Daily Reprieve

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

First, we take a look backward and try to discover where we have been at fault; next we make a vigorous attempt to repair the damage we have done; . . .  (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 77)

As a traveler on a fresh and exciting A.A. journey of recovery, I experienced a newfound peace of mind and the horizon appeared clear and bright, rather than obscure and dim. Reviewing my life to discover where I had been at fault seemed to be such an arduous and dangerous task. It was painful to pause and look backward. I was afraid I might stumble! Couldn’t I put the past out of my mind and just live in my new golden present? I realized that those in the past whom I had harmed stood between me and my desire to continue my movement toward serenity. I had to ask for courage to face those persons from my life who still lived in my conscience, to recognize and deal with the guilt that their presence produced in me. I had to look at the damage I had done, and become willing to make amends. Only then could my journey of the spirit resume.

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I did not want to leave my children a tragic inheritance, yet  I had entered the hell where God was either psychotic or a fairy tale.  Others were nothing more than slobbering, nasty beasts and it was easier than I hoped for me to fit in with the snarling masses.  Every good thing in my life was an eventual opportunity to experience profound loss.

Did I make it here because I was courageous or loved others too much.  No.  I was at the brink of suicide.  I was abandoned to my fate.  I felt like my church fellowship at the time was sending a hopeful whisper to jump as I stood on the ledge of my heartbeat, so that I could become someone’s lesson in the consequences of violating  that dehumanizing morality meant to numb us into a religious intoxication.

In an act of selfish defiance, while filled with alcohol and a loaded intent to kill the one person I hated more than all others, a spirit rose up inside of me and pushed the barrel away from my precious forehead and screamed, “Oh hell no!   Not now that I have been validated.  I will not willingly surrender this life to the lesser ones.”

My darkness embraced me and lead me kicking and screaming to the rooms of AA.  The Rage of primal self-preservation started me on this “fresh and exciting” journey.  I experienced a newfound resolution of will that has passed for serenity and the horizon of this reality appeared “clear and bright,”  as apposed to the “obscure and dim” world of the fear matrix.  Recently recanting suicidal thoughts and tendencies, looking at the reality of where I had been at fault did indeed seem to be an “arduous and dangerous task,” but it was the price to be paid to stay on planet Earth and attempt a new life.

So I have learned the power of being able to make things right on my side of the street, and in so doing, find a place to stand when the world goes crazy.  “We should be sensible, tactful, considerate and humble without being servile or scraping. As God’s people we stand on our feet; we don’t crawl before anyone.” (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 83).

Looking back, Gomu (God of my understanding) and AA lead me to a spiritual awakening from the fear matrix.  The truth will eventually make you free.

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

The moral inventory is a cool examination of the damages that occurred to us during life and a sincere effort to look at them in a true perspective. This has the effect of taking the ground glass out of us, the emotional substance that still cuts and inhibits.  (As Bill Sees It, page 140)

My Eighth Step list used to drag me into a whirlpool of resentment. After four years of sobriety, I was blocked by denial connected with an ongoing abusive relationship. The argument between fear and pride eased as the words of the Step moved from my head to my heart. For the first time in years I opened my box of paints and poured out an honest rage, an explosion of reds and blacks and yellows. As I looked at the drawing, tears of joy and relief flowed down my cheeks. In my disease, I had given up my art, a self-inflicted punishment far greater than any imposed from outside. In my recovery, I learned that the pain of my defects is the very substance God uses to cleanse my character and to set me free.

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I am at a loss right now, because of the shock of Robin William’s death.  I am glad that the contributor was able to recover his art.  I am sure there is so much power there.

Please forgive me, but I think my words would be rather radioactive right now.  Grief is filled with its own dish of ground glass.

I am drawn back to yesterday’s question; What does it take to qualify as a “person of worth?”

How can I secure that awareness of my own worth?  Oh Robin.  God, this really hurts.  Sorry.  Best I can do.

I an not ok with this.  I hate this disease.  I hate it.  God, I hate it.

Williams’ wife, Susan Schneider, issued the following statement: “This morning, I lost my husband and my best friend, while the world lost one of its most beloved artists and beautiful human beings. I am utterly heartbroken. On behalf of Robin’s family, we are asking for privacy during our time of profound grief. As he is remembered, it is our hope the focus will not be on Robin’s death, but on the countless moments of joy and laughter he gave to millions.”

I am going to try, Susan.  It is important that a tragic end does not redefine the life lived in its entirety.  I had to do this with the loss of my stepson.

My prayers and heart go out to his family, and my gratitude for the life he gave to us.  I will miss you Robin.

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

To a degree, he has already done this when taking moral inventory, but now the time has come when he ought to redouble his efforts to see how many people he has hurt, and in what ways,  (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 77)

As I continue to grow in sobriety, I become more aware of myself as a person of worth. In the process, I am better able to see others as persons, and with this comes the realization that these were people whom I had hurt in my drinking days. I didn’t just lie, I lied about Tom. I didn’t just cheat, I cheated Joe. What were seemingly impersonal acts, were really personal affronts, because it was people—people of worth—whom I had harmed. I need to do something about the people I have hurt so that I may enjoy a peaceful sobriety.

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What does it take to qualify as a “person of worth?”

I am reading a few articles to try and understand what that really means.  I resonate with the flow of the words, and the exaltation of the value of the individual, but I want to go in deep.  So I need to redouble my efforts to find a useful answer to this question.

http://advancedlifeskills.com/blog/what-determines-your-personal-value/

http://www.uri.edu/research/lrc/scholl/webnotes/Motivation_Affirming.htm

http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/Articles_Personal_Empowerment.html

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

. . . and became willing to make amends to them all.   (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 77)

One of the key words in the Eighth Step is the word all. I am not free to select a few names for the list and to disregard others. It is a list of all persons I have harmed. I can see immediately that this Step entails forgiveness because if I’m not willing to forgive someone, there is little chance I will place his name on the list. Before I placed the first name on my list, I said a little prayer: “I forgive anyone and everyone who has ever harmed me at any time and under any circumstances.”

It is well for me to contemplate a small, but very significant, two-letter word every time the Lord’s Prayer is said. The word is as. I ask, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” In this case, as means, “in the same manner.” I am asking to be forgiven in the same manner that I forgive others. As I say this portion of the prayer, if I am harboring hatred or resentment, I am inviting more resentment, when I should be calling on the spirit of forgiveness.

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I think you can accomplish this step without ever entangling it with questions of forgiveness.  In fact, forgiveness requires that I account for that which was done to me and that is not the focus of this program.  I am to look at what I have done and how I can make that right.  Why?  So I can stay sober and live freely.  I have no control over their welfare and I accept the things I cannot change.  I am concerned with cleaning up my side of the street even though their side of the street may be littered with feces and rotting corpses.  This is a very pragmatic morality I embrace in Alcoholics Anonymous.  The reason I put ALL persons I have harmed on my list is not because I have forgiven everyone, but because I must deliver the kill shot to all the wondering zombies of my personal guilt that might come at me with a first drink I cannot refuse.

Then the Spirit of Forgiveness will do Her own work, healing my mind and heart.  She will defend my new life and vindicate my courage.  I will be able to approach all men on equal footing with no further need to let my isolated selfishness create more collateral damage.  I do not believe that it is possible for me to forgive in isolation, for that leads to morbid self-reflection and self-loathing.  I can be open to the Spirit of Forgiveness which is a connection to the feminine aspect of Gomu (God of my understanding) and allow the work of Her transformation to take hold.  I just have to be willing to kill the zombies first.

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

Made a list of all persons we had harmed, . . . (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 77)

When I approached the Eighth Step, I wondered how I could list all the things that I have done to other people since there were so many people, and some of them weren’t alive anymore. Some of the hurts I inflicted weren’t bad, but they really bothered me. The main thing to see in this Step was to become willing to do whatever I had to do to make these amends to the best of my ability at that particular time. Where there is a will, there’s a way, so if I want to feel better, I need to unload the guilt feelings I have. A peaceful mind has no room for feelings of guilt. With the help of my Higher Power, if I am honest with myself, I can cleanse my mind of these feelings.

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For me, the amends process has been a change in the way I interact with others.  The list of people I had harmed reveals my particular brand of insanity acted out on the world stage.  I asserted my will based on certain self-delusions.  I lived as though anything that could be interpreted as a personal assault was the overriding reality of all life on Earth.  In some way, the struggling mortals surrounding me must compensate me.  I sought to extract payment and was rewarded with greater pain and validation of the world as something I needed to protect myself from.

When I faced the reality about myself in the moral inventory and I could see where I had wronged others, I took advantage of the plan of action provided in the 8th and 9th steps to build a new life based on this personal truth.    There was to be no more cringing in the shadows of my personal horror movie.  From now on, my interactions were going to be motivated by trust and respect for Gomu (God of my understanding) and others.

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

We in our turn, sought the same escape with all the desperation of drowning men. What seemed at first a flimsy reed, has proved to be the loving and powerful hand of God.  A new life has been given us or, if you prefer, “a design for living” that really works.   (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 28)

I try each day to raise my heart and hands in thanks to God for showing me a “design for living” that really works through our beautiful Fellowship. But what, exactly, is this “design for living” that “really works”? For me, it is the practice of the Twelve Steps to the best of my ability, the continued awareness of a God who loves me unconditionally, and the hope that, in each new day, there is a purpose for my being. I am truly, truly blessed in the Fellowship.

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I have struggled with today’s daily reflections.  I feel too critical of the contributor.  What is it that disturbs me so?  I walked away and attended a meeting.  I have been working to adjust my perspective so that I could harvest the spirit hidden from me in this recovery meditation.

Process?  Desperation led to willingness to grasp what appeared to be flimsy reed, and the persistent messy clinging of alcoholics responding as drowning men gain experiential evidence of the loving and powerful presence of God.  Why would I prefer the phrase “a design for living” rather than just saying I have been given a new life?  If a functioning design for living is synonymous with a new life, what does it matter?  Neither phrase takes away from the assertion that Gomu (God of my understanding) has given it to me.  It is a process from desperation to faith.  Maybe it is because a design sounds more pragmatic and less like a fantasy of magic.

The contributor seems to be at the faith end of this spectrum and talks about daily rituals to express gratitude for a pragmatic spirituality (design for living that works) and sees beauty in the Fellowship.  When attempting to explain what this new life is that has been given by a powerful and loving God, it becomes an intertwining of personal experience (“for me”) and the shared system of the Twelve Steps.  Again there are declarations of the faith of one who is recovered from a “hopeless state of mind and body”  (Alcoholics Anonymous, page xiii) in reveling in the awareness of God and unconditional love, hope for a daily expression of personal purpose, and being blessed in union with the Fellowship.

Maybe what has been disturbing to me is that I am somewhere between drowning man desperation and the faith of the recovered when I look at my own relationship with this design for living.  I do trust the process.  I trust Gomu, for the most part.  It is me that I have second thoughts about.

“And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone-even alcohol. For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality—safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition.” (Alcoholics Anonymous, pages 84-85)

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

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.   (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 62)

My selfishness was the driving force behind my drinking. I drank to celebrate success and I drank to drown my sorrows. Humility is the answer. I learn to turn my will and my life over to the care of God. My sponsor tells me that service keeps me sober. Today I ask myself: Have I sought knowledge of God’s will for me? Have I done service for my A.A. group?

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Another important humility question to ask:  Am I connected and accountable to others who know me and are invested in my highest manifestation?

“Going it alone in spiritual matters is dangerous.  How many times have we heard well-intentioned people claim the guidance of God when it was all too plain that they were sorely mistaken.  Lacking both practice and humility, they had deluded themselves and were able to justify the most arrant nonsense on the ground that this was what God had told them.  It is worth noting that people of very high spiritual development almost always insist on checking with friends or spiritual advisers the guidance they feel they have received from God.  Surely, the novice ought not lay himself open to the chance of making foolish, perhaps tragic, blunders in this fashion.  While the comment or advice of others may be by no means infallible, it is likely to be far more specific than any direct guidance we may receive while we are still so inexperienced in establishing contact with a Power greater than ourselves.”  (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 60).

From Today’s Daily Reflections (August 5th);

How persistently we claim the right to decide all by ourselves just what we shall think and just how we shall act.   (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 37)

If I accept and act upon the advice of those who have made the program work for themselves, I have a chance to outgrow the limits of the past. Some problems will shrink to nothingness, while others may require patient, well-thought-out action. Listening deeply when others share can develop intuition in handling problems which arise unexpectedly. It is usually best for me to avoid impetuous action. Attending a meeting or calling a fellow A.A. member will usually reduce tension enough to bring relief to a desperate sufferer like me. Sharing problems at meetings with other alcoholics to whom I relate, or privately with my sponsor, can change aspects of the positions in which I find myself. Character defects are identified and I begin to see how they work against me. When I put my faith in the spiritual power of the program, when I trust others to teach me what I need to do to have a better life, I find that I can trust myself to do what is necessary.

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When I take a solitary stand against my alcoholism, I must take a stand against my own mind and body with my own mind and body.  It is a suicide mission.

In the recovery program, I found ways to connect with others and with my Higher Power.  Through the collective conscience of recovery, I find a victory I had never thought would be possible.

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

Faith, to be sure, is necessary, but faith alone can avail nothing. We can have faith, yet keep God out of our lives.   (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 34)

As a child I constantly questioned the existence of God. To a “scientific thinker” like me, no answer could withstand a thorough dissection, until a very patient woman finally said to me, “You must have faith.” With that simple statement, the seeds of my recovery were sown!

Today, as I practice my recovery – cutting back the weeds of alcoholism – slowly I am letting those early seeds of faith grow and bloom. Each day of recovery, of ardent gardening, brings the Higher Power of my understanding more fully into my life. My God has always been with me through faith, but it is my responsibility to have the willingness to accept His presence.

I ask God to grant me the willingness to do His will.

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In recovery I have been a lazy skeptic.  A scientific skeptic is proactively attempting to remove fallacious thinking from a theory to get as close to the truth as possible.  A lazy skeptic is one who has a habit of using intellect to shoot down areas of accountability.  A lazy skeptic is a professional critic of life.  Everyone is struggling to put together a mythology that works in their lives.  For me to have a mythology that worked in my life, I had to give up the role as professional critic and gather what bits I could find, and assert to myself what I believe is real, and my mythology had to include a Loving God. Something that I can hold onto.

This is why smart people have such a hard time in recovery. They have enough intellect to shoot down the working mythology of others. I do believe there is a loving God out there, yet the goal of this holographic universe is to develop a working mythology that allows us to overcome our lower self destructive versions and allows us to become a higher version of ourselves, one that can be helpful to others.

The way from lazy skeptic to scientific one is open-mindedness and work, I think.

[ My Definition of a Working Mythology ]