... but I don't drink any less."
Posted on 01/29/2008 11:40:31 AM PST by misterrob
BALTIMORE, Md. (AP) - President Bush on Tuesday referred to his former struggles with alcohol as an "addiction," a blunt characterization of his less disciplined adult days before a reliance on faith help him turn his life around.
"Addiction is hard to overcome," Bush said in speaking at a faith- based center that helps former prisoners get job training and other help.
"As you might remember, I drank too much at one time in my life," Bush said. "I understand faith-based programs. I understand that sometimes you can find the inspiration from a higher power to solve an addiction problem."
Increasingly, Bush has reflected in candid terms about his days of drinking. Last month, he told some young recovering addicts to stick with their fight against drugs and cited his own experiences with alcohol years ago. He said then that "addiction competes for your affection ... you fall in love with alcohol."
Bush, 61, decided to quit drinking alcohol after a boozy night in 1986 celebrating his 40th birthday. He went on to win election and re- election as Texas governor before bidding for the White House.
The president spoke Tuesday at the Jericho Program, which helps former prisoners get their lives in order and contribute to society. The stop came as Bush sought to keep some attention on his faith-based programs, one of the themes from his final State of the Union address on Monday night.
We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
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.
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.
He is a humble man.
He is a decent man in every sense of the word. Disagree with his policies if you will but he is genuine.
It’s exactlty how I “beat the bottle”. I turned my life over to god.
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
Good for him. He is a good and decent man.
I can’t believe that Jennifer Loven didn’t try to inject a snarky comment against the President. A moment of decency on her part.
Kennedy says drinking helped him beat down faith.
Maryjo, too.
I used to think so.
p. 62
Selfishness - self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt.
So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn’t think so. Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must, or it kills us! God makes that possible. And there often seems no way of entirely getting rid of self without His aid. Many of us had moral and philosophical convictions galore, but we could not live up to them even though we would have liked to. Neither could we reduce our self-centeredness much by wishing or trying on our own power. We had to have God’s help.
This is the how and why of it. First of all, we had to quit playing God. It didn’t work. Next, we decided that hereafter in this drama of life, God was going to be our Director. He is the Principal; we are His agents. He is the Father, and we are His children. Most good ideas are simple, and this concept was the keystone of the new and triumphant arch through which we passed to freedom.
I have heard that he was caught driving drunk. That should seal his fate.
Another friend of Bill W. here.
Hey wait a minute. Every week in the Enquirer and othe rags I am told Bush is boozing it up in the white house and Laura has left him. They even show scratches that she has inflicted.
Who to believe - the clintonites that own the rags or President Bush.
What other excuse does he have for his dimwit brain in genral?
Just because someone goes off the bottle, does not mean they are sane at that moment.
An example…A person is an alcoholic at the age of X. The person goes off the bottle at age 40 as supposedly George did. He has all those years from that point he became an alcoholic to the time his stopped. In other words, once he stopped drinking, his maturity started at the age of X and not of the age of 40. Therefore, we have had an immature (fill in the word) at the helm at what should be our great country.
An example…A person is an alcoholic at the age of X. The person goes off the bottle at age 40 as supposedly George did. He has all those years from that point he became an alcoholic to the time his stopped. In other words, once he stopped drinking, his maturity started at the age of X and not of the age of 40. Therefore, we have had an immature (fill in the word) at the helm at what should be our great country.”
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Oh boy, that was weak. Surely you can do better, come on...try again.
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