Magazine

SEPTEMBER 1993

SERVICE NOT AN OPTION

Download 1993.3-September-ESSAY.pdf

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Enjoy reading all the articles of the current magazine below.

Service Not an Option
When I first got sober in AA, service was not an option; it came with the package. When we work through the Steps, we eventually get to Step Twelve, which states that “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry the message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.” When I came to SA I was told that AA’s Twelve Steps were SA’s Twelve Steps.

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Ego
Ego has been said to mean Edging God Out. How desperately I want to sign this piece so that I’ll be admired and praised — so that I’ll feel less small and gray. But this means I am mistakenly allowing, indeed inviting, others to validate me — thinking that they can fill me up and make me whole.

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The Group Conscience
There are two ways for a group to arrive at a group conscience. One is the competitive way, the other is the cooperative way. In the competitive, you push your ideas across, take a vote, and the majority carry the decision. This leaves behind a disgruntled minority that feel that its truths are lost sight of in the decision.

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Group News
The following is from Sharing Recovery, a newsletter published by the Connecticut-Westchester Intergroup, June-August 1993:

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Group News
At a recent meeting in White Plains we had a special meeting on sponsorship. We changed the format and made it an “open” meeting with feedback allowed. We broke the meeting up into fifteen-minute segments.

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Member News
I have been a member of SA for over eight years now, but will be celebrating my first anniversary of sobriety in about three weeks. During my first seven years in the program, I didn’t want the painful consequences of my lust, but I didn’t want to stop altogether either. It has taken me seven years in the fellowship to finally reach my “bottom” and to “go to any lengths” to achieve and maintain sexual sobriety.

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Member News
Without daily surrender of my powerlessness over lust, there is no possible way I would have over two and three-quarter years of sexual sobriety. Without daily surrender of my powerlessness over resentment, rage and hatred, there is no possible way I would have recently celebrated two years of what I call “verbal abuse sobriety.”

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Freedom from Lust
[The following is a transcript of a talk by Jesse L. at the Nashville International SA Conference, July 1993] Thank you very much. It is beautiful to be with you. And thanks to Martha and Joan and all you people in Nashville for creating this beautiful environment for us. And thank you Harvey for helping bring me here and giving me this chance to say over a concerted period of time something that is so important to me. I have looked for this opportunity for some time and now it is here.

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