12 step organizations working the steps directly from the Big Book :

	All Addictions Anonymous: http://www.alladdictionsanonymous.com/
	Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous: http://www.slaafws.org/
	The Big Book Muckers
	AA Primary Purpose: http://www.theprimarypurposegroup.com/
	AA Back To Basics: http://www.aabacktobasics.org/

The Search for Spirituality

 

If you wish to be really wholesome . . . . If you desire to be totally integrated in body and spirit . . . If you want to be the kind of person who can cope with whatever challenges come your way . . . .

Paul Simon's music takes meandering spiritual journey

 

Paul Simon says there's always been a spiritual dimension to his music. But the overt religious references in his most recent album, So Beautiful or So What, surprised even him. There are songs about God, angels, creation, pilgrimage, prayer and the afterlife. . Simon says he has many questions about God and explores them through his music. Enlarge By Todd Plitt, for USA TODAY Paul Simon performs at Ground Zero during a 10th anniversary ceremony of the 9-11 terrorist attacks. Simon says he has many questions about God and explores them through his music. Ads by Google 1st Dual Core Mini-ITX VIA EPIA-M900 wi Nano X2 CPU, DDR3 up to 8GB, 2 SATA, 8 USB2.0, 4 www.viaembedded.com Simon says the religious themes were not intentional — he does not describe himself as religious. But in an interview with the PBS program Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, he said the spiritual realm fascinates him. "I think it's a part of my thoughts on a fairly regular basis," he said. "I think of it more as spiritual feeling. It's something that I recognize in myself and that I enjoy, and I don't quite understand it." BLOG: Is heaven Simon's stunning infinity? REVIEW: 'So Beautiful' sums up Simon's latest STORY: 'So Beautiful' is beautifully familiar Simon may not understand it, but he's been writing and singing a lot about it, and that has generated attention. One Irish blogger suggested So Beautiful or So What could be the best Christian album of 2011. Sojourners' Cathleen Falsani, an evangelical who writes frequently about religion and pop culture, called it "one of the most memorable collections of spiritual musical musings" in recent memory. "It's a stunningly beautiful … album, and he's a great surprise to me and frankly a huge blessing," Falsani said. During a career that has spanned half a century, Simon has received numerous awards, including 12 Grammys. His first Grammy came in 1968 for best contemporary vocal duo, along with his musical partner Art Garfunkel. Their 1970 Grammy-winning song Bridge Over Troubled Water was influenced by gospel music. Simon comes from a Jewish background. "I was raised to a degree enough to be bar mitzvahed and have that much Jewish education, although I had no interest. None," he said. Now at 70, he said he has many questions about God. In his song, The Afterlife, he speculates about what happens after death. He imagines waiting in line, like at the Department of Motor Vehicles. As the chorus goes: "You got to fill out a form first and then you wait in the line." But there's a serious aspect as well, as the song continues: "Face-to-face in the vastness of space/ Your words disappear/And you feel like you're swimming in an ocean of love/ And the current is strong." "By the time you get up to speak to God, and you actually get there, there's no question that you could possibly have that could have any relevance," Simon explained. One of the most unusual songs on the album, Getting Ready for Christmas Day, includes excerpts of a sermon preached in 1941 by prominent African-American pastor J.M. Gates. Simon heard the sermon on a set of old recordings and said he was drawn to the rhythms of Gates' "call and response" style of preaching. The song Love and Hard Times begins with the line: "God and His only son paid a courtesy call on Earth one Sunday morning." According to Simon, "To begin with a sentence that is the foundation of Christianity, I said: This is going to be interesting. Now what am I going to say about a subject that I certainly didn't study?" The song ends with a love story, which he says is really about his wife, and a repetition of the line, "Thank God I found you." "When you're looking to be thankful at the highest level, you need a specific and that specific is God. And that's what that song is about," he said. Simon said the beauty of life and of the earth often leads him to thoughts about God. "How was all of this created? If the answer to that question is God created everything, there was a creator, than I say, Great! What a great job," he said. But he said he won't be troubled if it turns out there is no God. "Oh fine, so there's another answer. I don't know the answer," he said. Either way, he added, "I'm just a speck of dust here for a nanosecond, and I'm very grateful." Simon has sought input on his questions from some religious leaders, including the Dalai Lama. He once spent hours talking with British evangelical theologian John Stott, who died last year. Simon said Stott made a big impression on him. "I left there feeling that I had a greater understanding of where belief comes from when it doesn't have an agenda," he said. Many of Simon's songs raise universal questions about things like destiny and the meaning of life. "Quite often, people read or hear things in my songs that I think are more true than what I wrote," he said. Falsani calls Simon a "God-chronicler by accident." "He looks at the world and kind of wonders what the heck is going on, like many of us do. He asks good questions and seems to have his finger on the heartbeat spiritually of a culture," she said. Simon said he's gratified — and somewhat mystified — that some people have told him they believe God has spoken to them through his music. "Is it a profound truth? I don't know," he said. "I feel I'm like a vessel, and it passed through me, and I was the editor, and I'm glad."

Free booze for alcoholics makes perfect logic, but no sense

 

As the old adage has it, if you live long enough, you see everything. In the world of substance abuse and addiction, “everything” was in the news today. A group from Vancouver’s notorious hub of drug addiction and policy experimentation, the Downtown East Side, is proposing that a publicly funded, peer-run drinker’s lounge dispensing free legal alcohol to alcoholics be instituted as a means of harm reduction. The Eastside Illicit Drinkers Group for Education, whose spokesman, Rob Morgan, an alcoholic from a First Nations reserve near Terrace, B.C, sees the idea as the natural next step in Vancouver’s famous harm reduction movement. The lounge would be modeled on Insite, the safe injection site whose mandate is not to rehabilitate addicts, but to reduce the rates of disease and death caused by unhygienic consumption and unsupervised overdoes. Mr. Morgan’s logic is impeccable. Desperate alcoholics will drink anything with alcohol in it; they will drink hand sanitizer acquired from “dealers” who steal them from hospitals, as Mr Morgan has; they will share disease-ridden bottles; they sometimes freeze to death in an alcoholic stupor; and for only $3, and some water dilution, will consume 30 standard drinks from a 250 ml bottle of 95% rubbing alcohol. The ravages produced on the body by such a regime certainly rival any depredations short of AIDS suffered by drug addicts.

Two-thirds of smokers try to quit in new year

 

Two-thirds of smokers in the UK, approximately six million people, will try and quit the habit in January, but half of them will fail within a week, new research suggests. According to the study, commissioned by Pfizer Limited in support of its Don't Go Cold Turkey disease awareness campaign, one in ten of these attempts will not last beyond 24 hours. Typically, smokers admit to having unsuccessfully attempted to quit three times before, with 51 per cent confident they can kick the habit in the next six months. Some 45 per cent say they attempt to quit by 'going cold turkey' or giving up the immediately and relying on willpower, however only three per cent of these people are found to be smoke free after a year. Nearly a quarter of former smokers recommend that people trying to quit consult a healthcare professional. Dr Sarah Jarvis, BBC medical correspondent and practising GP, said: "Even a brief conversation with their healthcare professional or local stop smoking service can increase [a smoker's] chances of success by up to four times, compared to going 'cold turkey'. "People should consider how they can positively influence their chances of quitting." According to Cancer Research UK, 86 per cent of lung cancer deaths are caused by tobacco smoking.

there is an area in your brain where you may hold a reservation and that could, in all likelihood, cause you to return to your drinking. I wish that I might reach this place in your consciousness, but alas, I do not have the skill."

Twelve Step people who study A.A.'s Big Book are, of course, familiar with Bill Wilson's medical mentor, Dr. William Duncan Silkworth. Bill called him the benign "little doctor who loved drunks." Silkworth, a psychiatrist, had treated thousands of alcoholics and was director of Towns Hospital in New York where Bill had several times sought help. Though Silkworth had explained the disease of alcoholism to Bill, Bill continued to drink until he met his "sponsor" Ebby Thacher, who had recovered through the spiritual program of the Oxford Group. Ebby had also gone to Calvary Rescue Mission, run by Dr. Sam Shoemaker's Calvary Episcopal Church in New York; and Ebby had there made a decision for Christ. Wilson went there for the same purpose and, according to a conversation the author had with Dr. Shoemaker's widow (Helen Smith Shoemaker), Bill Wilson made a decision for Christ at the Rescue Mission. Bill stayed drunk for a few days and then checked into Towns Hospital and again sought help from Dr. Silkworth. And it was during this stay, that Bill took the life-changing steps of the Oxford Group, had his "hot flash experience," reported it to Dr. Silkworth, and was told by Silkworth that he (Bill) had better hang on to what had happened to him. Silkworth later was asked to write the "Doctor's Opinion" that opens the basic text of the Big Book. Silkworth's picture appears in A.A.'s Pass It On, the biography of Bill's life.

        Shortly before his death, the author spent an hour with Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, friend of A.A., the Rev. Sam Shoemaker, and Bill Wilson. Dr. Peale told me of the conversations he had with Bill Wilson about Bill's conversion. However, until 1997, I had never heard the following account by Peale about Dr. William Duncan Silkworth. It can be found in Norman Vincent Peale, The Positive Power of Jesus Christ (New York: Foundation for Christian Living, 1980), pp. 60-61. It appears under the title "The Wonderful Story of Charles K.":

        Charles, a businessman in Virginia, had become a full-fledged alcoholic; so much so that he had to have help, and fast, for his life was cracking up. He made an appointment with the late Dr. William Duncan Silkworth, one of the nation's greatest experts on alcoholism, who worked in a New York City hospital [the Charles Towns Hospital]. Receiving Charles into his clinic as a patient, the doctor gave him treatment for some days, then called him into his office. "Charles," he said, "I have done everything I can for you. At this moment you are free of your trouble. But there is an area in your brain where you may hold a reservation and that could, in all likelihood, cause you to return to your drinking. I wish that I might reach this place in your consciousness, but alas, I do not have the skill."

        "But, doctor," exclaimed Charles, "you are the most skilled physician in this field. When I came to you it was to the greatest. If you cannot heal me, then who can possibly do so?" The doctor hesitated, then said thoughtfully, "There is another Doctor who can complete this healing, but He is very expensive."

        "That's all right," cried Charles, "I can get the money. I can pay his fees. I cannot go home until I am healed. Who is this doctor and where is he?"

        "Oh, but this Physician is not at all moderate as to expense," persisted Dr. Silkworth. "He wants everything you've got. He wants you, all of you. Then He gives the healing. His price is your entire self." Then he added slowly and impressively, "His name is Jesus Christ and He keeps office in the New Testament and is available whenever you need Him."

        Dr. Peale then describes the healing of Charles through the power of Jesus Christ. 

Recovering alcoholic Matt Maden: I began drinking at 10 and now I'm facing death at 26

 

Matt Maden, now 26, has been living on borrowed time since he was diagnosed with liver cirrhosis five years ago. Despite his desperate need he has only a 20 per cent chance of getting an organ because of the growing demand. ‘It’s really scary living with the knowledge that the odds are so heavily against you,’ he said. His condition was detected when he spent two weeks in hospital in an alcohol-induced coma – but even then he refused to believe he had a problem. ‘My immediate thought was, “It’s not the drink”,’ he said. The first time Mr Maden got drunk was at 15. ‘I remember waking up the next morning and my first thought was, “When can I do that again”,’ he said. Within a year he went from drinking eight cans of lager in a session to 16 in order to get a buzz. ‘After a couple of years I’d have to have maybe a bottle of spirits to go along with that,’ he added. ‘For a lot of years alcohol gave me  confidence. Little did I know it would actually turn on me and it would start to control me.’ After his health scare Mr Maden left his home in Oxford to check into a rehab clinic in Bournemouth and has not touched a drop since 2007. His physician, Dr Varuna Aluvihare, from King’s College London, believes the binge-drinking culture is behind the increasing number of young people needing liver transplants. ‘Tragically, every year we fail to keep someone like Matt alive,’ he said.

explores two myths that grown up in the 12 Step movement: never-ending recovery, and perpetual powerlessness

In this ground breaking book, Anne Wayman, clean and sober for almost 25 years and with multiple works published by Hazelden, explores two myths that grown up in the 12 Step movement: never-ending recovery, and perpetual powerlessness. Convinced that the 12 Steps offer the best chance for lasting recovery, she challenges the movement to acknowledge the fear behind the myths, and let them go so that the Program can reach its full potential. Working from original source material, she explains the nature and development of the myths. She documents the damage they do to individuals and the movement as a whole, including its relative failure in areas of poverty where it is most needed. With true compassion and understanding she shows exactly what 12 Steppers need to do to let go of the myths, and become Powerfully Recovered, as the original Program intended. "It's about time!" Bruce K. "Powerfully Recovered! has helped me articulate something I've been feeling for years." Kathy B. "This book makes a powerful and positive difference for anyone in any 12 Step Program." Grace S.

DREAMWARRIOR teaches how to become fundamentally present and how to arise in mastery of your mind and ego

 

DREAMWARRIOR teaches how to become fundamentally present and how to arise in mastery of your mind and ego, so that you are no longer involuntarily pulled out of Presence. teaches that the fully awakened state of consciousness is available now. It is not something that occurs in the future. It is already here, waiting to be revealed. As you awaken into the present moment, your thoughts will stop, your mind will fall silent, and you will awaken to an inner silence and peace that is beyond understanding. You will begin to encounter what the mystics and Masters have been speaking of for centuries.TAKE THE 4 HOUR CHALLENGE AND CHANGE YOUR LIFE AROUND.

Counsellors Forum: DREAMWARRIOR spiritual teacher who is deeply committed to helping others break through to the joyous experience of living in the NOW.

 

DREAMWARRIOR teaches how to become fundamentally present and how to arise in mastery of your mind and ego, so that you are no longer involuntarily pulled out of Presence. teaches that the fully awakened state of consciousness is available now. It is not something that occurs in the future. It is already here, waiting to be revealed. As you awaken into the present moment, your thoughts will stop, your mind will fall silent, and you will awaken to an inner silence and peace that is beyond understanding. You will begin to encounter what the mystics and Masters have been speaking of for centuries.