Maximum Service

 “In our belief any scheme of combating alcoholism which proposes to shield the sick man from temptation is doomed to failure.”

We have no knowledge of how or when the urge to drink will come.  We know that it will, however, and that we cannot wait until it is upon us.  We must prepare ourselves with faith and prayer for our hour of need. (Ed. Note: Faith and Prayer would be a terrible name for a hard rock band.)

(Reasonable advice to a newcomer is that situations that involve a kind of drinking that may be overly tempting should be avoided. There are some, of course, that can't. But if the choice is a situation or a drink the decision should be an easy one - the drink is going to do more damage than the situation. I love live music but I couldn't go to a heavy metal concert for many years - the connection between the event and drug/alcohol use was hardwired into my brain. I couldn't imagine staying clean if I went so I stayed away. The bad part is that I missed some kick-ass shows - the good thing is that I'm alive today. On the other hand I had an occasional obligation to attend business meetings that involved socializing with people who were drinking. The funny thing in these cases was that almost no one was drinking like I would have been drinking and the few that were could easily be avoided. Turns out my drinking was the exception, not the rule, and whatever damage I believed my career would suffer by not drinking was far, far outweighed by the damage I did by drinking. Funny stuff. Not at the time, but in retrospect.)

We cannot hate and make amends at the same time.

“We are trying to put our lives in order.   We do this through maximum service to God and the people about us.”