​🌿 BOE- Balance Offers Empowerment Meeting Format 

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 *(Copy/paste this highlighted portion into the Zoom chat at the beginning of the meeting) *

 
🔗 DAILY READINGS   www.recoveryreadings.com 

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 More About Alcoholism*AA (pp. 30–31) https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt3.pdf

 

AA 12 steps:   https://www.aa.org/the-twelve-steps

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AA 12 Steps and 12 Traditions:  https://www.portlandeyeopener.com/AA-12-Steps-12-Traditions.pdf

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AA Promises:  https://www.singaporeaa.org/PDFs/The_AA_Promises.pdf

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Native Empowerment Resources (phone list, meetings, affirmations)  htttps://www.nativeempowerment.org

 

 

Opening Script

“Welcome to the BOE – Balance Offers Empowerment  Recovery Meeting.  My name is ___________ and I am ____.

This meeting welcomes everyone, whether you are alcoholic or not.  We believe that addiction is a family disease and that all of us benefit from working recovery. 

 

📖 Readings

  We're going to start out by reading more about alcoholism from the AA big Book.   ​ Even though you may not have a problem with drugs or alcohol we find this can help us understand a problem drinker’s struggle. We can also  apply this concept of addiction to something in our own life. Some of us are actually addicted to other people, or other addictions such as shopping, porn, food or people pleasing.    

2. “Who will read *More About Alcoholism*, starting on page 30 and ending at the bottom of page 31?”  “More About Alcoholism” (AA Big Book, Chapter 3, pp. 30–31)

Most of us have been unwilling to admit we were real alcoholics. No person likes to think he is bodily and mentally different from his fellows. Therefore, it is not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could drink like other people. The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.
We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery. The delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed.
We alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking. We know that no real alcoholic ever recovers control. All of us felt at times that we were regaining control, but such intervals—usually brief—were inevitably followed by still less control, which led in time to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization.  We are convinced to a man that alcoholics of our type are in the grip of a progressive illness. Over any considerable period, we get worse, never better. We are like men who have lost their legs; they never grow new ones. Neither does there appear to be any kind of treatment which will make alcoholics of our kind like other men.
We have tried every imaginable remedy. In some instances, there has been brief recovery, followed always by a still worse relapse. Physicians who are familiar with alcoholism agree there is no such thing as making a normal drinker out of an alcoholic. Science may one day accomplish this, but it hasn’t done so yet.​

3. “Who will read * *Twelve Steps of AA” page 59 of Big Book

The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous:

Here are the steps we book, which are suggested as a program of recovery.

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Making direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. I continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Many of us exclaimed… what an order!  I can’t go through with.”  do not be discouraged.  No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles.  We are not saints.  The point is that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines.  The principles we have set are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.

Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agonist, and our personal adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas:

1. That we are alcoholic and could not manage our own lives.

2. That probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism.

3. That God could and would if he were sought.

 

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🪶 Main Reading / Topic/Speaker/

** Suggestions:

1 week of the month read from the AA 12 and 12 .  * 1 week read from AA big book or wellbriety book   *1 week a story in back of AA big book.  * One week do daily readings or speaker

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“Tonight /Today we will be:  ________________.   (Can be a topic, readings, or a speaker.)

   

🗣 Sharing Time

- “We’ll now open the meeting for sharing.   - “We ask that you use ‘I’ statements, and keep the focus on your own experience, and not give advice to others.”  Please respect the time so that everyone gets a chance to share.  There is no room for politics.  If someone is not respecting these guidelines, we will give a friendly reminder. If the behavior continues, we may mute or remove the person to protect the safety of the group.
- “Anonymity is very important. Who you see here, what you hear here, stays here.”

- You can raise your zoom hand to share. If you are calling in, just press *6

Who would like to start? 

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After Sharing

“If you didn’t get a chance to share or if you have questions, please stay after the meeting or call someone.”  It’s important in recovery to get a sponsor.  We have potential sponsors in this meeting and on our website nativeempowerment.org.  The first step is to just get someone’s phone number. 
“Remember: You are not alone. When we step out of isolation, healing begins.”

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📢 Announcements

“Are there any announcements?”

•  Make sure to use and SHARE our meetings calendar. it has indigenous zoom meetings from around the country.    PASTE IN CHAT:   https://www.nativeempowerment.org/native-zoom-meetings.

•  Who would like to lead the meeting next week?

• LEARN MORE ON OUR WEBSITE   www.nativeempowerment.org.​

 

🌅 Closing    LEADER CAN CHOOSE CLOSING: 1) The promises   2) Lord’s prayer 3) Full serenity prayer   OR 4) Personal prayer

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**The Promises** – “Who will read *The Promises* from the Big Book, p. 83?”
(Reader reads the Promises.)

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through.
We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.
We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace.
No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.
That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.
We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.
Self-seeking will slip away.
Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.
Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.
We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.
We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us—sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.

 

LORDS PRAYER

The Lord’s Prayer Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. ------------------- For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.

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Full Serenity prayer-

The Serenity Prayer God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; Courage to change the things I can; And wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; Taking, as He did, this sinful world As it is, not as I would have it; Trusting that He will make all things right If I surrender to His Will; So that I may be reasonably happy in this life And supremely happy with Him Forever and ever in the next. Amen