Freedom From Bondage

02/19/2026

Oldtimer said, "We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows when we undergo a spiritual experience that transforms the way we think, act, and feel. We have a fatal selfishness that seals our fate at the gates of insanity and death if we do not rid ourselves of it. We drank or used, or both to live and lived to drink,use or both. In God's way of life, we give to live and live to give. God helps those who help themselves, but He gives most abundantly to those who help others.

Service is the secret ingredient to the abundant life that God has ordained as a blessing to those who earnestly seek Him. It is in blessing others that we ourselves are blessed. Selfless service is the tool we use in AA to exponentially increase our spiritual growth. When we give of ourselves and expect nothing in return, we are truly living in the Spirit of God, who freely gives to us and expects nothing in return.

His yoke is easy, and His burden is light. God loved us at our worst because He knew we were doing the best we could do with the burden we carried. It was His mercy that allowed us to avoid the fatal pitfalls of our spiritual dis-ease, and make it to the rooms of recovery where His grace awaited us. When we freely give of ourselves we become a channel for His grace. As His grace flows through us it heals us And it is in the Spirit of giving that the feeling of uselessness and self-pity disappears.

We are now co-creating with God in a new life built upon a sound spiritual foundation that can withstand all the storms of life. When we give of ourselves to the newcomer, we are repaying a debt to the fellowship that gave us a relationship with God that was our salvation from a fatal malady.

God as we understand God is the spiritual key that unlocked the gate that kept us bound in addict/ alcoholic hell and barred us from receiving the redeeming grace we so desperately needed. Sharing the grace we receive brings about miraculous recovery for other sick and suffering alcoholics.

We may never see the direct benefit of this work, but our own recovery is evidence of the many selfless acts of alcoholics who preceded us in the rooms. The fellowship is a spiritual construct, built upon a divine concept, born of a simple spiritual idea. And so long as there are alcoholics in need of recovery, it shall remain a work in progress.

This construct gives the alcoholics and addicts in the rooms the opportunity to grow their spiritual life by freely giving to those who follow them the same gift that was freely given to them when they entered the rooms seeking redemption from a hopeless state of mind and body. For it is in giving that we receive, and it is through selfless giving that we harvest an abundance of spiritual fruits."

01/21/2026

01/21/2026

01/21/2026

01/21/2026

01/21/2026

01/21/2026

01/19/2026

When he asked her to bend hospital rules and take in an alcoholic, she did not pause. She placed him in the flower room, the quiet space where bodies sometimes rested before being taken to the morgue.

It was August 16, 1939. Sister Ignatia Gavin worked the admissions desk at St. Thomas Hospital in Akron, Ohio. She was small, gentle in voice, and easily overlooked as she moved through the corridors.

But when Dr. Bob Smith came to her for help, everything changed.

Hospitals in 1939 were strict. If you were injured, they treated you. If you had pneumonia, they admitted you. But if your illness was alcohol, you were turned away.

Alcoholism was viewed as a moral weakness, not a medical condition. Hospitals feared chaos, unpaid care, and trouble. So the doors stayed closed.

Dr. Bob Smith, a surgeon who had battled drinking himself, knew this pain well. By 1935, he and Bill Wilson had founded Alcoholics Anonymous. One alcoholic helping another, one day at a time.

Still, meetings were not enough for those deep in withdrawal. When bodies shook and minds unraveled, people needed medical care. A bed. Supervision through the worst hours.

No hospital would provide it.

Dr. Bob believed Sister Ignatia might. One summer day in 1939, he asked her directly.

She considered him. Considered the rules. Considered what refusing would mean.

“Bring him in,” she said.

That day, the first alcoholic patient was admitted. Officially, the diagnosis was acute gastritis, which was true enough. Years of drinking had destroyed his stomach.

There were no open beds.

So she placed him in the flower room. A small, private space meant for bouquets and sometimes used to hold the dead.

It was not comfortable. But it was shelter. And it was compassion.

That single decision made St. Thomas Hospital the first institution in the world to treat alcoholism as a medical illness.

Word traveled quietly. There was a place that would not turn you away. A nun who looked beyond trembling hands and clouded eyes.

Men arrived shattered. Careers gone. Families broken. Hope spent.

Sister Ignatia greeted them all the same way. Calm. Direct. Without judgment or fear.

Soon, the flower room could no longer hold them. She persuaded the hospital to give her a ward. It became known as Rosary Hall.

It was modest. A handful of beds. A coffee pot that was never allowed to run empty. She insisted on that.

Yet it was not the coffee that saved them. It was her presence.

She stayed with patients through sweats, shaking, and panic. She did not coddle them. She asked hard questions.

“Are you ready to change?”

If they said yes, she walked with them. If they relapsed, she welcomed them back.

When someone completed treatment, she gave them a small Sacred Heart medallion.

“This is your promise,” she told them. “Keep it while you remain sober. If you plan to drink again, bring it back to me first.”

Before entering a bar, they would have to face her. Speak honestly. Many said that medal alone kept them from drinking. They could not bear to let her down.

Dr. Bob died in 1950. Sister Ignatia did not stop.

In 1952, she opened another ward in Cleveland. She demanded a proper coffee bar. When administrators objected, she told them they could abandon the project entirely.

They agreed.

Estimates suggest she personally aided about 15,000 people in recovery and supported nearly 60,000 family members through programs she helped establish.

She never claimed credit. She said the work belonged to the people themselves.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy wrote to thank her. Illness forced her retirement in 1965. She died the following year at seventy seven.

Her funeral was filled with men who had once slept in that flower room. Men who had met her gaze at their lowest point and discovered hope.

Today, addiction is recognized as a disease. Treatment centers are everywhere.

But it began with one woman who chose mercy over policy.

When people reach the bottom, we can turn away or step closer.

Sister Ignatia always stepped closer.

01/19/2026

Alcohol culture has a term for people who can drink massive amounts without showing it:

"Professional drinker."

Like it's a skill.
Like it's something to be proud of.

"I can drink anyone under the table."
"Alcohol goes down like water for me."
"I got paid to party."

I used to say all of that.

I used to brag about drinking 30-50 shots and still functioning.

Bartenders who drank with customers all night and couldn't remember a thing.

Lawyers who went home and drowned in Jack Daniels.

Liver transplant surgeons who installed new livers in patients...
Then went home and destroyed their own.

All of us?
"Professional drinkers."

But here's what nobody tells you:
Being good at drinking alcohol isn't a real thing.

In fact, the person who's BEST at drinking alcohol is the one who drinks little to none.

The people with the best tolerance are the ones who get buzzed from smelling liquor.

The people who can't fathom more than one or two drinks?
They're the ones who are actually good at it.

Because alcohol isn't meant to get you drunk.

That's what happens when you start overdosing on a neurotoxin.

Blackouts aren't supposed to happen.

That's not "the point."

That's what happens when you officially overdose on the drug.

So when you say you're a "professional drinker"...
What you're actually saying is:

"I've poisoned myself so consistently that my body adapted to survive higher doses."

That's not a flex.
That's a warning sign.

But millions of people identify this way.

Bartenders.
Lawyers.
Doctors.
Construction workers.
Sales reps.
CEOs.

People who take pride in their tolerance.

People who brag about their capacity.

People who built an identity around being able to handle it.

And I get it.

I was one of them.

I wore "professional drinker" like a badge of honor.

Until I realized:
The only thing I was professional at was slowly killing myself while looking functional.

So if you've ever called yourself a professional drinker...
If you've ever bragged about your tolerance...
If you've ever been proud of how much you can handle...

Ask yourself:
What are you actually proud of?

Because being good at poisoning yourself
Isn't the achievement you think it is.

01/13/2026

Oldtimer said, "God's grace is more than sufficient for addicts and alcoholics suffering under the lash of King Addiction .
This mad tyrant would have us pursue the peace and comfort we seek, but never find, in the bottle,pipe,pill,line,needle,etc.. Initially, we found the magic, but it lasted only for a night. The next day we commenced the fruitless task all over again—a task that became ever more difficult as we descended ever deeper into the depths of the addictive pit with each drink or drug we took.

God's grace delivers us to a life more abundant than any we had ever imagined. Every day we wake up sober, we are overpaid. We have escaped the fatal finality of an illness that claims the lives of thousands of addicts and alcoholics everyday. With this realization, we fully comprehend the slogan, "There but for the grace of God go I." For we have been blessed with a way of life that will always return to us more than we put into it. This is more than the fair share of life we were always clamoring for in our using and drinking days.

We need God. We want everything else. When we put away our bottomless want cups and replace them with our need cup, we find our cup truly overflows. All we have to do is stay on the proven path of recovery that has delivered recovery to millions of alcoholics and addicts who were once as spiritually bankrupt as we were.

We won't always have the motivation to move forward on the path of recovery, but we must remain pointed in the right direction. Sometimes, standing still is the best we can do. And even then, God continues to bless us with His abundance by providing us with the motivation we need to move forward once again.

His grace is a never-ending flow that only we have the power to stop. When we give in to our self-centered impulses and begin manipulating life in order to achieve that which we desire, we have turned away from God and determined His grace is insufficient. But as soon as we regain our willingness to pursue the vision of His will for us, we begin to get results.

Patience is one of the fruits of recovery. When we want what we want when we want it, our impatience outpaces God's will, and we outrun the care and protection His grace affords. Without God's power in our lives, we fall prey, once again, to the seductive and destructive power of drugs and alcohol.

But for the grace of the Twelve Steps, with which God so blessed the sick and suffering alcoholic/addict, we would remain in need of salvation from the mad tyrant King Addiction—an equal opportunity destroyer who takes everything from us and leaves us with nothing. Where God guides, He provides, and so long as we stay close to Him and perform His work well, He provides what we need, when we need it, and how we need it. And when we remove barriers to His grace, it flows into our lives in great abundance."

01/06/2026

THE VICTORY OF SURRENDER

We perceive that only through utter defeat are we able to take our first steps toward liberation and strength. Our admissions of personal powerlessness finally turn out to be firm bedrock upon which happy and purposeful lives may be built.
TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 21

When alcohol and or drugs influenced every facet of my life, when pipes and bottles became the symbol of all my self indulgence and permissiveness, when I came to realize that, by myself, I could do nothing to overcome the power of drugs and alcohol, I realized I had no recourse except surrender. In surrender I found victory—victory over my selfish self-indulgence, victory over my stubborn resistance to life as it was given to me. When I stopped fighting anybody or anything, I started on the path to sobriety, serenity and peace.

From the book Daily Reflections.
Copyright © 1990 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. All rights reserved.