Daily Reprieve

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

“At one time . . . every A.A. group had many membership rules. Everybody was scared witless that something or somebody would capsize the boat. . . .The total list was a mile long. If all those rules had been in effect everywhere, nobody could have possibly joined A.A. at all, . . .”   (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, pages 139 – 140)

I’m grateful that the Third Tradition only requires of me a desire to stop drinking. I had been breaking promises for years. In the Fellowship I didn’t have to make promises, I didn’t have to concentrate. It only required my attending one meeting, in a foggy condition, to know I was home. I didn’t have to pledge undying love. Here, strangers hugged me. “It gets better,” they said, and “One day at a time, you can do it.” They were no longer strangers, but caring friends. I ask God to help me to reach out to people desiring sobriety, and to, please, keep me grateful!

END OF QUOTE

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I think AA does not need rules and requirements because Alcohol indirectly continues to provide them for us.  If I want alcohol out of my life, I must have spirituality in it.  I think absolute free will is an intoxicating illusion.  If I desire to live, I must eat, drink, and breath.  I cannot choose to live without food, water, or air.  We live in a Universe of hidden requirements.  That is especially true for the alcoholic.

The real tyrant for self-aware beings such as the human species is death.  Mortality is the God of carbon-based existence, and alcohol is one of its many evangelists.   AA cannot override death but it can prevent us from ending life in a humiliating alcoholic tragedy.

I am grateful for the inclusive nature of this fellowship.  My gratitude was first for the separation from alcohol.  As I continue forward, I am grateful for the prospect of immortality through a spiritual awakening.  The ideal of free will becomes a possibility where death has been vanquished.

Until then, I have learned that a desire to stop drinking is more powerful than a promise to do so.  So it appears to me that desire is the closest thing to immortal free will that I can achieve in this flesh at this time.  If I were a dog, the choices would be life on a chain of isolated self will or life on a leash, which is being bound to a force greater than myself.  The only requirement is a desire to be as free as Gomu (God of my understanding) can make me.

From Yesterday’s Daily Reflections;

We are sure that humility, expressed by anonymity, is the greatest safeguard that Alcoholics Anonymous can ever have.   (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 187)

Since there are no rules in A.A. I place myself where I want to be, and so I choose anonymity. I want my God to use me, humbly, as one of His tools in this program. Sacrifice is the art of giving of myself freely, allowing humility to replace my ego. With sobriety, I suppress that urge to cry out to the world, “I am a member of A.A.” and I experience inner joy and peace. I let people see the changes in me and hope they will ask what happened to me. I place the principles of spirituality ahead of judging, fault-finding, and criticism. I want love and caring in my group, so I can grow.

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I remember when someone in a meeting observed that anonymity was an expression of humility.  I had never made the connection.  For me, it was a protection from the social stigmas that went along with admitting alcoholism.  I felt like it was something akin to the occult secrecy of witchcraft or the Masons.  I understand now that we need to be a Fellowship that carries a message and lives by certain principals.  This reality must supersede the rise of individual personalities with their tendency toward self-promotion.  Our own isolated egos are the seed of our individual and collective destruction.  Anything that will lead us to cut-off from the group is a threat, especially the spotlight of miracle-working messiahs.  The power is in the We and not the I.