We recovered alcoholics are not so much brothers in virtue as we are brothers in our defects, and in our common strivings to overcome them. (As Bill Sees It, page 167)
The identification that one alcoholic has with another is mysterious, spiritual-almost incomprehensible. But it is there. I “feel” it. Today I feel that I can help people and that they can help me.
It is a new and exciting feeling for me to care for someone; to care what they are feeling, hoping for, praying for; to know their sadness, joy, horror, sorrow, grief; to want to share those feelings so that someone can have relief. I never knew how to do this-or how to try. I never even cared. The Fellowship of A.A., and God, are teaching me how to care about others.
END OF QUOTE
————————————————
Today I am fighting a bit of depression. I watched a film called “Machine Gun Preacher,” and later, I watched Mel Gibson’s “The Passion.” There are some standards of caring about others that seem way out of my reach. My social anxiety keeps me from connecting. The Fellowship of AA has provided me with the opportunity to connect and care. I am not sure how or if I will ever overcome this fear. I desire to. I suppose it is time for a meeting.
Posted in Uncategorized on April 18, 2014 by endigar
From Today’s Daily Reflections;
The deception of others is nearly always rooted in the deception of ourselves. . . . When we are honest with another person, it confirms that we have been honest with ourselves and with God. (As Bill Sees It, page 17)
When I was drinking, I deceived myself about reality, rewriting it to what I wanted it to be. Deceiving others is a character defect-even if it is just stretching the truth a bit or cleaning up my motives so others would think well of me. My Higher Power can remove this character defect, but first I have to help myself become willing to receive that help by not practicing deception. I need to remember each day that deceiving myself about myself is setting myself up for failure or disappointment in life and in Alcoholics Anonymous. A close, honest relationship with a Higher Power is the only solid foundation I’ve found for honesty with self and with others.
END OF QUOTE
————————————————-
“Good judgement will suggest that we ought to take our time. While we may be quite willing to reveal the very worst, we must be sure to remember that we cannot buy our own peace of mind at the expense of others.” (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 84)
The kind of honesty that Bill W. is referring to is the honesty within the confines of the program. The people we share our defects with are those who have not been directly hurt by us, and who are committed to our recovery and the manifestation of our highest selves. There are some people who would use our openness to manipulate us or store ammunition for a future assault. There are times when tact, taste, and discretion tell us to keep our mouths shut or modify our conversation to prevent the unnecessary harming of our fellows. If someone asked me what has made me so happy today, and the honest answer was that I had some really naughty sex and discovered some new positions to achieve the greatest orgasm, then it is not just protecting my image that is of concern, but the protection of whoever participated last night and the people who are listening at that moment. Even though I might answer that I had a really good time last night, or some other generic evasion, most of my peers would appreciate the lack of self-revelation. In daily conversation, most interactions are seeking functional connections and not intimate details. Revealing the truth of who we are to our God, to others, and to ourselves, should be the product of intelligent meditation and not knee-jerk reactions. For me, learning to master self-honesty begins with the ability to take my time in converting my thoughts to words.
“Our first objective will be the development of self-restraint. This carries a top priority rating. When we speak or act hastily or rashly, the ability to be fair-minded and tolerant evaporates on the spot. One unkind tirade or one willful snap judgment can ruin our relation with another person for a whole day, or maybe a whole year. Nothing pays off like restraint of tongue and pen…For we can neither think nor act to good purpose until the habit of self-restraint has become automatic.” (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 91)
All these failings generate fear, a soul-sickness in its own right. (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 49)
“Fear knocked at the door; faith answered; no one was there.” I don’t know to whom this quote should be attributed, but it certainly indicates very clearly that fear is an illusion. I create the illusion myself.
I experienced fear early in my life and I mistakenly thought that the mere presence of it made me a coward. I didn’t know that one of the definitions of “courage” is “the willingness to do the right thing in spite of fear.” Courage, then, is not necessarily the absence of fear.
During the times I didn’t have love in my life I most assuredly had fear. To fear God is to be afraid of joy. In looking back, I realize that, during the times I feared God most, there was no joy in my life. As I learned not to fear God, I also learned to experience joy.
END OF QUOTE
—————————————————
I am better with recognizing the illusions that are fear produced. Something in my gut still gurgles up raw anxiety and I have to remove the autopilot of fulfilling tasks and remind myself that this is not real or that it is being exaggerated. Maybe I will develop an automatic response over time that will cause me to process all fear more quickly. At times, it competes to become my Higher Power. Thanks to this program, that void is already filled, and fear no longer has an easy time of it when confronting me.
If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. They may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for alcoholics these things are poison. (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 66)
“Dubious luxury.” How often have I remembered those words. It’s not just anger that’s best left to nonalcoholics; I built a list including justifiable resentment, self-pity, judgmentalism, self-righteousness, false pride and false humility. I’m always surprised to read the actual quote. So well have the principles of the program been drummed into me that I keep thinking all of these defects are listed too. Thank God I can’t afford them or I surely would indulge in them.
END OF QUOTE
——————————————-
The assertion that the aggressive anger that pushes forth my isolated self-will is a luxury for all humans is something I have to consider. It often seems to me that in order to get things accomplished, there has to be a fierce, angry approach to life. This is a social delusion that most of us indulge in one form or another. The Hollywood icon of the lone wolf justifies antisocial behavior by adorning it with accomplishments dripping with the blood of all who dare to resist the isolated will.
It is an illusion of strength. When the alcoholic entertains it, then that first drink makes a lot of sense. The tragic demoralization and death of addiction becomes the collateral damage that will be endured.
The moral inventory begins to reveal the true substance of strength. It is found in the cooperative will that gets one up every day to do the little things. It is found in realizing that we are all in this together. My drive to work is not a competitive sport. My daily schedule is not a hit list. The strong man or woman that we all look to is the person that emulates the qualities of Gomu (the God of my understanding). They give a damn about others. They seek to empower the individuals serving the common good.
. . . harboring resentment is infinitely grave. For then we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the spirit. (As Bill Sees It, page 5)
It has been said, “Anger is a luxury I cannot afford.” Does this suggest I ignore this human emotion? I believe not. Before I learned of the A.A. program, I was a slave to the behavior patterns of alcoholism. I was chained to negativity, with no hope of cutting loose.
The Steps offered me an alternative. Step Four was the beginning of the end of my bondage. The process of “letting go” started with an inventory. I needed not be frightened, for the previous Steps assured me I was not alone. My Higher Power led me to this door and gave me the gift of choice. Today I can choose to open the door to freedom and rejoice in the sunlight of the Steps, as they cleanse the spirit within me.
END OF QUOTE
——————————————————
I experienced a great deal of emotional constipation in active alcoholism. Actually, I experienced impacted anxiety feces in my emotional bowel tract long before alcohol grew into a full fledged demon. I simply did not know of a good way to process intense emotions. I either suppressed or exploded. The moral inventory has given me a way to process perfectly legitimate emotions in perfectly appropriate ways. Once my emotional digestive system has been cleaned out with fourth step work, I can work to maintain regularity with tenth step work (after working steps five through nine).
Resentment is the “number one” offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else. From it stem all forms of spiritual disease, for we have been not only mentally and physically ill, we have been spiritually sick. (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 64)
As I look at myself practicing the Fourth Step, it is easy to gloss over the wrong that I have done, because I can easily see it as a question of “getting even” for a wrong done to me. If I continue to relive my old hurt, it is a resentment and resentment bars the sunlight from my soul. If I continue to relive hurts and hates, I will hurt and hate myself. After years in the dark of resentments, I have found the sunlight. I must let go of resentments; I cannot afford them.
END OF QUOTE
——————————————
For me, resentments are expectations gone wrong. My expectations are usually exaggerated by fear. So I am back to that tap root of my disease. Resentments let me know that the dark Spring has come to awaken the death weeds scattered within me. In the fourth step I am given a spiritual hoe to work the soil of my heart. The tenth step reminds me to be vigilant when resentment begin cropping up again.
Self-pity is one of the most unhappy and consuming defects that we know. It is a bar to all spiritual progress and can cut off all effective communication with our fellows because of its inordinate demands for attention and sympathy. It is a maudlin form of martyrdom, which we can ill afford. (As Bill Sees It, page 238)
The false comfort of self-pity screens me from reality only momentarily and then demands, like a drug, that I take an ever bigger dose. If I succumb to this it could lead to a relapse into drinking. What can I do? One certain antidote is to turn my attention, however slightly at first, toward others who are genuinely less fortunate than I, preferably other alcoholics. In the same degree that I actively demonstrate my empathy with them, I will lessen my own exaggerated suffering.
END OF QUOTE
—————————————-
In order to forestall accountability in some real area of my life, I would embellish some sad saga in which I could present the strength of my endurance. It was a form of protective pride. I would say “Look at what is happening to me, and I am not sure how, but I have endured it.” The benefit was its ability to distract from areas of defect in my life that I needed to address. Without this belly-up manipulation, I would become vulnerable to some painful accountability. All of this happens on such an instinctual level that I was unaware of the pattern of behavior until I set down with the moral inventory and discussed it with another person in recovery. Now when this short-coming manifests, I start asking myself, what is the real story here. It is a warning sign that needs to be heeded.
I must qualify this with the reality that some of us have dealt with co-dependent situations that causes us to feel guilty about everything. That broken guilt-o-meter is something else that has to be addressed with the support network. That is probably a better topic for Al-Anon.
. . . where alcohol has been involved, we have been strangely insane. (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 38)
Alcoholism required me to drink, whether I wanted to or not. Insanity dominated my life and was the essence of my disease. It robbed me of the freedom of choice over drinking and, therefore, robbed me of all other choices. When I drank, I was unable to make effective choices in any part of my life and life became unmanageable.
I ask God to help me understand and accept the full meaning of the disease of alcoholism.
END OF QUOTE
—————————————————
My active use of alcohol matches outwardly the storm that is going on inwardly. For me, that was usually the result of steady doses of fear which exaggerated my instinctual responses. The battle with this heightened level of anxiety is an ongoing process. My primary treatment comes from making decisions to stay connected with my Higher Power and others who support my strongest expression of life.
To see how erratic emotions victimized us often took a long time. We could perceive them quickly in others,- but only slowly in ourselves. First of all, we had to admit that we had many of these defects, even though such disclosures were painful and humiliating-. Where other people were concerned, we had to drop the word “blame” from our speech and thought. (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 47)
When I did my Fourth Step, following the Big Book guidelines, I noticed that my grudge list was filled with my prejudices and my blaming others for my not being able to succeed and to live up to my potential. I also discovered I felt different because I was black. As I continued to work on the Step, I learned that I always had drunk to rid myself of those feelings. It was only when I sobered up and worked on my inventory, that I could no longer blame anyone.
END OF QUOTE
———————————————————-
My success and fulfillment are my responsibility. My prejudices and erratic emotions create a victim’s attitude toward life. I need to correct my speech and thought by being willing to face some painful and humiliating truth about myself. The moral inventory of the fourth step requires courage and a willingness to let go of the victim’s card.
The essence of all growth is a willingness to change for the better and then an unremitting willingness to shoulder whatever responsibility this entails. (As Bill Sees It, page 115)
Sometimes when I’ve become willing to do what I should have been doing all along, I want praise and recognition. I don’t realize that the more I’m willing to act differently, the more exciting my life is. The more I am willing to help others, the more rewards I receive. That’s what practicing the principles means to me. Fun and benefits for me are in the willingness to do the actions, not to get immediate results. Being a little kinder, a little slower to anger, a little more loving makes my life better day by day.
END OF QUOTE
————————————————-
Should I measure my growth by what I view as reward? My immaturity craves social approval in all its forms, like a baby crying for attention. I let that go, and seek change. When the path is opened plainly before me, I do what I have to do to secure that change. I take on the hard work of possessing the vision given to me of my higher self.
My maturing character finds reward in the natural excitement of actually living my life. I seek the rewards that come from patiently sowing seeds of life in others, so that I can be surrounded by living souls.
Daily Reprieve 
You must be logged in to post a comment.