Daily Reprieve

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

For the readiness to take the full consequences of our past acts, and to take responsibility for the well-being of others at the same time, is the very spirit of Step Nine.   (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 87)

In recovery, and through the help of Alcoholics Anonymous, I learn that the very thing I fear is my freedom. It comes from my tendency to recoil from taking responsibility for anything: I deny, I ignore, I blame, I avoid. Then one day, I look, I admit, I accept. The freedom, the healing and the recovery I experience is in the looking, admitting and accepting. I learn to say, “Yes, I am responsible.” When I can speak those words with honesty and sincerity, then I am free.

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More is expected from the healthy man than from the hospital patient.  The better my health, the greater others come to depend on me.  After I know how to get well I am not protecting by the mantel of ignorance.  I am responsible for my life and its impact on others.

From Daily Reflections of 11 September;

Above all, we should try to be absolutely sure that we are not delaying because we are afraid.   (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 87)

To have courage, to be unafraid, are gifts of my recovery. They empower me to ask for help and to go forth in making my amends with a sense of dignity and humility. Making amends may require a certain amount of honesty that I feel I lack, yet with the help of God and the wisdom of others, I can reach within and find the strength to act. My amends may be accepted, or they may not, but after they are completed I can walk with a sense of freedom and know that, for today, I am responsible.

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Each circle I complete in life adds to the strength of my life’s expression.  I have retired after 23 years of military service.  That circle is closed.  I am completing academic studies for a niche in the civilian world, and thus I am closing the circle on my formal education.  Recovery spotlights several circles that have remained open in my life and bleed me of resolve and self-confidence.  The moral inventory and the subsequent amends are ways of closing spiritual circles that will represent a new found power in my life.

From Daily Reflections of 10 September;

They [the Promises] will always materialize if we work for them.   (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 84)

Sometimes I think: “Making these amends is going too far! No one should have to humble himself like that!” However, it is this very humbling of myself that brings me that much closer to the sunlight of the spirit. A.A. is the only hope I have if I am to continue healing and gain a life of happiness, friendship and harmony.

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The goal expressed is happiness, friendship, and harmony in ever increasing exposure to the Sunlight of the Spirit.  The requirement is that I work for it, and endure the humility with cleaning up my side of the street.  It is a steady and persistent forward momentum with this goal in mind that leads me to take possession of each day’s reprieve.  Be prospered in your journey.

From  Daily Reflections for September 9th;

They [the Promises] are being fulfilled among us — sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly.   (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 84)

The Promises talked about in this passage are slowly coming to life for me. What has given me hope is putting Step Nine into action. The Step has allowed me to see and set goals for myself in recovery.

Old habits and behaviors die hard. Working Step Nine enables me to close the door on the drunk I was, and to open new avenues for myself as a sober alcoholic. Making direct amends is crucial for me. As I repair relationships and behavior of the past, I am better able to live a sober life!

Although I have some years of sobriety, there are times when the “old stuff’ from the past needs to be taken care of, and Step Nine always works, when I work it.

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I hate those promises the actors spout off in movies; “Everything is going to be all right, I promise.”  “I will not let anything happen to you, I promise.”  “Things will get better, I promise.”  It has been my experience that these are empty words when it comes to dealing with life on life’s terms.  It only makes sense when you are in a well choreographed performance.  Interactive life feels a lot more impromptu.  Miracles are irrelevant until they have happened.   I think that it is more important to have Intent Expressed than Promises Awaited.  Thus, my intent is to be painstaking about this phase of my development until I am amazed.  My intent is to know a new freedom and a new happiness.  My intent is to be free of regret so that my past can become something I am connected to in strength.  My intent is to comprehend and experience serenity.  My intent is to become useful to others, leaving behind the feeling of uselessness and self-pity.  I will lose interest in adorning a world of isolated selfishness and intend to connect to others in a way that is empowering to them.  I intend to stop self-seeking in fear that I will not be cared for.  I intend to have a completely different and more powerful outlook on life without fear of economic insecurity.  I intend to stay devoted to the habitual listening to the intuitive guidance of Gomu (God of my understanding), no longer dominated by situations that used to require me to ruminate and worry throughout the day.  It is my intention to recognized that God is doing for me what I cannot do for myself.  These are my intentions, and require my involvement.  They are not empty promises that come to me in passivity.  They paint a picture of the kind of life I am to expect as a result of my progressive spiritual awakening.