Daily Reprieve

From Courage to Change of Aug 10:

At an Al-Anon meeting we discussed the way our housekeeping habits reflected the effects of alcoholism. One person shared that his life felt completely unmanageable unless his house was perfectly neat. Tidiness gave him an illusion of control.

Others, including me, spoke of floors so strewn with clothes, books, and papers that we could not cross the room without stepping on, or tripping over, something. I had always considered this just a bad habit until I heard someone share that this clutter was her way of keeping people at a distance – isolating.

Then I remembered that in the house where I grew up, clutter had served just this function: I was always afraid to invite friends over because everything was too messy. It was uncomfortable to realize that I was doing the same thing in adulthood that had kept me isolated as a child.

Today’s Reminder

By taking a fresh look at what I thought of as just a bad habit, I can free my life of some clutter today. I can consider hidden motives for that habit without condemning myself or my family. Clutter doesn’t have to be physical; I may also find areas of my mental, spiritual, or emotional life that are in disarray. I can heal without making moral judgements about myself or others.

“. . . the Al-Anon program can give me a new view of my world by helping me to see myself more clearly . . .” ~ One Day at a Time in Al-Anon

END OF QUOTE—————————————

I used to think clutter was just a sign of laziness, a failure of discipline, a weakness I hadn’t yet whipped into submission. But recovery has taught me to look again—gently, curiously. The way I kept my space, or failed to, wasn’t a matter of housekeeping. It was a kind of self-portrait. Not the kind you hang on a wall, but the kind you live inside of without even knowing you’re painting it.

Some of us chased perfect order—tidying as if the world depended on it. And in a way, it did. Because if the house was clean, maybe the chaos wouldn’t get in. Maybe the shame would stay behind closed drawers and scrubbed countertops.

Others of us let the mess grow like weeds after the rain. Not because we didn’t care, but because something in us feared being seen. The piles of clothes, the stacks of books, the avalanche of unopened mail—each piece a little “No Trespassing” sign. Keep out. I’m not ready. I don’t feel safe.

Clutter isn’t always physical. Sometimes it’s the noise in my head, the resentment I haven’t released, the outdated beliefs I keep folded in the back of my spiritual closet. Just like the piles on the floor, these inner tangles keep me stuck, keep me disconnected.

But step by step, I can clear space. Not just for company, but for connection. For light. For my Higher Power to sit with me in the openness I once feared.

And so today, I might pick up the socks. Or I might sit still in the middle of the mess and ask: What am I afraid of? What am I protecting? And am I ready to lay it down—not perfectly, but peacefully?

I can heal, not by judging the past, but by listening to it. And in that sacred pause, I clear not just the floor—but the path forward.

From Courage to Change of Aug 08:

In Step Six I contemplate my life undergoing change – tremendous change. The great fear is this: If I shed many characteristics that stand in my way, what will be left? It is as though I face a great void, a terrifying unknown. Yet when I acknowledge how far I have come, I can see how much I want to change. The desire to grow and to heal has brought me to this uncomfortable point, because I am tired of the way I have been. My Higher Power is there to guide me when I am ready.

I find solace in the fact that in Step Six I need not change anything: I must simply prepare myself for change. I can take all the time I need. Such manageability is what I set out to find in the first place. Now it is a part of my life.

Today’s Reminder

I need not judge the rate at which I change old habits or ways of thinking. If I am uncomfortable with old behavior, then on some level I am already moving toward changing it. Change will not be effective unless I am ready for it. I need only trust that, when the time comes to move forward, I will know it.

“Remind me each day that the race is not always to the swift; that there is more to life than increasing its speed. Let me look upward into the towering oak and know that it grew great and strong because it grew slowly and well.” ~ Orin L. Crain

END OF QUOTE—————————————

NOTE: Orin L. Crain was an American writer of a well-loved inspirational prayer and poem known as “Slow Me Down, Lord”, penned around 1957. It’s a meditative plea for calm in a hurried world, including memorable lines like the one quoted above in Courage to Change.

There is a sacred pause between willingness and transformation—and that pause is Step Six. I stand here, on the trembling edge of change, not with a to-do list, but with a heart cracking open. I am not being asked to leap, only to want to leap. To prepare. To say, “Yes, I am willing… eventually.”

It’s humbling to realize how much fear still clings to the familiar—even when that familiarity is toxic. I’ve worn some of these defects like armor, others like masks. To set them down feels like disarming in a battlefield I’ve lived in for so long. Who will I be without them? There’s a void waiting, and it whispers not of death, but of birth.

That void is sacred. It’s not empty—it’s fertile. It’s where my Higher Power does the deep work.

I remember: I’ve come this far not by force, but by grace. Not by fixing, but by surrendering. It was my pain that brought me here, but it is my hope that keeps me here. Step Six asks me to trust the alchemy of readiness. That just noticing the discomfort in my old ways is already a sign that the new way is being born in me.

And I don’t have to rush it.

My pace is not a problem. My discomfort is not a failure. It is evidence. Proof that healing has begun.

I asked for manageability. Here it is: a Power greater than myself will carry the weight of change. All I must do is loosen my grip.

When I am ready, I will know.

And when I don’t know—I’ll wait.

That, too, is progress.

The quoting of Aldous Huxley in the Courage to Change for August 3rd reminded me of a very interesting book I read a little while back:

I recommend it as a good read and I also believe there is great promise in psychedelics taken in quest mode, with a way of recording the visions and insights that come from the experience. Such written take-aways from the protected experience can then be used as after-work with many years of development before delving into the experience again.

My own belief is that, though they may start by being something of an embarrassment, these new mind changers (psychedelic drugs) will tend in the long run to deepen the spiritual life of the communities in which they are available…From being an activity mainly concerned with symbols, religion will be transformed into an activity concerned mainly with experience and intuition. ~ Aldous Huxley, 1958

First, there are the colors and the beauties and designs and the way things appear. But that’s just the beginning. At some point you notice that there aren’t these separations that we normally feel. We are not on some separate island — shouting across and trying to hear what each other are saying. Suddenly you know. You know empathy. It’s flowing underneath us. We are parts of a common continent that meets underneath the water. And with that comes such delight – the sober certainty of waking bliss.” ~ Gerald Heard, 1956

I am certain that the LSD experience has helped me very much. I find myself with a heightened color perception and an appreciation of beauty almost destroyed by my years of depression…The sensation that the partition between “here” and “there” has become very thin is constantly with me. ~ Bill Wilson, 1957

There is a sacred difference between escape and exploration.

For much of my life, I sought relief — not insight. I reached for comfort, not communion. But the journey of recovery has taught me that the real treasure isn’t in the euphoria of forgetting — it’s in the courage to remember. To sit with what is. To ask what it means.

That’s why the idea of psychedelics taken in “quest mode” resonates not as a contradiction to recovery, but as a potential deepening of it — when done with intention, protection, and reverence. Not as a drug to alter mood, but as a key to a door locked within the self. And once opened, what matters is not the vision itself, but the work that follows. The journaling. The integration. The building of a bridge between the subconscious and the everyday.

As Aldous Huxley foresaw, maybe the real promise of these sacraments is that they bring religion down from the pulpit and back into the body — into lived, felt, undeniable experience. When symbol gives way to direct communion, what once felt like dogma begins to pulse like music. Like meaning.

Gerald Heard’s words land like a remembering: we are not separate. Not really. The veil thins, and with it, our armor. In that space, empathy is no longer a theory — it’s a sensation, a current we belong to. That kind of knowing can’t be undone. It becomes part of the inner world we bring to every conversation, every encounter.

And then there is Bill W. — co-founder of our spiritual lifeline — humbly affirming that even after sobriety, there remained layers of perception long dulled by the slow corrosion of depression. His words are not a call to use, but a call to listen — to the possibilities of healing, to the thin places between worlds.

For me, I have no need to “get high.” That path was well-trodden, and it nearly destroyed me. But the idea of getting open — even just a little more — to the Divine, to inner truth, to wonder — that feels aligned with the Eleventh Step: Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him.

If another seeker finds their contact improved through a carefully prepared sacramental experience — and they return with notes from the other side that help them walk with more grace and clarity here — I will not call that sin. I may call it sacred.

This is not advocacy. It’s inquiry. It’s humility. It’s staying open.

And it’s remembering that anything powerful — even a mushroom — must be held with reverence, not recklessness.

I welcome the testimonies of others, not to validate my view, but to expand my perspective. We’re not meant to walk this road alone. And sometimes, even the most unlikely companions — whether books, chemicals, or visions — can help guide the next right step.

But the journey? That’s ours. One sober, sacred day at a time.

NOTE: If you are a newcomer, do not explore this until you are actually at Step 11. And then take care to protect your activity legally, and make sure that you are open with your Sponsor and Safety Net about it to help maintain vigilance against the disease.