A.A. Member Wins the Lottery
 
Irving Hornbecker, of Cleveland, Ohio, won Saturday's Powerball lottery,
getting all five numbers and the Powerball correct.  He will receive an
estimated $32 million.

Mr. Hornbecker explained that his winning was due to his A.A. spiritual
practices: "All I did was just what Step Eleven tells me to do, just sit
quietly, and meditate, and wait for God to talk to me and tell me what to do.
Well, God said, 'Irving, play 2-14-29-34-39, Powerball 24!' And lo and behold,
God got the numbers right!"
 
A reporter asked Mr. Hornbecker what he planned to do with the money. He
answered, "Give it all to A.A., of course."

Mr. Hornbecker added, "I was going to give it to my local group, but they
explained that there is a tradition against anyone giving more than $2000 per
year. But when I called up the national headquarters, they said that I could
send all of the millions that I wanted to, and that they wouldn't let a silly
little tradition about no outside donations get in the way of progress.  They
said that they had already gotten a hundred thou from the city of San Diego
for holding the international convention there, and that it had worked out
just fine, with no spiritual rules broken at all. They said that they were
sure that they could find something nice to spend tens of millions of dollars
on, this time, too."
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Bill Wilson wrote that alcohol is cunning, baffling, and powerful.
(The Big Book, pages 58-59.)
-- How cunning? What is the I.Q. of a bottle of whiskey?
-- Is a fifth of Jack Daniels more cunning than a fifth of Old Grand-Dad?
-- Is a fifth of Mexican Jose Cuervo tequilla more baffling than a big tankard
of inscrutable Japanese Sapporo beer?
-- I think I have the powerful part figured out: Obviously, Everclear at 190
proof is much more powerful than beer at four or five percent, which is only
8 or 10 proof.

But the cunning and baffling parts, they still need some explanation.
===========================================================
Snappy come-backs, or text for T-shirts:

It's not religious, it's superstitious!

Turn Off, Tune Out, Drop Dead.

Not Really Insane, Just Visiting.

Acceptance is the answer to all of my problems today.
Rage is the answer to all of my problems tomorrow.
===========================================================

A common creation story is that the Lord took some mud and made the first man,
Adam. Considering what I see all of the current lumps of mud doing, I don't
think that the Lord used ordinary mud. I suspect that it must have been
silly putty.

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Copyright (C) 2005, Secret Agent Orange
More jokes and other enlightening recovery information at:
http://www.orange-papers.org/

Many city, state, and Federal government agencies have been frustrated by the
very poor results obtained from existing drug and alcohol treatment programs,
in spite of the large amounts of money spent trying to solve these social
problems.

But the Bureau of Abstract Statistics reports a major discovery, finding that
when survey questionnaires about continued drug and alcohol use are handed out
and collected by parole officers, judges, or other officers of the court, the
success rate of the drug and alcohol treatment programs suddenly jumps to 100%.
Nobody reports any problems with relapses or continued use at all.

The Bureau suggests that this effect can be used as an "after-burner" to
enhance the success rate of existing treatment programs. Sam Wannabe, a senior
statistician with the Bureau, says, "It is obvious that we can save the
taxpayers millions of dollars, just by using parole officers and judges to
calculate the success rates of treatment programs.  This is truly a great day
in the war on drugs."
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God as I understand Her doesn't like the Twelve Steps at all.
And She really hates the male chauvinist pigism of the Big Book chapter,
"To Wives."
When She's in a good mood, she just laughs at it all.  But when She's in a bad
mood, she makes some male members of A.A. relapse and die drunk.

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How to have fun with recovery:
-- Brag about all of your sober time.
-- Threaten to relapse if you don't get your own way.
-- Complain that people who do things you don't like are endangering your
recovery.
-- Explain that you have to go to a meeting whenever your wife asks you to
do something that you don't want to do.
-- Act like a real ass-hole, and then demand that everyone congratulate you
for not drinking while you did it.
-- Dump your old wife because she isn't in recovery, and pick up on that new
cutie who is showing up at the meetings.
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If it is really God's Will that we spend our lives in meetings, why weren't we
born with chairs glued to our butts?
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The "spiritual disease" of alcoholism closely resembles the "spiritual disease"
of "candyism", which is the illness that children get from eating too much
candy.
The horrendous spiritual disease of Candyism is particularly prevalent around
October 31st. Some researchers have speculated that the seasonal increase in
that nasty spiritual disease is caused by the numerous evil spirits that are
known to roam the Earth at Holloween.  Somebody should call Ghostbusters.

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To do good is noble.
To teach others to do good is nobler...
And less trouble.
-- Mark Twain
===========================================================
Copyright (C) 2005, Secret Agent Orange
More jokes and other enlightening recovery information at:
http://www.orange-papers.org/