Daily Reprieve

From the Daily Reflections of September 30;

The circle stands for the whole world of A.A., and the triangle stands for A.A.’s Three Legacies of Recovery, Unity, and Service. Within our wonderful new world, we have found freedom from our fatal obsession.   (A.A. Comes of Age, page 139)

Early in my A.A. life, I became employed in its services and I found the explanation of our society’s logo to be very appropriate. First, a circle of love and service with a well-balanced triangle inside, the base of which represents our Recovery through the Twelve Steps. Then the other two sides, representing Unity and Service, respectively. The three sides of the triangle are equal. As I grew in A.A. I soon identified myself with this symbol. I am the circle, and the sides of the triangle represent three aspects of my personality: physical, emotional sanity, and spirituality, the latter forming the symbol’s base. Taken together, all three aspects of my personality translate into a sober and happy life.

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I can take the basic circle and triangle and leave it simple or make it very complex.  I am tired and a little numb this evening, but I am grateful for each day of sobriety, each 24 hours that I can hold in my hand.

From the Daily Reflections of September 29;

Frequent contact with newcomers and with each other is the bright spot of our lives.   (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 89)

A man came to the meeting drunk, interrupted the speakers, stood up and took his shirt off, staggered loudly back and forth for coffee, demanded to talk, and eventually called the group’s secretary an unquotable name and walked out. I was glad he was there – once again I saw what I had been like. But I also saw what I still am, and what I still could be. I don’t have to be drunk to want to be the exception and the center of attention. I have often felt abused and responded abusively when I was simply being treated as a garden variety human being. The more the man tried to insist he was different, the more I realized that he and I were exactly alike.

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A birthday of lamentations.  A friend withdrawn in personal pain.  I hijack that pain and make it about me.  I make a public display, aided by facebook.  Exactly alike, indeed.  Seeking solution that lasts.

From the Daily Reflections of September 28;

Practical experience shows that nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics.  (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 89)

Sponsorship held two surprises for me. First, that my sponsees cared about me. What I had thought was gratitude was more like love. They wanted me to be happy, to grow and remain sober. Knowing how they felt kept me from drinking more than once. Second, I discovered that I was able to love someone else responsibly, with respectful and genuine concern for that person’s growth. Before that time, I had thought that my ability to care sincerely about another’s well-being had atrophied from lack of use. To learn that I can love, without greed or anxiety, has been one of the deepest gifts the program has given me. Gratitude for that gift has kept me sober many times.

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I am surprised at how much I want to know this reality.  I want to be able to do and feel all of this.  I remember in a galaxy far, far away a group I admired while in the military.  They were called the Navigators, founded by Dawson Trotman.  He died lifting up another.  Why does that appeal to me?  It just seems like a good death.  It even seems like it might be a good life.  I liked the Navigators pragmatic approach to spirituality and see that duplicated in the 12 step recovery program.  Is it a real possibility?  It makes a good story.

From the Daily Reflections of September 27;

When brimming with gratitude, one’s heartbeat must surely result in outgoing love, . . .  (As Bill Sees It, page 37)

While practicing service to others, if my successes give rise to grandiosity, I must reflect on what brought me to this point. What has been given joyfully, with love, must be passed on without reservation and without expectation. For as I grow, I find that no matter how much I give with love, I receive much more in spirit.

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After a world of hurt I experienced in 2003 that had nothing to do with active alcoholism, I made a profound commitment not to love or be directed by the need for love again.  By 2005 I had utterly failed to protect myself from it.  I was all on board with the Nazareth assertion that Love hurts.  Over time I have gained a perspective change gained through AA and my intimate others that refused to surrender me to my social suicide.  Love is about connection and empowerment.  It grows in effectiveness as it is shared.  I desire the potentially infinite empowerment of being able to share without reservation.

From Daily Reflections of September 26;

The alcoholic may find it hard to re-establish friendly relations with his children. . . . In time they will see that he is a new man and in their own way they will let him know it. . . . From that point on, progress will be rapid.  Marvelous results often follow such a reunion.   (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 134)

While on the road to recovery I received a gift that could not be purchased. It was a card from my son in college, saying, “Dad, you can’t imagine how glad I am that everything is okay. Happy Birthday, I love you.” My son had told me that he loved me before. It had been during the previous Christmas holidays, when he had said to me, while crying, “Dad, I love you! Can’t you see what you’re doing to yourself?” I couldn’t. Choked with emotion, I had cried, but this time, when I received my son’s card, my tears were tears of joy, not desperation.

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This has become a painful area for me.  I lost a stepson to this disease, and my other son is not communicating with me because of my disease.  He is in his own world of pain.  I am responsible for some of it.  This is out of my hands, and there is nothing I would like more to be under my control because the relationship is so very significant.  My isolated self ego sees injustice and does not want to succeed on someone else’s terms, not even someone I love.  My righteous indignation is a call for emotional suicide.

I will not get or stay sober because anyone I love wants me to.  So, what will I do then?  What will those like me do?  I am so tired of hospital visits and brushes with the law for chemically induced stupidity.  I am tired of my ambitions leaving me spiritually bankrupt.

There is a solution.  I believe that.  I will keep coming back.  If I fall seven times, I will get up eight.  I have experienced recovery in bits and pieces.  And maybe I can have a good story of restored relationships, as is recorded here.  My first restored relationship must be with my God.

——– Upadte (September 2021) ———-

I now have what I consider to be open and genuine relationships with both my son and daughter. Both have affirmed my positive contributions to their lives. I am beyond grateful.

From Daily Reflections of September 25;

Some of us have taken very hard knocks to learn this truth: Job or no job – wife or no wife – we simply do not stop drinking so long as we place dependence upon other people ahead of dependence on God.   (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 98)

Before coming to A.A., I always had excuses for taking a drink: “She said . . . ,” “He said . . . ,” “I got fired yesterday,” “I got a great job today.” No area of my life could be good if I drank again. In sobriety my life gets better each day. I must always remember not to drink, to trust God, and to stay active in A.A. Am I putting anything before my sobriety, God, and A.A. today?

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I woke up this morning with a worried mind that was intent on rehearsing possible strategies and outcomes.  I knew this did not qualify as serenity.  I remembered that God is in charge of the results.  I have been created to take on tasks.  I turned toward meditation with a simple question; what are the tasks that are assigned to me for this day?  My head became clear and I began the ongoing process of releasing and trusting the results to my GOMU (God of my understanding).

In the past, my mind would have been fully involved in the worries I had chosen to entertain for the day.  This would lead me to seek comfort in relationships and escapes and obsessions and distractions and . . .in the end, I would not have been very effective at living.  When I chose this way of living, the lamentations and excuses flow.  I am glad I know I have choice today.

From Daily Reflections of September 24;

We have seen the truth demonstrated again and again: “Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.” Commencing to drink after a period of sobriety, we are in a short time as bad as ever.  If we are planning to stop drinking, there must be no reservation of any kind, nor any lurking notion that someday we will be immune to alcohol.   (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 33)

Today I am an alcoholic. Tomorrow will be no different. My alcoholism lives within me now and forever. I must never forget what I am. Alcohol will surely kill me if I fail to recognize and acknowledge my disease on a daily basis. I am not playing a game in which a loss is a temporary setback. I am dealing with my disease, for which there is no cure, only daily acceptance and vigilance.

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Drinking alcohol as a desirable way of life will always haunt me.  There are a thousand different ways I can find to justify  it and overcome all sane objections.  To drink again is inevitable unless something happens.  What is that something?  Why do some of us get it, and others, such as myself, fall prey to that familiar seduction over and over again?  I want to support the twelve steps and the recovery network, for through these I have walked through many meadows of sobriety.  My life is improved.  According to most optimistic life expectancy stats, I have maybe a little more than thirty years to live.  My vigilance is a temporary tour of duty.  I have certain highs and lows I will have to endure during that time.  I can ill afford extreme reactions.  I must keep true to acceptance and serenity based on trust and connection.  I am returning to my post.  Thirty more years one day at a time.

From Daily Reflections of September 23;

He [Bill W.] said to me, gently and simply, “Do you think that you are one of us?”   (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 413, Third Edition)

During my drinking life I was convinced I was an exception. I thought I was beyond petty requirements and had the right to be excused. I never realized that the dark counterbalance of my attitude was the constant feeling that I did not “belong.” At first, in A.A., I identified with others only as an alcoholic. What a wonderful awakening for me it has been to realize that, if human beings were doing the best they could, then so was I! All of the pains, confusions and joys they feel are not exceptional, but part of my life, just as much as anybody’s.

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I have never had this awakening.  I do see it though.  I really want to belong and be part of the group.  I am so very odd.  I love it when I connect.  This fellowship has given me that opportunity like none other.

From Daily Reflections of September 22;

Like a gaunt prospector, belt drawn in over the last ounce of food, our pick struck gold.  Joy at our release from a lifetime of frustration knew no bounds.  Father feels he has struck something better than gold.  For a time he may try to hug the new treasure to himself.  He may not see at once that he has barely scratched a limitless lode which will pay dividends only if he mines it for the rest of his life and insists on giving away the entire product.   (Alcoholics Anonymous, pages 128-129)

When I talk with a newcomer to A.A., my past looks me straight in the face. I see the pain in those hopeful eyes, I extend my hand, and then the miracle happens: I become healed. My problems vanish as I reach out to this trembling soul.

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I do not relate to the prospector story.  I am grateful for my sobriety, but my lifetime of frustration was the result of high levels of social anxiety, of religious promises unfulfilled, of self loathing for not achieving, of hurt for giving and loving and losing so much.  These are things I experienced in abstinence of alcohol.  In fact, I was grateful to finally have a problem that had a name and a viable solution and a group that I could suffer with.  The alcoholic tendency made periodic visits in my earlier life, but it left its pamphlets like Jehovah Witnesses and did not stay.  Most of my spiritual life has been that of a sad monk, with brief respite through the smiling faces of my children.  I fear that my complexities and my inconsistencies would not be helpful to newcomers.

I do not feel very good inside.   I have tried to wait to write when I get to the other side of this yuck.  Yet I fear too long away and I might not return.  Forgive me.  This too shall pass.

From the Daily Reflections of September 21;

We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.   (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 84)

The last Promise in the Big Book came true for me on the very first day of sobriety. God kept me sober that day, and on every other day I allowed Him to operate in my life. He gives me the strength, courage and guidance to meet my responsibilities in life so that I am then able to reach out and help others stay sober and grow. He manifests within me, making me a channel of His word, thought and deed. He works with my inner self, while I produce in the outer world, for He will not do for me what I can do for myself. I must be willing to do His work, so that He can function through me successfully.

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Where do I end?  Where does God begin?  If I exterminate my life, the Infinite Lover of the Universe cannot work through me.  If I become a lifeless zombie, disengaging intellect and passion, I am still rather useless to GOMU (God of my understanding).  I believe my Higher Power is in charge of the RESULTS of my life.  I believe the Goddess Lover of My Soul makes me a Demigod, a God Embryo, a Child of God, and that I am responsible for TASKS based on the daily visions and communications I receive through prayer and meditation, and the guidance I get through my support network – other humans I see that have my best interest at heart.  God moves mountains by amplifying the shovel I bring to the process.  And it must be a mountain that God wanted moved.  I have discovered that usually, God’s will and my ultimate desires do not conflict.  It is only the will I produce in fearful isolation that challenges Gomu’s (God of my understanding) leadership in my life.

IMAGE SOURCE:  Steven Puetzer Photography