Freedom From Bondage

09/09/2025

Oldtimer said, "We can speak of God with our lips all that we want, but the true reflection of our understanding of God shows in the way we move our hips. Do we move them in a closer walk with Him. If so, our treatment of our fellow man will be full of love, kindness, and respect. If not, we have to question our understanding of God.

If we are judgmental, we are reflecting a belief in a judgmental God. If we are resentful, we are reflecting a belief in an angry, spiteful God. If we are selfish and fearful, we are reflecting a belief in a limited, uncaring God lacking infinite abundance. If we are going to play the role God assigns and act as agents for His ever advancing creation, we must take into consideration the valuable suggestions the Big Book offers us.

God is the director who oversees not only our life but all of creation from the Alpha to the Omega. He has the script for how it all plays out. When we assume the role He assigns, we are rewarded with peace and serenity in the presence of chaos and confusion.

He is the Principal, and we are His agents who are empowered to do His business. He is the One who has all power. Something we desperately need if we are to recover from a hopeless state of mind and body. When we keep the spiritual channel clear, His power flows into our lives, purifies our heart and mind, and liberates us from our bo***ge to alcohol,drugs or both.

He is the Father who loves His children when they do their worst because He knows, in every situation, we are doing the best we can with the burden we have been given. His yoke is easy, and His burden is light. He will give rest to our weary soul whenever we are sick and tired of being sick and tired

And, finally, He is our Employer who provides what we need, so long as we keep close to Him and do His work well. We have a history that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that we don't know what is best for us. So in gratitude we thank God for that which He has given us, that which He has taken away, that which He has left us with, and that which He has kept from us.

Eventually, we learn that sometimes not getting what we desire is truly a blessing in disguise, and that our greatest blessings come wrapped in boxes that we initially found unpleasant until we opened them to discover the contents inside.

When we draw near to God He reveals Himself to us in the face of everyone we meet. We no longer use people and love things. Instead, we become a lover of people and a user of things. We have no cause for anger, malice or fear, for God surrounds us wherever we go. And whatever need we can perceive, we find that even if we can't fulfill it, His grace is sufficient!"

09/04/2025

Oldtimer said, "Inventory isn't merely a psychological exercise that gives us clues about our character, and reveals repeated patterns of behavior that led to our downfall. It works in conjunction with our prayer and meditation life to effectively remove the layers of ego that block us off from God's power.

As we identify our selfishness, dishonesty, resentments, and fears, we ask God for help in removing these barriers to His grace. If we do not know what they are and how they negatively impact our lives, we are not likely to ask to have these defects of character removed.

Our recovery from addiction/ alcoholism not only requires us to detox our body from the drink ,drug or both it also requires us to detox our minds from the manifestations of self that cloud our thinking. These are the maladies of a restless spirit that keep us irritable and discontented with life on life's terms. It is this agitated state of being that drives us to seek the ease and comfort that comes by taking that firstd rugor drink. A drink or drug that eventually sends us into a state of pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization.

Recovery, like alcoholism/addiction, is an inside job. When these spiritual maladies are overcome, we straighten out mentally, emotionally, and physically. Therefore, we must uncover, discover, and discard that within us that keeps us walking in the valley of the shadow of death.

Alcoholics and addicts are notorious for hiding a bad motive behind a good action, and it is only through rigorous honesty about our motives that we can uncover our shortcomings that lead to the first drink or drug of another spree. Their removal requires a selfless approach to prayer. Selfless prayer proves most effective in producing a spiritual experience that will rearrange our motives and align them with God's will.

We may appear to act selfishly towards others when we place our recovery before other obligations, but God's primary will for the addict/ alcoholic is sobriety. As long as this remains our primary purpose, God's will becomes the motive for the actions we undertake. In doing so, we gain humility and find a hidden strength that remained so elusive to us in our prideful pursuit of power.

Through humility we bring balance into our life. It is hard to stumble when you fall to your knees in prayer. For no man stands as tall as when he kneels before his Creator. When we do so our past becomes His property and we are free from our bo***ge to the selfishness, dishonesty, resentments, fears and the shame that dogged us for so many years. Now, we can begin to live life happy, joyous, and free in a fourth dimension of existence of which we had never dreamed."

08/27/2025

Rise and let your light of recovery shine so that others may find their way to freedom !

08/27/2025

08/10/2025

Oldtimer said, "We drink or use on a lie. We recover on the truth. Honesty is our relationship with the truth. God is the truth. As addicts and alcoholics we have a dis-ease with both. Thus, is born our spiritual malady. We erect multiple falsehoods that blinds us to the truth about our relationship with drugs, alcohol and God.

We were in full flight from reality because life on life terms proved insufficient to us. So we accepted alcohol and drugs alternative reality that afforded us the comfort of escape from a reality we resented. But the comfort we found in our escape from unsedated reality became an inescapable distortion that proved to be a way of death we lived one drink,hit line,pill,snort,needle at a time.

No human power could relieve us of this delusion that started out as a blissful trip through wonderland and transformed into a nightmare of pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. Only the truth can set us free from this alternate dimension of reality. But we must be rigorously honest in all of our affairs if we expect to live long and happily in this world.

Rigorous honesty is the price we pay for freedom. Our comfort with the truth lies in proportion to our discomfort with substance we used. When we have become more afraid of the substance we used than we are afraid of the truth, we have completed our First Step experience and have become willing to open our minds to the truth.

No longer do we allow False Evidence Appearing Real to guide us through life. Instead, we come to believe a power greater than ourselves can bring us freedom from the delusions that always lead back to a drug or drink. With every relapse, we deny the grace God offers us in the steps. His way of life is a grace that promises life more abundant. It is the way of truth that brings us freedom from the bo***ge of alcohol and drugs and creates a life that gets infinitely more wonderful as time passes.

Such freedom comes with a price. It requires the destruction of self-centeredness. For in our selfish state of being, we will accept any falsehood that brings us comfort and pleasure. These dusions are fool's gold that deceive us until we once again find ourselves, drink in hand, walking the path of destruction back to the gates of insanity and death.

No one has benefited more from the truth than the sick and suffering alcoholic/addict. When we uncover and discover the truth about the causes and conditions of our problems, we discard the false self we created that held us in bo***ge .
The truth sets us free, but only if we are painstaking about the process of recovery offered us by those who have traveled the path from grand delusions to the Great Reality within.

In the truth, we find the peace that we once sought in the dope ,the bottle or both. We seek only knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry it out. An act that requires courage on our part. If we follow through with his will, it leads us deeper into true peace and leaves us happy, joyous, and free."

08/03/2025

Oldtimer said, "Lack of power is our dilemma. We rely on self-will to live the life we desire, but it only leads us back to alcohol drugs or both and a life we do not desire. For the addict/alcoholic a life run on self-will can hardly be a success. If we are to live successfully sober, the proper use of self-will lies in exerting it towards the application of the Steps in all of our affairs.

In order to accomplish this task, inventory, prayer, and meditation are essential requirements. Through inventory, we learn where our life has been out of alignment with God's will. Thus, we lack the power we need to see and act on the truth about alcohol. Nor do we have the power to live up to our moral and philosophical convictions. Therefore, we must identify the manifestations of self-will that have led to our defeat, and in prayer, we surrender them to God.

In the Third Step, we accepted our role as agents for God. This prayer was only the beginning of a lifetime of transformation that prepared us for maximum service to God and His world. Through inventory, we found that we served a lower power with our attachment to selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. These bedevilments fueled our alcoholic/addict life and kept us in bo***ge too our addiction, know matter what the substance was .

When we uncovered these manifestations in our lives, we prayed for God to remove them. We then meditate on God's will for us in each matter. This is the proper use of prayer. Thy will, not mine, is expressed in every Step we take. Prayer always changes the one who prays. As we proceed through the program, we are fitting ourselves to become prayer warriors, who change the world by changing themselves.

Prayer is the medium of miracles from the One who has all the power to the one who needs it. With each prayer we utter, we discard the manifestation of the ego that no longer holds any value to the spiritual structure through which we walk through to freedom.

As we trudge our way to a happy destiny, we stop frequently and pray, "Thy will, not mine, be done." Thus, do we continue to improve upon our conscious contact with our Creator. He removes every defect of character that stands in the way of our usefulness to Him and our fellow man. When He reveals His will for us, He grants us the power to carry it out. And so long as we remain in alignment with Him, our will and His will are one."

07/29/2025

FOREWORD TO FIRST EDITION
Page XIII, Par 1
We of Alcoholics Anonymous are more than one hundred men and women who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. (Promise) To show other alcoholics precisely how we have covered is the main purpose of this book. For them, we hope these pages will prove so convincing that no further
authentication will be necessary. We think this account of our experiences will help everyone to better understand the alcoholic. Many do not comprehend that the alcoholic is a very sick person. And besides, we are sure that our way of living has its advantages for all.

07/29/2025

Be mindful of where your roots not only start but the direction that they grow towards.

Roots have the ability to grow five times the distance of the canopy of the tree! But if we allow our roots to drift further and further from our base (Jesus) then we can become lost. If we get our roots wrapped around Jesus Christ and make sure that they don’t stray too far from him, then we are in good shape. But if we get them wrapped around anything or anyone else, we are in trouble.You won’t grow if your roots are planted in the desert! You have to find good soil to dig your roots in, and this starts with having faith in the first place! Faith that you will prevail. Faith that God won’t let you fall or falter without picking you back up.

07/29/2025

Humility is the virtue that sets in motion all other virtues .

07/15/2025

Root – To establish deeply or firmly. To be very strong and firmly fixed.

To be rooted in faith is to remain firm against any opposition that tries to move you. To be strong in times of weakness. To be confident despite being afraid. To know that these roots will not allow you to topple over, even when you’re swaying.

It is to refuse to walk in the ways of the unrighteous, and to ignore the taunts and challenges of the enemy. You know the calling that God has for your life, and you soar above the status quo. The pain of this world will not deter you from accomplishing that which God has put you on a path to accomplish. While winds try to blow you over, you remain planted firmly into the enriched soil that God has laid at your feet. When fires rage around you, you remain cool headed despite your surroundings melting away. Those who are rooted strongly in faith aren’t immune to their circumstances or surroundings, but they have an inner peace that cannot be stolen from them. They know that despite whatever storm that they may be weathering, that God and the words that He has spoken will provide them with comfort and security.

You are whole.

You are safe.

You are free.

No longer do we have to walk in shame and in fear. The mustard seed of faith that we carry with us will provide us with the ability to move mountains. We have planted our roots in good soil and we are reaping a bountiful harvest as the result of this. We read our bibles in the same manner that a farmer will tend to his crops. We digest the word of God and we see our dreams come to fruition. We are sowing constantly and, as the result, we are harvesting constantly.

If you want to flourish, it starts with growing strong roots.

- David Villa

07/15/2025

Oldtimer said, "Recovery can't begin until alcohol and drugs have completed there job. There is submission to recovery, and then there is surrender to recovery. Submission is of the mind. When we submit, we begrudgingly follow the rules, with a lurking notion in our mind that somehow, some day, some way, we will recapture the magic of yesterday , before we crossed the line into full blown addiction/alcoholism. The place where drugs and alcohol ceased to be a luxury , they became a necessity.

Surrender is of the heart. We concede to our innermost self that alcohol and or drugs had become our master. We become sick and tired of being sick and tired, and know in our heart of hearts that the magic that booze and dope, once had has turned into voodoo and that we must change or die.

It is the subtle difference between having to do recovery and wanting to do recovery that marks the difference between submission and surrender. Many come to the rooms hoping to master addiction. The great obsession of every addict/alcoholic is to once again control and enjoy our drinking and using. This is full flight from reality that crashes at the gates of insanity and death.

When we surrender, we become willing to go to any lengths to grow our spiritual life. We surrender from dope and the bottle and completely give ourselves to God's way of life. We accept the Steps as a design for living that we apply to all of our affairs one day at a time.

No one can determine the desire of an alcoholic/addict but themselves. However, any balking on their part is a sure sign that they are operating on the level of submission. The good news is that we can submit our way to surrender so long as we are willing to become willing. This may mean many countless vain attempts to stop on willpower.

This may mean regular attendance at meetings. To one who is in submission from addiction/ alcoholism this may seem a sufficient means to stay away from the drug ,drink or both. However, the idea that somehow, someway they will be able to recapture the magic of the past party days is a lurking notion in their mind that grows stronger the longer they stay away from the substance in whatever form .

However, running parallel with the logic and reasoning of the alcoholic/addict mind runs the insane idea of the first drink or drug. A drink or drug that soon spirals into another spree that ends in a state of pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization.

A surrender from drugs alcohol is determined by the actions we take with the Steps. We accept that we are not only powerless over our drinking usingor both but powerless over our thinking as well. While we may be able to abstain for a period of time, there comes a certain time where our strongest desire to stay sober proves insufficient. Our old thinking returns, and we begin to fight . A fight that is lost once it begins.

We know we have surrendered to Steps One, Two, and Three when we begin laying the foundation of our recovery by making a searching and fearless moral inventory of our grosser handicaps. This is the beginning of our march on the path of recovery.

We clean house and trust God to remove from us the defects in our character that act as agents for alcoholism and addiction. If my character does not change then my sobriety/ clean date will . In doing so, we recover and become His agents empowered to help other addicts and alcoholics to recover from a hopeless state of mind and body."

07/07/2025

Oldtimer said, "The First Step is the beginning of our journey into the world of the Spirit. Though we only sought escape from the alcoholic/addict hell we, ourselves, created, this journey launches us on the wings of the truth into a fourth dimension of existence that gets infinitely more wonderful as time passes.

Our constant pursuit of alcoholic/addict bliss left us in full flight from reality, maladjusted to life, and mentally defective. It made it nearly impossible for us to differentiate the true from the false about /drugs/alcohol and every other facet of our lives.

Drugs/Alcohol once held magical properties that made life a joy for us. It made life on life's terms bearable. But over time, it left us in a state of pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization and we were frequently visited by the four horsemen of the alcoholic/addict apocalypse--terror, bewilderment, frustration, and despair.

In this intolerable state, we rolled the dice and hoped for a different result other than the spiritual devastation they delivered in the latter stages of our using and drinking. If we are to live long and happily in this world, we must overcome the deadly denial that leaves us in bo***ge to a fatal malady.

First Step Prayer:

(Adjust the prayer according to your specific need ) God, I admit that I am powerless over this addiction to drugs and alcohol . I cannot see and act on the truth about the destructive power it holds over me. I admit that my life is unmanageable when I try to run the show. Help me this day to understand the true meaning of powerlessness. Remove from me the delusion that somehow, someway, I will be able to control and enjoy my using and drinking. Help me to smash this idea. Thy will be done. Amen!