Daily Reprieve

From Daily Reflections 19 September;

We admitted we couldn’t lick alcohol with our own remaining resources, and so we accepted the further fact that dependence upon a Higher Power (if only our A.A. group) could do this hitherto impossible job. The moment we were able to accept these facts fully, our release from the alcohol compulsion had begun.   (As Bill Sees It, page 109)

Freedom came to me only with my acceptance that I could turn my will and my life over to the care of my Higher Power, whom I call God. Serenity seeped into the chaos of my life when I accepted that what I was going through was life, and that God would help me through my difficulties – and much more, as well. Since then He has helped me through all of my difficulties! When I accept situations as they are, not as I wish them to be, then I can begin to grow and have serenity and peace of mind.

END OF QUOTE

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I responded to the chaos storms of my life by installing an internal panic button in my psyche.  Any indication, any overhead shadow, could cause me to sound the internal alarm.  The other boot of an angry, cruel God of the human cockroach was about to drop.  If good things happened, I knew I should not let down my guard, for life was just softening me up so that the inevitable tragedies would have greater impact.  If things were going badly it was probably going to get worse, until the ruling Death-god got bored with me.  Until I realized that this cruel Deity was my own reflection empowered by self-loathing, I could not find Gomu (God of my Understanding), the loving God I could trust enough to remove the panic button and accept life on life’s terms.

PICTURE SOURCE:  Abby Kroke Photography – “Monster in the Mirror”

From Daily Reflections 18 September;

Our whole treasured philosophy of self-sufficiency had to be cast aside. This had not been done with old-fashioned willpower; it was instead a matter of developing the willingness to accept these new facts of living. We neither ran nor fought. But accept we did. And then we were free.   (Best of the Grapevine, Vol. I, page 198)

I can be free of my old enslaving self. After a while I recognize, and believe in, the good within myself. I see that I have been loved back to recovery by my Higher Power, who envelops me. My Higher Power becomes that source of love and strength that is performing a continuing miracle in me. I am sober . . . and I am grateful.

END OF QUOTE

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When I hear that a person learned to give up “self-sufficiency,”  I imagine a human being that has had his bones liquefied and extracted, while the resulting jelly fish man is held on life-support in a spiritual hospital of some sort.  Flopping about in his state of permanent repose he spouts off about acceptance.  This vision was not helpful for my own recovery.

So I studied and realized the Big Book is pointing out the damning effects of isolated selfishness and not counseling us to be rid of the self-preservation  that helped us walk in the rooms of recovery.  The treasured philosophy that I am cursed with is isolated self-sufficiency.  This is the old enslaver of my soul, cutting me off from my life giving Source.

Over time, my self-preservation would be nursed into self-appreciation when I see that there is good in me.  One day at a time, self-appreciation manifested in the freedom of self-love.  This transformation comes from being able to connect to others that have mine and their own best interest at heart, and by connecting with the Infinite One, the God of my Understanding (Gomu).   In nature, the Lone Wolf is a miserable and desperate creature.

“For the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack.”  ~ The Law for the Wolves by Rudyard Kipling.