Transcript THE LAST RESORT

JONATHAN WORTH WASHBURN
A Personal Story
• This is not AA – This is “what it was like, what
happened, and what it’s like now”.
• My Last Drunk
• My First Drunk
• 2nd Grade / High School / College / Law school
• Practicing law
• Marriage, children and divorce
• My surprise party and “what happened”
• “What it’s like now”
THE LAST RESORT
Meeting format
SERENITY PRAYER
God, grant me the serenity to accept
the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.
……………………………………
Thy will, not mine, be done. (12+12)
Just for today. (NA)
TYPICAL ITEMS
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Announcements
Preamble
How it Works
Twelve Steps
Twelve Traditions
Daily Reflections
The Promises
OPEN MEETING (or closed or book study or split)
The Chips
The Lord’s Prayer
OPTIONAL ITEMS
• How it Works “Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly
followed our path.” (AA, pg. 58)
• “The Promises” “If we are painstaking about this phase of our
development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through. We
are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not
regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend
the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down
the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit
others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will
lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Selfseeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will
change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We
will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for
ourselves.
Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being
fulfilled among us --- sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will
always materialize if we work for them. (AA, Pg. 83-84)
THE TWELVE TRADITIONS (12+12, pg.129)
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TRADITION ONE – Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon A.A. unity.
TRADITION TWO – For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority – a loving God as He may
express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.
TRADITION THREE – The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking.
TRADITION FOUR – Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or A.A. as
a whole.
TRADITION FIVE – Each group has but one primary purpose – to carry its message to the alcoholic who
still suffers.
TRADITION SIX – An A.A. group ought never endorse, finance, or lend the A.A. name to any related facility
or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property, and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.
TRADITION SEVEN – Every A.A. group ought to be fully self supporting, declining outside contributions.
TRADITION EIGHT – Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever non-professional, but our service
centers may employ special workers.
TRADITION NINE – A.A., as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or
committees directly responsible to those they serve.
TRADITION TEN – Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the A.A. name ought
never be drawn into public controversy.
TRADITION ELEVEN – Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need
always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films.
TRADITION TWELVE – Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to
place principles before personalities.
THE TWELVE STEPS
AA pg 59-60
• STEP ONE “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol –
that our lives had become unmanageable.”
• STEP TWO “Came to believe that a power greater than
ourselves could restore us to sanity.”
• STEP THREE “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives
over to the care of God as we understood him.”
• STEP FOUR “Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of
ourselves.”
• STEP FIVE “Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another
human being the exact nature of our wrongs.”
• STEP SIX “Were entirely ready to have God remove all these
defects of character.”
• STEP SEVEN “Humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings.”
THE TWELVE STEPS (Cont.)
• STEP EIGHT “Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and
became willing to make amends to them all.”
• STEP NINE “Made direct amends to such people wherever
possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.”
• STEP TEN “Continued to take personal inventory and when
we were wrong promptly admitted it.”
• STEP ELEVEN “Sought through prayer and meditation to
improve our conscious contact with God as we understood
him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the
power to carry that out.”
• STEP TWELVE “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.”
THE DOCTOR’S OPINION (AA, pg.xxv)
William D. Silkworth, M.D.
• “Frothy emotional appeal seldom suffices.”
• “… unless this person can experience an entire psychic
change there is very little hope of his recovery.”
• “The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is
injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the
true from the false.”
• “… one symptom in common: they cannot start
drinking without developing the phenomenon of
craving.”
• “The only relief we have to suggest is entire
abstinence.”
PAGE 164
Abandon yourself to God as you understand
God. Admit your faults to Him and to your
fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past.
Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall
be with you in the Fellowship of the Spirit, and
you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the
Road of Happy Destiny.
May God bless you and keep you – until then.