Endigar 420 ~ FREEDOM TO BE ME
From Today’s Daily Reflections;
If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 83)
My first true freedom is the freedom not to have to take a drink today. If I truly want it, I will work the Twelve Steps and the happiness of this freedom will come to me through the Steps – sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. Other freedoms will follow, and inventorying them is a new happiness. I had a new freedom today, the freedom to be me. I have the freedom to be the best me I have ever been.
END OF QUOTE
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Freedom is not all that it is cracked up to be. Most views I hear on freedom are rather childish and filled with isolated selfishness. Does anyone have an adult view of freedom anymore? Children view freedom as “getting to do whatever they what to do.” That is why it must be an event and not a lifestyle for them.
Negative Freedom is to be free FROM something that is threatening to us on some level. Parents, governments, military, law enforcement, and first-responders all provide us with negative freedom. It requires a power greater than ourselves to obtain and keep it. Gomu (God of our understanding) provides us with negative freedom in recovery. Freedom from alcoholic tyranny.
Positive Freedom is freedom TO do or be something.
Positive Freedom is what we as individuals give back to the group. It is the development and empowerment of the individual to improve and grow. Powerlessness was our problem. No amount of negative freedom will be enough if we fail to pursue the positive expression of freedom in gaining individual power. The freedom to…
The freedom to care about someone other than ourselves.
The freedom to grow and give away what we gain. If we keep it to ourselves, it will die before we do.
The freedom to transform into a higher and more powerful version of ourselves to demonstrate the effectiveness of connecting to the Higher Power.
My negative freedom is abstinence from alcohol. My positive freedom is complete sobriety. The negative freedom proceeds the positive and the positive freedom feeds the negative.
It seems to me that in a free world, power and responsibility should be embraced as individual pursuits, and happiness and pleasure are group achievements.
I am grateful for the negative freedom I have surrounding me. I hope to make those in my intimate sphere grateful for my expression of positive freedom.
Let us be happily enslaved to our new found freedom.
Daily Reprieve 
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