The Aquarian Alcoholic

About the Book

The Twelve-Step Program was introduced in the mid-nineteen-thirties as a method for people, plagued by the need to drink, to overcome their addiction to alcohol. The program was introduced through the organization known as Alcoholics Anonymous, commonly referred to as 'AA'. Since then, the Twelve-Step Program has been adopted by many other organizations seeking to help relieve various addictions. The use of the Twelve-Step Program has grown to the extent that 'Twelve-Step Program' is almost a household phrase and most individuals are at least aware of the purpose behind it.

The Aquarian Alcoholic is about the Twelve-Step Program but it is not directed at the average individual suffering from an addiction. Instead, it is directed at the individual in harmony with 21st-century thinking, the individual who desires to leave older philosophies behind and who's thinking is beyond the scope of the average person. The Aquarian Alcoholic takes us on a journey through the recovering alcoholic's twelve-step program from the perspective of 21st--century acquired knowledge. The twelve steps are discussed at a higher level of understanding than popularized by the early 1900's organization of Alcoholics Anonymous.

This book was written from the perspective of alcoholism, the addiction to alcohol. However, the same principles presented within apply to many other addictions. This book was written by an alcoholic in recovery whose only desire is to help relieve some of the struggles faced by new members starting out on the Twelve-Step Program who find it difficult or impossible to retain or to accept dogmatic beliefs in conjunction with their recovery.

About the Author

David O. Christensen, Ph.D. (Holistic Health Sciences) is a recovering alcoholic of many years. His goal is, through writing, to promote interest in today's reality for the sake of health and well-being.

Table of Contents or Excerpts

Chapter One - TWELVE STEP READINESS: The Aquarian Alcoholic. All-That-Is. The Alcoholic Gene. Symptoms of Alcoholism. The Goal of Sobriety. Getting Permission. Tools. HOW. Honesty. Open-Mindedness. Willing vs. Willful. Sponsors. The Twelve-Steps.

Chapter Two - THE MORE I KNOW OF GOD: The Twelve-Step Program. Step One - We admitted we were powerless--. Step Two - Came to believe--. Meditation. Expanding the Mind. Early Beliefs. Spirit Guides. The Bliss Experience. More to Think About. Step Three - Made a decision--.

Chapter Three - THE MORE I KNOW OF ME: Step Four - Made a searching and fearless--. Step Five - Admitting to God--. Step Six - Were entirely Ready--. Step Seven - Humbly asked Him--. Step Eight - Made a list. Step Nine - Made direct amends--.

Chapter Four - THE MORE I CAN LET GO: Step Ten - Continued to take a personal inventory--. Step Eleven - Sought through prayer and meditation--. Eleventh Step Prayer of Dr. David O. Step Twelve - Having a Spiritual awakening--.

Chapter Five - THE MORE I WILL BE FREE: The Twelve Promises. Victory. Perhaps. The Last Words.

Suggested Reading

All-That-Is

"All Matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force. We must assume behind this force, the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter." Max Planck - father of quantum theory.

The more the scientific community delves into the nature of reality, the more substantiated becomes the idea that all things are connected, that some connecting force underlies all that exists. Even more important is the newfound knowledge that an observer of any process is in effect a part of the conscious and intelligent mind referred to by Max Planck and since we are all observers of our own life processes, we have a direct effect on the results of events in our lives. We are in fact an integral part of All-That-Is, the conscious and intelligent mind that exists beneath all manifest matter and which is also in effect all manifest matter.

Throughout this book, All-That-Is will be used in place of the word God except in those places where the word God is used in quoted material or where the material requires the use of the word God.

excerpt from Getting Permission

Bill W., the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous and I have very similar stories of recovery. We were each raised in different times, in different parts of the country, with different employment histories, with different religious backgrounds, and yet our stories are practically the same. Bill W. spent years fighting his alcoholism and could not find any way at all to quit. He had tried everything he know of to overcome his addiction.

The key to his recovery was found when a friend of his that had quit drinking came to see him. His old drinking buddy, Ebby Thatcher, told him that he had found religion. Bill went into a tirade. He told his friend that religion was being pushed everywhere as a means of recovery. He reminded his friend that there were missions and alcoholic wards in hospitals everywhere that pushed religion as a remedy and none of it worked to keep the alcoholic away from the alcohol. His friend then told him that he had come to believe in his own concept of God and not anyone else's.

Bill W. later told members of Alcoholics Anonymous that Ebby Thatcher's statement had such a powerful effect on him that it was as if he (Bill) had been hit in the face by a cold fish. The concept of God as Bill understood Him had not occurred to Bill. Bill was still subconsciously going along with the religious or spiritual dictates of his parents in which he had no real belief. Bill's encounter with his friend effectively allowed Bill to give himself 'permission' to accept his own concept of a Higher Power - to go outside of his dictated circle of known. That idea of getting rid of the concept of God as taught by his parents and teachers and replacing it with a concept of God more in tune with his inner feelings was the key to his recovery and also the idea that inspired the beginning of Alcoholics Anonymous. That event occurred in 1935.

excerpt from Step One. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.

The Twelve-Step Program has been adopted by many organizations and for many different addictions. An alcoholic admits they are powerless over alcohol and their life has become unmanageable. A member of Overeaters Anonymous admits powerlessness over food; a member of Narcotics Anonymous admits powerlessness over Narcotics; and so on. Each of us with an addiction is quick to blame the substance (alcohol, food, drugs, etc.) for the problem. One day, I turned Step One around and recited it as: "I admitted that my life had become unmanageable, that I was powerless over alcohol." How easy it was to then add: "and powerless over cigarettes and powerless over selfish desires" and so on. It was then that I knew with certainty that it was all of the people, places, things, and situations in my life that I could not manage that were the real reason that I was an alcoholic. Even though I was physiologically addicted to the alcohol, it was the multitude of other things in the world that I felt powerless over that caused me to drink the alcohol in the first place.

Once alcohol was removed from my life, it lost its power over me but I was still left with all of the seemingly unmanageable situations to address and somehow correct. These are all addressed in the subsequent steps of the Twelve-Step Program. When you do Step One, turn it around and think of all of the things in your life that might cause you to drink. The main thing to remember concerning Step One is that even though alcohol all by itself is powerful and addictive, alcohol is still only a symptom of the disease and not the cause of the disease.

excerpt from Early Beliefs

Although we cannot ever begin to speculate how He is perceived by His countless mega-quintillions of "other" children who probably exist on the millions of His other planetary manifestations, we can rejoice in the knowledge that we can find and affirm God. David Manning White.

Man has been on the planet earth for a long time. Somewhere back in time, man decided that there existed some supernatural thing - a force - a being - a God. That conclusion was very natural because the existence of man implies the existence of a creator of some sort, a God. This God was given the attribute of being universal in scope, one in control of the entire universe, one who is was creator of the entire universe. However, at the time, whenever it occurred, the universe was thought to be a one-planet universe and so unfortunately, that first idea of a universal God was in reality a one-planet God, a concept that is still honored extensively today.

Early man believed that the earth was the largest celestial body in existence, that the earth was at the center of the universe, and that all other celestial bodies revolved around the earth. The visible heavenly bodies were stars and planets mysteriously emitting light and circling the earth in strange patterns. Their movements were assigned great wonder and mystery. That idea was published and solidified in the second century C.E. (common era) by the Greek astronomer Claudius Ptolemaeus (Ptolemy). The concept of the universe as defined by Ptolemy found its was into Western religions where it is still well entrenched today.

Under the prem