Self-Acceptance: Waking Up from the Trance of Unworthiness – Interview/Video With Tara Brach November, 2025

I have added this video to the sections of gugogs.org on Toxic Shame and Healing our Jekyll/Hyde Divided Self. You may also find this article from Tara entitled ‘The Trance of Unworthiness’ relevant and useful. The interview below is about 30 minutes and full of insights and wisdom on this crucial topic that helps usContinue reading “Self-Acceptance: Waking Up from the Trance of Unworthiness – Interview/Video With Tara Brach November, 2025”

Accepting The Gift Of Now – Each Day A New Beginning April 15th

It seems to me that I have always been waiting for something better – sometimes to see the best I had snatched from me.–Dorothy Reed Mendenhall Gratitude for what is prepares us for the blessings just around the corner. What is so necessary to understand is that our wait for what’s around the corner closesContinue reading “Accepting The Gift Of Now – Each Day A New Beginning April 15th”

Getting To Know Our Differentiated Self – 12 Essential Insights For Emotional Sobriety By Dr. Allen Berger

I think there is a strong connection between this article and what I like to call the ‘mini-steps’ suggested as responses to a spot inventory of what disturbs us. These mini-steps are suggested in the Twelve £ Twelve in Step 10. Specifically, I see this article as very prescriptive when I find myself taking thingsContinue reading “Getting To Know Our Differentiated Self – 12 Essential Insights For Emotional Sobriety By Dr. Allen Berger”

Conscience And Step Ten – Spiritual Principle A Day October 24th

“We need to stay in tune with the voice of our conscience and listen to what it’s telling us. When we get a nagging feeling that something isn’t quite right, we should pay attention to it.” It Works, Step Ten Our days of justifying our own bad behavior are mostly behind us. Sure, we stillContinue reading “Conscience And Step Ten – Spiritual Principle A Day October 24th”

Shame, Fear And The Problem With Faking It – Broken Open (Extract From Chapter 11)- By William Moyers

William Moyers wrote a bestselling book called Broken in 2006 which chronicled his journey in sobriety from alcohol and crack cocaine addiction. In 2014 after years of sober living, he found himself addicted to painkillers prescribed after dental surgery. He had made (and continues to make) his living as the Public Relations Director for theContinue reading “Shame, Fear And The Problem With Faking It – Broken Open (Extract From Chapter 11)- By William Moyers”

The Gift Of Sobriety – Grapevine Article February 1993 In Their Own Words

I’m still mystified by how I got sober, and the only answer that makes sense is that I stopped drinking through the grace of God. I was thinking about the difference between those of us who get sober and those who are still drinking, and I believe the difference is that we have accepted theContinue reading “The Gift Of Sobriety – Grapevine Article February 1993 In Their Own Words”

Let’s Be Friendly With Our Friends …The Clergy – Grapevine Article September 1957 By Bill W.

EVERY RIVER HAS A WELLSPRING at its source. AA is like that, too. In the beginning, there was a spring which poured out of a clergyman, Dr. Samuel Shoemaker. ‘Way back in 1934 he began to teach us the principles and attitudes that afterward came to full flower in AA’s Twelve Steps for Recovery. IfContinue reading “Let’s Be Friendly With Our Friends …The Clergy – Grapevine Article September 1957 By Bill W.”

Bright Promise – Grapevine Article July 1956 By Anonymous

THREE years ago an official prognosis for rehabilitation in my case would have read “hopeless.” An alcoholic who could not hold a job, divorced, estranged from my parents, I came and went through prison gates like an official–except that I remained behind the walls a longer period of time. After my fourth conviction I wasContinue reading “Bright Promise – Grapevine Article July 1956 By Anonymous”

Our Companions – As Bill Sees It #45

Today, the vast majority of us welcome any new light that can be thrown on the alcoholic’s mysterious and baffling malady. We welcome new and valuable knowledge whether it issues from a test tube, from a psychiatrist’s couch, or from revealing social studies. We are glad of any kind of education that accurately informs theContinue reading “Our Companions – As Bill Sees It #45”

Let’s Be Friendly With Our Friends – Grapevine Article March 1958 By Bill W

Friends on the Alcoholism Front WE ARE TOLD there are 4,500,000 alcoholics in America. Up to now AA has sobered up perhaps 250,000 of them. That’s about one in twenty, or five per cent of the total. This is a brave beginning, full of significance and hope for those who still suffer. Yet these figuresContinue reading “Let’s Be Friendly With Our Friends – Grapevine Article March 1958 By Bill W”