Daily Reprieve

Step Two: “Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”

2nd Step Principle: My need for the ability to tell the true from the false with a whole and sane mind is the beginning of my connection with an untapped Power greater than myself. (Principles after the First Step are constructed from personal reflection and acceptance. Use my version or formulate your own.)

AA Extracted Value: Hope

ACA Extracted Values: Open-mindedness & Clarity

Other Extracted Values: Awareness

One way to understand the meaning of hope is to know what is not hope. Hope is not wishful thinking. Hope is the targeting of a solution to motivate follow-up action. Wishful thinking is that same targeting with an apathetic response. Without the follow-up action, hope will degrade into wishful thinking. The ineffectiveness of wishful thinking will actually produce the opposite of hope, which is despair. Despair will target the persistence of the problem while losing faith in a solution.

Hope is a lot like target practice for firearms or archery. The weapon is pointed at the target, the individual learns to relax and breath, then the specific point on the target is sighted. This sighting is similar to the skill of building hope. Then the trigger is pulled or the tension in the bow arm is released, and the striking of the target is analyzed to appraise one’s ability to focus the necessary actions. How effective is my aim? How effective is my hope? Am I being restored to sanity? Hope is an active skill and not a passive surrender.

This entry was posted on July 22, 2024 at 6:57 am and is filed under Uncategorized with tags Addiction, alcohol, alcohol-addiction, Alcoholism, health, Journal, Life, Personal, Recovery, sober, sobriety. 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.