Twelve Step Classes Beginning March 28th and April 11th

I am giving information about Alanon related groups that will beginning soon at the Token III Club (Louisville, KY). If you are interested in any of the following please feel free to read the rest of the information and/or respond. All are free and open to all interested in improving their practice of Alanon/Twelve Step principles in their lives and relationships.
1. Spiritual Maintenance Group – Steps 1,2,3 &10, 11&12. (Beginning with an organizational meeting Sunday, March 28thst , and classes starting April 11th, both 3-4:30, lasting for 4-6 weeks)
2. Fourth Step Group (to begin after Spiritual Maintenance Group ends, or at another time and date if enough interest, and if another day and time can be determined that is acceptable to the group. Please note in emails other days/nights and times that may fit your schedule)
3. Ongoing Spiritual Maintenance Group (Thursday’s, 3:00 – 4:30 pm)
4. Other groups to be determined based on interest and available dates and times, for example:
• Eighth and Ninth Step Group
• The Alanon Grief and Loss Book
• Other Alanon and Twelve Steps principles, and literature.
• Other Alanon and Twelve Step life issues.

If you are interested in any of the above, please email me at wwass12@aol.com or call 499-0581. More information is provided below.

Thanks, Will



More Information:
For over a year, we have had two groups studying the Alanon Twelve Steps at the Token III Club. From these groups, some new groups and studies will beginning soon.

Sunday, 3-4:30pm:
After completing going through the steps, this group took a break for the holidays and will be resuming Sunday, March 28th /April 11th from 3:00 to 4:30 pm, . The chosen topic is Spiritual Maintenance: Practicing These Principles in All our Affairs. The group will last 4 to 6 weeks, and will focus on understanding, integrating, and practicing Steps 1,2,3, and 10, 11, and 12. The intent is:
1. To understand and experience principles of powerlessness and unmanageability.
2. To experience and practice a growing conscious contact with our higher power that is restoring us to sanity and emotional balance.
3. To develop a personal spiritual action plan for consistently practicing and living the Alanon principles.
4. To potentially provide ongoing weekly spiritual support groups for the daily practice of the Alanon steps and principles “in all our affairs”.

The group room in the back of the Token Club can hold an approximate maximum of 15 people comfortably, so the initial group will be limited to around that number. Please email me (wwass12@aol.com) or call me (499-0581) if you or someone you know is interested.

When this group is complete, there will be a Fourth Step Group starting at the same time and day of the week. Or if there is enough interest, the Token Club is available on Thursdays from 1:30 to 3:00. Also, if you are interested in an evening time, please note nights and times you would be available in your email or call.

The Fourth Step Group will last approximately six weeks, and will focus on the standard four column inventory, and the Alanon Blue Print for Progress.

Also, being considered is an Eighth and Ninth Step Group, which will depend on level of interest.

Second Group: Thursdays from 3-4:30 pm:
After completing once through the steps, this group has become an ongoing spiritual support group, and focusing practicing the Alanon steps and principles regarding current personal life issues of the group member. This group may have a review and spiritual training, as described with the first group above, if there is sufficient interest. For the present, it is continuing to focus on personal spiritual maintenance issues, and ALL ARE WELCOME TO ATTEND.

It is recommended that persons who have never attended either of the first two step groups might first consider attending the first couple of sessions of the Spiritual Maintenance Group (Sundays) in order to better understand the Thursday Group format. Although rooted in Alanon steps and principles, the format is considerably more in depth than regular meetings.

Other days and times, and the main room at the club can be made available if there is adequate interest. Also, other Alanon topics can become available, depending on interest. (for example, Step 11 -- prayer and meditation, and discovering God’s will for our lives, and the new excellent Alanon grief and loss book).

Although these groups use the Alanon steps, principles, and literature, they are not official or registered Alanon meetings. They are intended to provide extra outside help with understanding and practicing personally Alanon principles. All persons who are interested in improving their use of Alanon steps with any area or problem of their lives – or are merely curious -- are welcome.

There is no cost for the group. Contributions will be received and given to the Club for the use of the room. Workbooks and literature may be purchased if desired.

Again, if you or someone you know is interested in any of the above and/or have questions, please email me at wwass12@aol.com or call me at 499-0581.

Thanks, Will W.

Becoming The Child Through Twelve Step Recovery

The child is the almost universal symbol for the soul’s transformation. The child is whole – not yet divided....When we would heal the mind...we ask the child to speak to us.

Susan Griffin

Many years ago, I went through some major inner child healing work as part of my spiritual recovery. In my journaling and meditation, I realized and experienced that past traumas of abandonment and abuse had triggered divisions within my inner child self, and I was cracked and fragmented.

As I began to practice and live the spiritual principles of the Twelve Steps with these inner child selves, they became more and more present and loved by my God – Mom and Dad. As they began to live and breathe again in my conscious experience of my selves and Mom and Dad’s unconditional Presence -- they began to interact and share and heal. I experienced their reintegrating, their being restored to active consciousness, and their becoming increasing whole and alive.

Today, they appear reborn into a new and stable fluid child self, who responds and experiences and loves naturally and intuitively – a very present heart self.

Other separations still exists as adult selves. And as I am practicing spiritual principles of Presence, they are continuing their paths of returning “home” to my deepest and purest child self.

I experience today that I am not an adult – I have several isolated adult selves – and all of these adult selves are artificial selves that my brain created in order to protect me from the suffering of abandonment, separation, and abuse. I am being reborn within each moment – being restored with each breath – to the child my Parent-God originally gave birth to – within the wombs of their hearts.

Recovery does not mean that I have to become a different person. It means I need to start being myself again...

There is innocence within me that already knows how to trust my Higher Power, to cherish life while holding it lightly, to live fully and simply in the present moment. I will allow that part of myself to come forward and nourish me as I continue on this journey.

The Courage to Change

It takes one a long time to become young.

Pablo Picasso

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The Myth of Santa God -- Step One and Higher Power

Bill W. from Alcoholics Anonymous
Some of us have been violently anti-religious. To others, the word “God” brought up a particular idea of Him with which someone had tried to impress them during childhood...
We looked upon this world of warring individuals, warring theological systems, and inexplicable calamity, with deep skepticism.

Today, I attended two spiritual support meetings for alcoholics – and I listened.

The first meeting discussed Step 2 of the Twelve Steps, and the word “God”. Step Two says, “We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”

As I listened, I remembered as a child being taught to believe in Santa Claus – paralleled by being taught to believe in God. Santa rewarded good little boys and girls for good behavior all year long – “you reap what you sow.” Santa kept a list, and checked it twice, going to find out who has been naughty or nice – kind of like eventually everyone will stand before God at the white throne judgment to give an account of all their “sins”. And you write a letter to Santa telling him what you wanted – “if you ask anything in faith believing, God will give it to you.”

Interesting and amazing parallels of mythology.

Fortunately it only took nine or ten years to demythologize Santa. Unfortunately, it took another twenty five years, and major helpless and hopeless depression and alcoholism before I could demythologize “God”. Santa God was my last remaining hope that someday I would stop hurting – if I could just find out his “will” – rules and demands – and then I would choose to meet them. Without Santa God, I was not waiting a year to get what I “wanted” – but an eternity.

In my hopeless and helpless state of mind and heart, I was brought to a fork in the road of my life. I would continue my useless myth of “God”, or I would risk a different course and direction. I would have to consciously face my endless shame and dread of impending doom – the expectation of getting what I believed I deserved -- or trying again – over and over – to be “good enough”.

I realize now, over twenty years later, that the lie that kept the myth of God alive was the lie of “free will”. Religion traditionally has needed a “hell”, and a punishment for ‘sin” in order to operate. And consequently, it has needed “free will” and choice to justify and defend its judgment and condemnation. If a person has no choice, he or she cannot technically be held responsible. (Actually, having no choice or free will does not take away consequences only “eternal damnation” and abandonment.)

The fork in the road was between continuing to believe the religious myth of God, and moving into intimate conscious Presence with a Higher Power or spirituality. The fork was Step One of the Twelve Steps:
"We admitted we were powerless – that our lives had become unmanageable."

In my experience, I “turned” when I experienced, admitted, and accepted that I was powerless over my perceptions, reactions, and actions – I do not have – alone – any will or power to choose my attitudes or behavior. I had to consciously experience my desperate and helpless hopelessness to change, and to be empowered to act in my own best interests. My conscious and willing experience of my wretched pain opened my heart, and with the help of others, I experienced an intimacy beyond mental thought and reasoning, that began changing my perceptions, reactions and actions. Bathed in Their intimate Presence, I began to heal. And my life began to become a better and better place.

Today, we (Mom, Dad and me) seem to be as intimate and close as my level of conscious experience of my powerlessness. The myths disappear – and in my heart I can be what is real – their unconditionally beloved son.

Bill W. from Alcoholics Anonymous.
Our human resources, as marshalled by the will, were not sufficient; they failed utterly.
Lack of power, that was our dilemma. We had to find a power by which we could live, and it had to be a Power greater than ourselves.....As we felt new power flow in, as we enjoyed peace of mind, as we discovered we could face life successfully, as we became conscious of His Presence, we began to lose our fear of today, tomorrow, and the hereafter. We were REBORN.

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