from jail. He was all for it. He himself later landed in rehab. Come to find out the doc was dipping into his own meds .How convenient.
On June 15th 2006 I got transported to B.H. by a Levy County Sheriff to begin my 28-day stay. Twenty-eight days…… twenty-eight days …. (reminiscent sigh). In the spring of 2006 28 days seemed like a very long time. The days were long and the nights were even longer. I had been in my addiction for nearly 35 years.
Dr. Bob’s Last Major Talk
Click here to read Dr. Bob’s Last Major Talk
Commentary of controversy:
Dr. Bob exhibits a degree of insecurity about staying sober in the essay below. Dr. Bob mentions that when he thinks about having a drink (at 13 years sober) he knows what to do, he goes to see the boys in detox.
Yes an ego based sense of security in recovery can be a dangerous road to relapse no matter how long we have been sober. Sobriety time is not what keeps us sober. But there is a thing called healthy security based and grounded in 12 step work, a relationship with God and the knowledge the program works.
Seems to me there are quite a few addicts who don’t know the difference between ego false pride the dangerous kind and healthy self confidence. Seems some addicts think they have to exhibit false humility to stay sober. We in AA routinely socially punch holes in our overall worth in spite of our child of God status.
So what? If I finally learn/build some self esteem from doing the 12 step work I now need to negate it with false humility? If we know the program works, and we have a choice then why would our sobriety be built on thin ice? And why would me announcing my thin ice foundation be anything more than a public exhibit of false humility.
Typical statements by people with years sober: “I am no more secure than someone who just walked in AA and knows absolutely nothing about staying sober”, or “I am an arms length from the next drink just like the gutter drunk who doesn’t know the 12 steps”. When does years of sobriety and knowledge become self confidence? Seriously it’s not insecurity or fear that keeps us sober. It’s not downgrading our recovery that keeps us sober.
Watch What You Say Online The Governments have a List of Trigger Words
They have a list of trigger words and the computers to search for them. Big brother can scan the posts and comments of every social media site online. What in the hell are they really looking for? This doesn’t seem to be the tactics of a freedom advocating government. Does free speech still exist?
See all the entire list of words you need to avoid online just to feel safe from wrongful attention by some possible over-zealous men in black suites driving black SUV’s.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2150281/REVEALED-Hundreds-words-avoid-using-online-dont-want-government-spying-you.html Oh boy! They might get bored if they follow my web surfing. Or they will learn to eat organic.