Emotional Sobriety: The Next Frontier

By AA Grapevine

Heartfelt contributions to Grapevine magazine that speak to emotional sobriety—a powerful concept first described by AA co-founder Bill W.

Powerful and uplifting, the book Emotional Sobriety: The Next Frontier features stories of sober women and men that depict the personal transformations that sobriety can bring when sober alcoholics practice the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous in all aspects of their lives.

In a 1958 article for Grapevine, the international journal of Alcoholics Anonymous, Bill W. wrote about the ongoing challenges of recovery that he faced long after he stopped drinking, including his struggle with depression. For him, “emotional sobriety” became the next frontier.

In these honest and humble essays drawn from the archives of Grapevine magazine, you’ll discover what emotional sobriety is all about. Many will realize that happiness is a by-product of giving without any demand for return; others learn to embrace the present with gratitude so they may claim moments of real peace.

The stories in this anthology show that when we have the willingness to find solutions, rather than stay stuck in problems, we can let go of fear, selfishness, and resentment, put aside selfish demands, practice outgoing love, and become more connected to our Higher Power and our friends, family, and community.

With unflinching honesty, this collection includes the voices of AA members reflecting on their own emotional sobriety or, as Bill Wilson put it, "a quiet place in bright sunshine."

• Language: English
• Publisher: AA Grapevine
• Release date: Dec 7, 2012
• ISBN: 9781938413001

Book preview

Emotional

Sobriety

The Next Frontier

Selected stories

from AA Grapevine

Other books published by

AA Grapevine, Inc.

The Language of the Heart (& eBook)

The Best of Bill (& eBook)

Spiritual Awakenings (& eBook)

I Am Responsible: The Hand of AA

The Home Group: Heartbeat of AA

Emotional Sobriety: The Next Frontier (& eBook)

Spiritual Awakenings II (& eBook)

In Our Own Words: Stories of Young AAs in Recovery

Beginners' Book

Voices of Long-Term Sobriety

A Rabbit Walks into a Bar

Step by Step: Real AAs, Real Recovery (& eBook)

Emotional Sobriety II: The Next Frontier (& eBook)

Young & Sober (& eBook)

In Spanish

El Lenguaje del Corazón

Lo Mejor de Bill (& eBook)

Lo Mejor de La Viña

El Grupo Base: Corazón de AA

In French

Les meilleurs articles de Bill

Le Langage du cœur

Le Groupe d'attache : Le battement du cœur des AA

Emotional

Sobriety

The Next Frontier

Selected stories

from AA Grapevine

AAGRAPEVINE, Inc.

New York, New York

www.aagrapevine.org

Copyright © 2006 by AA Grapevine, Inc.

475 Riverside Drive, New York, New York 10115

All rights reserved

May not be reprinted in full or in part, except in short passages for purposes of review

or comment, without written permission from the publisher.

AA and Alcoholics Anonymous are registered trademarks of AA World Services, Inc.

Twelve Steps copyright © AA World Services, Inc.; reprinted with permission.

ISBN: 978-0-933685-57-2, Mobi: 978-1-938413-01-8, ePub: 978-1-938413-00-1

AA Preamble

Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women

who share their experience, strength and hope

with each other that they may solve their common problem

and help others to recover from alcoholism.

The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking.

There are no dues or fees for AA membership;

we are self-supporting through our own contributions.

AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization

or institution; does not wish to engage in any controversy,

neither endorses nor opposes any causes.

Our primary purpose is to stay sober

and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.

©AA Grapevine, Inc.

THE TWELVE STEPS OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. 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.

12. 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.

Copyright © AA World Services, Inc. Reprinted with permission.

THE TWELVE TRADITIONS OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS

1. Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon A.A. unity.

2. 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.

3. The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking.

4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or A.A. as a whole.

5. Each group has but one primary purpose—to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.

6. 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.

7. Every A.A. group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.

8. Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers.

9. A.A., as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.

10. Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the A.A. name ought never be drawn into public controversy.

11. 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.

12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.

Contents

AA Preamble

THE TWELVE STEPS

THE TWELVE TRADITIONS

Preface

The Next Frontier: Emotional Sobriety January 1958

Section One

A New Perspective

Growth June 1976

In All Our Affairs July 1956

Win Or Lose August 2001

Spiritual Agony February 2001

The Mouth That Roared August 2001

A Remarkable Sensation March 1997

Wait for the Pitch March 2001

Section Two

The Acid Test

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night October 1998

The Value of Life June 2005

Spiritual Coffee-making August 2001

Winners and Whiners October 1994

Faith in Full Flower November 2003

The Scariest Thing June 2006

Section Three

Freedom From Self

Lonely at the Top May 1991

Anonymity: A Day at a Time in the Real World July 1995

We Get What We Get October 2001

The Root of Our Troubles December 1979

Ready, Willing, and Almost Able April 2000

Thoughts on Step Seven August 1955

It Works at Work June 2000

Simple Program July 1980

Section Four

A Program of Action

A Benchmark in Sobriety September 1991

Dropout September 1977

Think Small March 1979

What Will I Get Out of It? December 2003

Made Direct Amends June 1990

The Work at Hand March 1988

Take My Advice – I'm Not Using It May 1997

Section Five

Outgoing Love

Put Aside Anger July 1965

Some Long-time Views March 1984

An Equal-Opportunity Deplorer March 1983

As Unique As Ham and Eggs June 2000

Miracle In a Burger Joint March 2002

The Ability to Love May 1962

Miracles to Go August 1997

Section Six

The Joy of Living

The Rhythm of Life October 1998

Hanging in There Together March 1984

Meetings, Meetings, and More Meetings March 1995

Practical Joy February 1997

Savoring Our Sobriety August 1982

Savoring Sobriety August 1997

The Man I've Always Wanted to Be October 1990

A Twig In the Yard July 2001

About AA and AA Grapevine

Preface

In 1958, the Grapevine published an article by AA co-founder Bill W. about the ongoing challenges of recovery that he faced long after he stopped drinking. Called The Next Frontier: Emotional Sobriety, the article describes Bill’s insight that his struggle with depression was due to overweening dependencies on other people and outside circumstances. Bill explains how he had found peace of mind by letting go of his expectations and practicing what he calls outgoing love — a love less concerned with what one gets and more with what one gives. It was, as he put it, the St. Francis Prayer in action.

For some, the next frontier in recovery from alcoholism may be letting go of faulty, unrealistic dependencies; for others, it may mean illuminating persistent character defects or the Now what? malaise that can afflict the long-timer. The stories in this book show that when we have the willingness to find solutions rather than stay stuck in problems, we can let go of fear, selfishness, and resentment, put aside selfish demands, practice outgoing love, and become more connected to our Higher Power and our friends, family, and fellows.

This book does not represent a final definition of emotional sobriety. Growing up in sobriety means different things to each of us, and one’s own idea of it may change over time. But one thing seems true: the rewards for reaching for emotional sobriety are serenity, emotional balance, and an increased joy in living.

— The Editors

The Next Frontier:

Emotional Sobriety

January 1958

I THINK THAT MANY oldsters who have put our AA booze cure to severe but successful tests still find they often lack emotional sobriety. Perhaps they will be the spearhead for the next major development in AA — the development of much more real maturity and balance (which is to say, humility) in our relations with ourselves, with our fellows, and with God.

Those adolescent urges that so many of us have for top approval, perfect security, and perfect romance — urges quite appropriate to age seventeen — prove to be an impossible way of life when we are at age forty-seven or fifty-seven.

Since AA began, I've taken immense wallops in all these areas because of my failure to grow up, emotionally and spiritually. My God, how painful it is to keep demanding the impossible, and how very painful to discover finally, that all along we have had the cart before the horse! Then comes the final agony of seeing how awfully wrong we have been, but still finding ourselves unable to get off the emotional merry-go-round.

How to translate a right mental conviction into a right emotional result, and so into easy, happy and good living — well, that's not only the neurotic's problem, it's the problem of life itself for all of us who have got to the point of real willingness to hew to right principles in all our affairs.

Even then, as we hew away, peace and joy may still elude us. That's the place so many of us AA oldsters have come to. And it's a hell of a spot, literally. How shall our unconscious — from which so many of our fears, compulsions and phony aspirations still stream — be brought into line with what we actually believe, know and want! How to convince our dumb, raging and hidden Mr. Hyde becomes our main task.

I've recently come to believe that this can be achieved. I believe so because I begin to see many benighted ones — folks like you and me — commencing to get results. Last autumn, depression, having no really rational cause at all, almost took me to the cleaners. I began to be scared that I was in for another long chronic spell. Considering the grief I've had with depressions, it wasn't a bright prospect.

I kept asking myself, Why can't the Twelve Steps work to release depression? By the hour, I stared at the St. Francis Prayer. . . It's better to comfort than to be comforted. Here was the formula, all right. But why didn't it work?

Suddenly I realized what the matter was. My basic flaw had always been dependence — almost absolute dependence — on people or circumstances to supply me with prestige, security, and the like. Failing to get these things according to my perfectionist dreams and specifications, I had fought for them. And when defeat came, so did my depression.

There wasn't a chance of making the outgoing love of St. Francis a workable and joyous way of life until these fatal and almost absolute dependencies were cut away.

Because I had over the years undergone a little spiritual development, the absolute quality of these frightful dependencies had never before been so starkly revealed. Reinforced by what Grace I could secure in prayer, I found I had to exert every ounce of will and action to cut off these faulty emotional dependencies upon people, upon AA, indeed, upon any set of circumstances whatsoever. Then only could I be free to love as Francis had. Emotional and instinctual satisfactions, I saw, were really the extra dividends of having love, offering love, and expressing a love appropriate to each relation of life.

Plainly, I could not avail myself of God's love until I was able to offer it back to Him by