Daily Reprieve

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

Resentment is the “number one” offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else. From it stem all forms of spiritual disease, for we have been not only mentally and physically ill, we have been spiritually sick. (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 64)

As I look at myself practicing the Fourth Step, it is easy to gloss over the wrong that I have done, because I can easily see it as a question of “getting even” for a wrong done to me. If I continue to relive my old hurt, it is a resentment and resentment bars the sunlight from my soul. If I continue to relive hurts and hates, I will hurt and hate myself. After years in the dark of resentments, I have found the sunlight. I must let go of resentments; I cannot afford them.

END OF QUOTE

——————————————

For me, resentments are expectations gone wrong.  My expectations are usually exaggerated by fear.  So I am back to that tap root of my disease.  Resentments let me know that the dark Spring has come to awaken the death weeds scattered within me.  In the fourth step I am given a spiritual hoe to work the soil of my heart.  The tenth step reminds me to be vigilant when resentment begin cropping up again.

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

Self-pity is one of the most unhappy and consuming defects that we know. It is a bar to all spiritual progress and can cut off all effective communication with our fellows because of its inordinate demands for attention and sympathy. It is a maudlin form of martyrdom, which we can ill afford.  (As Bill Sees It, page 238)

The false comfort of self-pity screens me from reality only momentarily and then demands, like a drug, that I take an ever bigger dose. If I succumb to this it could lead to a relapse into drinking. What can I do? One certain antidote is to turn my attention, however slightly at first, toward others who are genuinely less fortunate than I, preferably other alcoholics. In the same degree that I actively demonstrate my empathy with them, I will lessen my own exaggerated suffering.

END OF QUOTE

—————————————-

In order to forestall accountability in some real area of my life, I would embellish some sad saga in which I could present the strength of my endurance.  It was a form of protective pride.  I would say “Look at what is happening to me, and I am not sure how, but I have endured it.”  The benefit was its ability to distract from areas of defect in my life that I needed to address.  Without this belly-up manipulation, I would become vulnerable to some painful accountability.  All of this happens on such an instinctual level that I was unaware of the pattern of behavior until I set down with the moral inventory and discussed it with another person in recovery.  Now when this short-coming manifests, I start asking myself, what is the real story here.  It is a warning sign that needs to be heeded.

I must qualify this with the reality that some of us have dealt with co-dependent situations that causes us to feel guilty about everything.  That broken guilt-o-meter is something else that has to be addressed with the support network.  That is probably a better topic for Al-Anon.

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

 . . . where alcohol has been involved, we have been strangely insane.  (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 38)

Alcoholism required me to drink, whether I wanted to or not. Insanity dominated my life and was the essence of my disease. It robbed me of the freedom of choice over drinking and, therefore, robbed me of all other choices. When I drank, I was unable to make effective choices in any part of my life and life became unmanageable.

I ask God to help me understand and accept the full meaning of the disease of alcoholism.

END OF QUOTE

—————————————————

My active use of alcohol matches outwardly the storm that is going on inwardly.  For me, that was usually the result of steady doses of fear which exaggerated my instinctual responses.  The battle with this heightened level of anxiety is an ongoing process.  My primary treatment comes from making decisions to stay connected with my Higher Power and others who support my strongest expression of life.

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

To see how erratic emotions victimized us often took a long time. We could perceive them quickly in others,- but only slowly in ourselves. First of all, we had to admit that we had many of these defects, even though such disclosures were painful and humiliating-. Where other people were concerned, we had to drop the word “blame” from our speech and thought. (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 47)

When I did my Fourth Step, following the Big Book guidelines, I noticed that my grudge list was filled with my prejudices and my blaming others for my not being able to succeed and to live up to my potential. I also discovered I felt different because I was black. As I continued to work on the Step, I learned that I always had drunk to rid myself of those feelings. It was only when I sobered up and worked on my inventory, that I could no longer blame anyone.

END OF QUOTE

———————————————————-

My success and fulfillment are my responsibility.  My prejudices and erratic emotions create a victim’s attitude toward life.  I need to correct my speech and thought by being willing to face some painful and humiliating truth about myself.  The moral inventory of the fourth step requires courage and a willingness to let go of the victim’s card.

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

 The essence of all growth is a willingness to change for the better and then an unremitting willingness to shoulder whatever responsibility this entails.  (As Bill Sees It, page 115)

Sometimes when I’ve become willing to do what I should have been doing all along, I want praise and recognition. I don’t realize that the more I’m willing to act differently, the more exciting my life is. The more I am willing to help others, the more rewards I receive. That’s what practicing the principles means to me. Fun and benefits for me are in the willingness to do the actions, not to get immediate results. Being a little kinder, a little slower to anger, a little more loving makes my life better day by day.

END OF QUOTE

————————————————-

Should I measure my growth by what I view as reward?  My immaturity craves social approval in all its forms, like a baby crying for attention.   I let that go, and seek change.  When the path is opened plainly before me, I do what I have to do to secure that change.  I take on the hard work of  possessing the vision given to me of my higher self.

My maturing character finds reward in the natural excitement of actually living my life.  I seek the rewards that come from patiently sowing seeds of life in others, so that I can be surrounded by living souls.

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

. . . let us not suppose even for an instant that we are not under constraint. . . . Our former tyrant, King Alcohol, always stands ready again to clutch us to him. Therefore, freedom from alcohol is the great “must” that has to be achieved, else we go mad or die. (As Bill Sees It, page 134)

When drinking, I lived in spiritual, emotional, and sometimes, physical confinement. I had constructed my prison with bars of self-will and self-indulgence, from which I could not escape. Occasional dry spells that seemed to promise freedom would turn out to be little more than hopes of a reprieve. True escape required a willingness to follow whatever right actions were needed to turn the lock. With that willingness and action, both the lock and the bars themselves opened for me. Continued willingness and action keep me free – in a kind of extended daily probation – that need never end.

END OF QUOTE

——————————————————–

What is the source of King Alcohol’s power over me?  Isn’t it my own bondage to isolated self will?  I suspect that this entire physical dimension is run by the power of Will.  Whatever I point my will toward, regardless of my stated intentions, that part of my universe responds to me as I will it to be.  Willingness is not passive.  It is the open channel of the power this universe has placed within me.  My alcoholism becomes a king in my domain when I will it to be so.  For some reason, I have faith in chemical empowerment.

The first legacy of this program is recovery.  It is recovery from alcohol, but it is also recovery of the truest version of myself.  I have to develop a skill of recovery.  I joined others and relinquished my isolation.

“We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.” and “made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.”   Then we “admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.” Once we had mastered this skill, we “continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.”  This is the maintenance of our freedom from alcoholic addiction which is our negative freedom.

Skill One:  steps 1 – 4/5 – 10 (Skill to Self Manifestation Inventory) Legacy One: Recovery

Skill Two: steps  2 – 6/7 – 11 (Trustful Connection to Higher Power) Legacy Two: Unity – Trust

Skill Three: steps  3 – 8/9 – 12 (Mission of Species Transformation) Legacy Three: Service

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

We want to find exactly how, when, and where our natural desires have warped us. We wish to look squarely at the unhappiness this has caused others and ourselves. By discovering what our emotional deformities are, we can move toward their correction.  (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 43)

Today I am no longer a slave to alcohol, yet in so many ways enslavement still threatens – my self, my desires, even my dreams. Yet without dreams I cannot exist; without dreams there is nothing to keep me moving forward.

I must look inside myself, to free myself. I must call upon God’s power to face the person I’ve feared the most, the true me, the person God created me to be. Unless I can or until I do, I will always be running, and never be truly free. I ask God daily to show me such a freedom!

END OF QUOTE

————————————————————————-

There is a positive side to the moral inventory that is so very often overlooked.  There is a negative and positive aspect to freedom and both are needed.  “Freedom from” needs to be followed by “freedom to.”  Freedom from the tyranny of addiction needs to be followed by the freedom to dream, to become, to manifest my highest and most powerful form of Self.  If I never see what I am to become, then I become a professional judge promoting fear in what I was.  I become the crusty old timer whose nasty example of sobriety repulses me.  “I have been sober for over 20 years and I have protected the world from the horrible person I was, and am.”  The same could have been achieved by suicide, and often is.

I believe this is a missing aspect of sponsorship and it weakens recovery examples.  Showing the positive freedom of high-self manifestation is an important path from the purgatory of abstinence to the spiritual domain of sobriety.  Are we to become monks beating our backs with the whips of self-castigation?  No, I think not.  We are to take a business-like attitude and inventory what is harmful or of no benefit and take steps to remove that from the internal stock.  Then we get on with the business of life and identify what is strong and worthwhile and market that for the healing and empowerment of our species.

The moral inventory should lead us to the power and pleasure of being alive.

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

And, speaking for Dr. Bob and myself, I gratefully declare that had it not been for our wives, Anne and Lois, neither of us could have lived to see A.A.’s beginning.  (The A.A. Way of Life, page 67)

Am I capable of such generous tribute and gratitude to my wife, parents and friends, without whose support I might never have survived to reach A.A.’s doors? I will work on this and try to see the plan my Higher Power is showing me which links our lives together.

END OF QUOTE

—————————————————-

I am grateful for the support of my Father and late Mother, my sisters and brothers, and . . . a submissive woman whose devotion to me during some of my worst times allowed her entry past my best defenses.  I love her and I am deeply grateful for her magical appearance.  I must also thank myself for refusing to give up, and for finding a reason to live on in a post apocalyptic world.  I can give outwardly only what I can accept inwardly.

I am grateful that my children have survived and now thrive beyond ground zero of the apocalyptic event of 2003, and that my former wife is now my friend.

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

We were having trouble with personal relationships, we couldn’t control our emotional natures, we were a prey to misery and depression, we couldn’t make a living, we had a feeling of uselessness, we were full of fear, we were unhappy, we couldn’t seem to be of real help to other people. . . . (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 52)

These words remind me that I have more problems than alcohol, that alcohol is only a symptom of a more pervasive disease. When I stopped drinking I began a lifetime process of recovery from unruly emotions, painful relationships, and unmanageable situations. This process is too much for most of us without help from a Higher Power and our friends in the Fellowship. When I began working the Steps of the A.A. program, many of these tangled threads unraveled but, little by little, the most broken places of my life straightened out. One day at a time, almost imperceptibly, I healed. Like a thermostat being turned down, my fears diminished. I began to experience moments of contentment. My emotions became less volatile. I am now once again a part of the human family.

END OF QUOTE

———————————————

I collect magical moments that cause me to say, I healed.  Theses events get strung together as I continue to practice connecting.  Sometimes, it is a daunting process.  I need my tribe and my Gomu (God of my understanding).  I need my sacred places and times.  I need my night fires and the human grunting of binding stories.  I need to belong.

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

We have not once sought to be one in a family, to be a friend among friends, to be a worker among workers, to be a useful member of society. Always we tried to struggle to the top of the heap, or to hide underneath it. This self-centered behavior blocked a partnership relation with any one of those about us. Of true brotherhood we had small comprehension (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 53)

This message contained in Step Four was the first one I heard loud and clear; I hadn’t seen myself in print before! Prior to my coming into A.A., I knew of no place that could teach me how to become a person among persons. From my very first meeting, I saw people doing just that and I wanted what they had. One of the reasons that I’m a happy, sober alcoholic today is that I’m learning this most important lesson.

END OF QUOTE

———————————————————————–

This is probably the most difficult lesson for me.  It is an ongoing challenge.  The fourth step has shown me some clues.  I think this social anxiety and distrust is what truly keeps me residing in the purgatory of abstinence, with only a few glimpses of spiritual and emotional sobriety.