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.

This entry was posted on August 30, 2014 at 3:33 pm and is filed under Uncategorized with tags Addiction, Alcoholism, Journal, Life, Personal, Recovery, Spirituality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.