Daily Reprieve

From the Daily Reflections of January 30;

We are going to know a new freedom. . . .  (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 83).

Freedom for me is both freedom from and freedom to. The first freedom I enjoy is freedom from the slavery of alcohol. What a relief! Then I begin to experience freedom from fear — fear of people, of economic insecurity, of commitment, of failure, of rejection. Then I begin to enjoy freedom to — freedom to choose sobriety for today, freedom to be myself, freedom to express my opinion, to experience peace of mind, to love and be loved, and freedom to grow spiritually. But how can I achieve these freedoms? The Big Book clearly says that before I am halfway through making amends, I will begin to know a “new” freedom; not the old freedom of doing what I pleased, without regard to others, but the new freedom that allows fulfillment of the promises in my life. What a joy to be free!

END OF QUOTE

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Most freedom is not given, it is taken. If it is a gift to you, then someone else’s blood was spilled to secure it. Freedom is not a natural state of existence. The living creatures around us are slaves to the need to feed, reproduce, and seek security. “Freedom from” is something only the top of the food chain becomes aware of and it is taken violently. The positive variate of liberty, “freedom to,” is a highly advanced experience that allows one to go beyond survival and contribute one’s self-actualization to the treasury of our collective consciousness. But it must be built on the negative variate of overcoming that which would consume us.

In AA we who have lived as prey to our Alcoholism have established a mutually beneficial connection with the God of our Understanding (GOMU). In this, God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. My Higher Power’s loving violence in my behalf secures the opportunity for me to experience the most advanced form of liberty. I pray that I make good use of it.

This entry was posted on June 8, 2015 at 9:08 am and is filed under Uncategorized with tags Addiction, Alcoholism, Daily Reflections, 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.