No Half Measures

The Steps work when I work them. "My life is too unmanageable" is not an excuse for struggling, because SA teaches us how to handle unmanageability.  Our program is for all kinds of people who are powerless over lust, and whose lives are unmanageable.

In the the beginning of Big Book Chapter 5, the writer tells that there is one main reason that a person does not stay sober.  It is because he or she "cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program" (BB pg 58). In my experience, those who have struggled with sobriety are those who don't take ALL the suggestions of the program and of the sponsor.

I heard a member share that some members relapse because they say,”I don't have all the tools yet.”  But an SA member who has 31 years of sobriety has said that today he does exactly the same things he was taught to do in the first two to six months of his recovery!! He has said there was nothing new or hidden after five, ten, or even 31 years ago. He says that ours is a simple program for complicated people.

I don't know every group or situation. But I know that meetings are not intended to be dumping places; they are places for us to share our experience, strength, and hope with each other so that we can recover. The sober members must dare to confront the members who struggle, and not be co-dependent. If we only share our  problem—and not how we are willing to go to any lengths and take drastic actions (executing the program’s and sponsor's suggestions to stay sober)--then the problem gets reinforced. When I came into SA, I was told to take my mess to my sponsor and my message to the group. I still do this today.

I do think that a healthy group is where the members can share their problem AND the solution. But the solution really is 100% surrender to the simple tools of the program and suggestions of the sponsor. If I am not surrendering and following directions, then I am sharing my problem, and my problem is a self-concocted and distorted "solution"... which is no solution at all. “Half measures availed us nothing.