Author: Andrew Arthur Dawson

A teacher of meditation, a motivational speaker, a reader of numerology, and a writer by trade, Andrew Arthur Dawson is a spiritual man devoted to serving his Higher Power and bringing a lot more light and love into this world. This blog, www.thetwelfthstep.com is just one of those ways...

The “Strength” And “Hope” Of Experience, Strength, And Hope

It is well known in most 12 Step recovery meetings that when a person finds recovery from their addiction, that they will then start to share their experience, strength and hope to those still suffering in order to help them. Yesterday, I spoke about the experience side of this so I thought it might be best today to write about the strength and hope parts as well.

Strength and hope are two words that describe why so many continue to find recovery from their addictions through 12 Step programs. I truly believe that this is what motivates all those who end up doing the 12 Step work and who come back week after week to recovery meetings.

When I began doing the 12 Step work and attending AA meetings regularly, I didn’t have much strength and I definitely had very little hope. My first sponsor on the other hand, had a tremendous amount of both qualities and she became a guiding light of them, for me to strive after.

The first thing I noticed about her strength was that she had learned how to remain free of many other addictions in addition to alcoholism. I knew I was cross-addicted and had fallen into other problems such as gambling and sex and love issues to name a few. That is why I initially didn’t believe that anything could keep me free of succumbing into at least one of the many addictions I had. I just couldn’t see early on how I could live a life free from all addictions because I was so used to living with at least one of them active at any given time. But it was this sponsor who showed me in her 25 years of continuous sobriety, that she found the strength through her recovery program to do just that.

The second thing I noticed about her strength was how she had been able to make it through every trial and tribulation in her life clean and sober from all her addictions. When my father took his life, I didn’t have much strength and gave into my addictions to cope with his death. When my mother fell down the stairs and broke her neck dying instantly, I didn’t have much strength then either and gave into my addictions once again to cope. The same held true when I lost a seven year relationship, when my business failed, and when just about every other tragedy took place in my life. But she showed me through her recovery program and the strength she had gotten from it that none of her tragedies in life ever drove her back into any addiction.

The third thing I noticed about her strength, and probably the most important one for me, is how she had an incredible connection to the God of her understanding and gained incredible strength from that connection every single day. I was the opposite of that when I first met her as I had been acting quite godless throughout my life. I also didn’t believe that God could forgive me for all the bad things that I had done in my addiction prone life nor could I understand how God could save me from the wreckage I had created. She shared with me how she felt similar when she first came to 12 Step recovery, but in time all that changed as her relationship to her Higher Power grew. Eventually she knew God forgave her of all the unspiritual things she had once done and God also helped her to completely clean up all her wreckage as well. Seeing all this is what started giving her incredible strength in recovery and maintaining that relationship to her Higher Power is what sustained it.

There were many other things I noticed as well about my sponsor’s strength in recovery the more I did my 12 Step work and attend those AA meetings regularly. But I also saw another quality in her that I wanted for myself and knew I had so little of, and that was hope. When I met her and began my recovery work, I was seriously broken, suicidal, and found it difficult to smile. She gave me hope every time she shared her joy in life and every time she smiled and laughed. Eventually, I started to meet others who shined just as brightly and they all shared one thing in common, they had hope.

I’ve been going to recovery meetings regularly now for over six years and I’m grateful to say that I have a lot more of my own strength and hope now. I thank my first sponsor in AA for being the one to initially guide me in this direction, especially because it led me to the growing relationship I have with my Higher Power. Through that connection, I have been able to remain clean and sober from all addictions even when life’s trials and tribulations try to break that. Now it’s my desire to offer this strength and hope to those still suffering, like I once was, hoping they too will one day find those very same qualities present within themselves.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

The “Experience” of Experience, Strength, And Hope And Drunk-O-Logs

Six years ago I walked into a Friday evening AA meeting in desperation hoping to find recovery from a life that had become riddled with various addictions. Although I had remained sober from alcohol and drugs for 12 years by that point, it had been achieved mostly through self-will and it showed. I learned a lot that night about what being in recovery meant and looking back on my actions I took during that meeting, it was pretty obvious that I had very little of that, if any at all.

All of this began that Friday evening when I walked in the door of the church where the meeting was being held. There I was cheerly greeted by one of the few friends who had remained in my addiction-filled life. As I hugged him, I knew he could tell how broken I was inside. The only thought I had in those moments though was that I needed to share what I was going through with everyone attending the meeting that night. When my friend informed me that wouldn’t be possible, I inquired as to why. He told me they had this thing called an incoming commitment where another group’s members came in to share their experience, strength, and hope in recovery. I had never heard of such a thing because I had rarely attended enough meetings to know such things existed. In fact, the few meetings I had ever attended were the ones that anyone could raise their hands and share whatever was on their minds. Upon hearing this new meeting format, my ego took over, which at the time was quite large. It was then that I told my friend I had a lot of experience, strength, and hope, even though deep down I knew I didn’t. I said it was a life or death matter for me to share and that I needed him to do what was necessary to have me be able to speak that night. After he saw that I wasn’t going to back down from pressuring him to do this, he gave in and went to speak with the chairperson of the incoming group. Sometime later during the meeting, I was called up to the podium by that chairperson where I stood nervously in front of over 100 people who were sitting there waiting to hear my experience, strength and hope in recovery. But what they got instead was a big pile of tears and a slew of experiences. What I didn’t have though was any strength or hope which was easily demonstrated by my torrent of tears that poured out of my eyes in front of all those strangers. So as I shared at length about the horror stories from all my addiction filled days in life, I didn’t discuss any of my efforts I had made or found toward true sobriety and recovery because I truly had none. All I really had to share that night was nothing more than a long drunk-a-log.

A drunk-a-log is really just a slang term used these days in most recovery meetings to describe a situation where a person shares and focuses solely on the days and experiences from their active addiction filled days. And this is precisely what I did when I stood at that podium on that Friday evening over six years ago. Unfortunately, in doing so, what I said had little to no benefit for anyone in attendance as it only solidified the fact that I was extremely miserable from all of my addiction-based experiences.

Today, I find it’s actually for the best to focus very little on these experiences as none of us are very different from each other when it comes right down to where our addictions took us. By choosing to share one addiction story after another, the only thing it really shows is how screwed up we all were from our disease of addiction. What it doesn’t show is a path to recovery for those still suffering from them. The only reason why I kept coming back to AA and other recovery meetings wasn’t because of hearing drunk-a-logs. It wasn’t because of listening to people share their “war” stories with addiction. And it definitely wasn’t because I heard some amazing experience about someone’s battle with addictions. I kept coming back because I heard people share about the happiness in their life that came from doing the 12 Steps and finding God.

Thankfully, I now practice the 12 Steps and maintain a close relationship with my Higher Power on a daily basis. This has helped me to be able to laugh now about the absurdity of my actions on that Friday night meeting all those years ago. I realize today that the only experience I really ever need to share in any meeting I attend is that I drank, I drugged, and I lost. I also realize that a drunk-a-log isn’t going to help anyone, especially a newcomer. As it is they, like I once did, who need to hear a lot more about the strength and hope in recovery and nothing else…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Philomena And Healing The Horrors Of The Catholic Church

It seems as if there are a lot of movies being made lately that are inspired by true stories. In the past few days alone, I’ve seen two of them where one of which was titled Philomena. Based on the real life story of Philomena Lee, this 2013 British Drama film focused on a woman’s 50 year search to find her son whom she was forced to sign away at a convent in Roscrea, Ireland at the age of 18.

Sometimes films really enlighten me when I see the horrors that have existed throughout time because of those in power. Maybe that’s why I like movies so much because they paint a much more vivid picture of them than a book might. Philomena is just one of many films that has done this for me. Others noteworthy to mention are films like 12 Years A Slave, which portrayed the horrors of slavery in our country, and The Passion Of Christ, which showed similar horrors, but solely those done to Jesus Christ.

In Phliomena though, the horror that was focused on was the fact that many unwed mothers in Ireland back in the 1950’s were disowned by their families and sent to convents. There they were forced to sign the rights away to their children, usually before they were even born there. During the birthing process, many of these women never even survived because they were denied the same birthing aids that women usually received through normal hospital care at the time. The Catholic Church thought of these women as sinners and degenerates and left the birthing process up to chance as to whether God wanted either the mother or her child to survive or not. Philomena Lee was one of those women who did survive that ordeal, along with her son Anthony. But sadly, her son was taken from her before the age of 4 when the Catholic Church sold him to an American couple through an ongoing adoption process they utilized to make money.

During the movie, my partner and others in the theater reacted in anger towards the many Catholic Church’s denials and cover-ups of what happened to Philomena and her son. I am even struggling as I write these words because I too could very easily jump on that anger bandwagon. I’ve had too many friends in my life that were sexually abused by Catholic priests, where those incidents were denied and covered up as well. Add in the fact that homosexuals have consistently been thought of as sinners and hell-bound by the teachings of the Catholic institution, it makes it very difficult for me to write with love and light about the Catholic Church. But I’ve also learned that anger doesn’t help fuel anything other than more anger and resentments. So I’ve chosen to look at all of the Catholic Church’s horrors that are being exposed these days, like Philomena’s ordeal, as misguided and filled with a lot of spiritual sickness. This has helped me to feel more sad about all of it rather than angry.

Hopefully one day, the names of God and Jesus Christ will stop being used by the Catholic Church and those in power in them to justify doing terrible actions, such as what happened to Philomena and the other 50,000+ women who lost either their lives, their children, or both from it. There is much healing that needs to take place on this planet, especially with so many who have been negatively affected by these past actions of the Catholic Church. But being angry won’t bring any of that about. Instead, I’ve learned the best I can do is to feel my sadness and pray for the healing and forgiveness for all those involved in any of the Catholic Church’s transgressions.

While I’m not Catholic, I do have many friends and loved ones who are. I don’t look negatively upon any of them for what a few leaders once allowed to happen to Philomena and the many other women who suffered the ordeal of an unspiritual birthing and adoption process. I’m just happy that Philomena was at least able to have some closure to her 50 year long search for her son. The movie truly stirred my heart as I’m sure it was intended to do. And it’s my hope that anyone who sees this film will at least walk away from it with greater awareness and not something unspiritual such as anger and anti-Catholic Church sentiments.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson