Daily Reprieve

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

Often it was while working on this Step with our sponsors or spiritual advisers that we first felt truly able to forgive others, no matter how deeply we felt they had wronged us. Our moral inventory had persuaded us that all-round forgiveness was desirable, but it was only when we resolutely tackled Step Five that we inwardly knew we’d be able to receive forgiveness and give it, too.  (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 58)

What a great feeling forgiveness is! What a revelation about my emotional, psychological and spiritual nature. All it takes is willingness to forgive; God will do the rest.

END OF QUOTE

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I do not know if I should share my truth with you today.  Maybe I should wait until I re-finish the fourth and fifth and sixth and seventh steps and hope that I have something better to say.

I AM RESENTFUL AT:  God

THE CAUSE:  The death of my infant son Josiah, and my grown son, Zach.  It personalized what I feel are crimes against humanity.

AFFECTS MY:  Everything; Self-Esteem, Pocket Book, Personal Relations, Ambition.  It affects my sobriety.  (FEAR)

There is a movie called God on Trial and I remember one quote in particular;  “God is not good, he has only been on our side.”

How do you trust God to help you forgive God?  My solution has been to use my imagination to hide this anguish away and embrace GOMU (God of my understanding).  I think this is why I feel the need to permanently remove my father-heart from my chest, get a transplant and become like the Sociopathic Deity who finds a benefit in the murder of his own son and the condemnation of all humanity to eventual death.

Maybe I am in a place where I can deal with this now.  I really don’t know.

I hope you will forgive me for not being able to stay quiet.  If I find a solution to this dilemma, I will be quick to share that as well.

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. . . . But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave.   (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 66)

Know God;
Know peace.
No God;
No peace.

END OF QUOTE

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I have been working on filtering out the disguised voice of fear, that pretends to be my Higher Power.  I am getting better at this, but it takes practice.

My sponsor called me this morning and had me read the following from the 12 & 12, page 49;

“All these failings generate fear, a soul-sickness in its own right.  Then fear, in turn, generates more character defects.  Unreasonable fear that our instincts will not be satisfied drives us to covet the possessions of others, to lust for sex and power, to become angry when our instinctive demands are threatened, to be envious when the ambitions of others seem to be realized while ours are not.  We eat, drink, and grab for more of everything than we need, fearing we shall never have enough.  And with genuine alarm at he prospect of work, we stay lazy.  We loaf and procrastinate, or at best work grudgingly and under half steam.  These fears are the termites that ceaselessly devour the foundations of whatever sour of life we try to build.”

He then directed me to read the Daily Reflections for May 12th (Endigar 411).

He told me that he believes those readings would help with what is eating at my gut.  I share this with you as a follow-up to yesterday’s post on answered prayer and to be helpful to anyone else who may be on a similar path.

In reference to the request for prayer I sent out in Endigar 413, I may have gotten an answer.  I have been taking notes from the Big Book as I move along with the inventory.  I finished notes on the resentment section and then got the thought that it would be good to get notes from the 12 & 12 as well.  I came across the following;

“Instincts on rampage balk at investigation.  The minute we make a serious attempt to probe them, we are liable to suffer severe reactions”

I did not remember reading this before.  The next paragraph on page 45 really caught my attention:

“If temperamentally we are on the depressive side, we are apt to be swamped with guilt and self-loathing.  We wallow in this messy bog, often getting a misshapen and painful pleasure out of it.  As we morbidly pursue this melancholy activity, we may sink to such a point of despair that nothing but oblivion looks possible as a solution.  Here, of course, we have lost all perspective, and therefore all genuine humility.  For this is pride in reverse.  This is not a moral inventory at all; it is the very process by which the depressive has so often been led to the bottle and extinction.”

On page 46 it continues;

“At this stage of the inventory proceedings, our sponsors come to the rescue.  They can do this, for they are the carriers of A.A.’s tested experience with Step Four.  They comfort the melancholy one by first showing him that his case is not strange or different, that his character defects are probably no more numerous or worse than those of anyone else in A.A.  This the sponsor promptly proves by talking freely and easily, and without exhibitionism, about his own defects, past and present.  This calm, yet realistic, stock-taking is immensely reassuring.  The sponsor probably points out that the newcomer has some assets which can be noted along with his liabilities.  This tends to clear away morbidity and encourage balance.  As soon as he begins to be more objective, the newcomer can fearlessly, rather that fearfully, look at his own defects.”

After I read this, I looked down at my cell phone and saw that I had a text message from an intimate friend;  “my curiosity – have you told your sponsor exactly how this fourth step makes you feel and why?”

I had the recurring thought that I should call my sponsor and talk to him about this, but I had put it off because I wanted to be able to tell him that I am finished and ready to take the 5th.  (The 5th step, not the amendment).

So I called my sponsor and left a message on his voice mail.  I think it would probably be a good idea to include an asset list, but I am awaiting confirmation.  I am doing my best not to direct the show.

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Sponsor: “Don’t get stuck in the paralysis of analysis.  Just get it down on paper and we will deal with it.”

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

Time after time newcomers have tried to keep to themselves certain facts about their lives. . . . they have turned to easier methods. . . . But they had not learned enough humility. . .  (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 72-73)

Humility sounds so much like humiliation, but it really is the ability to look at myself – and honestly accept what I find. I no longer need to be the “smartest” or “dumbest” or any other “est.” Finally, it is okay to be me. It is easier for me to accept myself if I share my whole life. If I cannot share in meetings, then I had better have a sponsor – someone with whom I can share those “certain facts” that could lead me back to a drunk, to death. I need to take all the Steps. I need the Fifth Step to learn true humility. Easier methods do not work.

END OF QUOTE

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I am working on my fourth 4th step.  I think there are members of AA who have really good 10th step habits that do not need a periodic return to the moral inventory.  I still find that I am my greatest resentment.  If you are so inclined, I would appreciate your prayers today.  I want to be thorough without becoming morbid.  I would really like to be okay with me.  For those of you who are also struggling with the writing out of your moral inventory in death-ink, I pray for you.  May we find each other free of the bondage of self.

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

If we skip this vital step, we may not overcome drinking.  (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 72)

I certainly didn’t leap at the opportunity to face who I was, especially when the pains of my drinking days hung over me like a dark cloud. But I soon heard at the meetings about the fellow member who just didn’t want to take Step Five and kept coming back to meetings, trembling from the horrors of reliving his past. The easier, softer way is to take these Steps to freedom from our fatal disease, and to put our faith in the Fellowship and our Higher Power.

END OF QUOTE

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“Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now. If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it-then you are ready to take certain steps.

At some of these we balked. We thought we could find an easier, softer way. But we could not. With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely.”  (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 58)

I had to find an alternative to the way I had been living.  I had to find a more sane approach to life.  The steps collectively and some in particular, such as the fifth step, I found challenging and difficult.  They escorted me through the hallways of internal haunted houses.  I tried to create a hybrid creature of my old ways of providing creative and intellectual  modifications forged to the simplicity and spirituality of the steps.  I kept producing a more complicated but self-justifying version of recovery.

Yesterday I heard someone say in a meeting that if he needed an intellectual answer to his recovery, he would have just taken the Big Book home and studied.  He continued that if he was to find the heart of this program, it had to be as he connected with others in the Fellowship.  The fifth step takes the mind of the moral inventory and gives it a heart.

Today, I am in agreement with the final statement of the contributor to the reflections; “The easier, softer way is to take these Steps to freedom from our fatal disease, and to put our faith in the Fellowship and our Higher Power.”

Heard in a meeting yesterday; “When I first came into these rooms, the fellowship told me recovery was an inside job, and that they would hold the light while I started digging.”

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

A.A. experience has taught us we cannot live alone with our pressing problems and the character defects which cause or aggravate them. If . . . Step Four . . .has revealed in stark relief those experiences we’d rather not remember . . . then the need to quit living by ourselves with those tormenting ghosts of yesterday gets more urgent than ever. We have to talk to somebody about them.   (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 55)

Whatever is done is over. It cannot be changed. But my attitude about it can be changed through talking with those who have gone before and with sponsors. I can wish the past never was, but if I change my actions in regard to what I have done, my attitude will change. I won’t have to wish the past away. I can change my feelings and attitudes, but only through my actions and the help of my fellow alcoholics.

END OF QUOTE

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I was in a meeting yesterday, and someone who has watched me bounce around the rooms and struggle with the relapse rodeo told me, “You can’t do this thing alone.”

Today I understand that more than ever.  I still have to be reminded.  Sometimes my various fears present themselves as God, and pull me back to isolated self-reliance.  Then I lose ground.  This is when I have to reconnect to my actual Higher Power, and find my way back to into the fellowship of AA.  Spirituality is fed through connection.

I heard an interesting nugget from the fellowship  in my sunrise meeting this morning; “Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.”

I have decided that my sponsor is a very good sponsor and I may not be the best of sponsees.  I am working on it.  In talking to him he said;

“Besides that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?”

Another bit of wit I heard in a meeting was; “I have been born again so many times my soul has stretch marks.”

Just thought I would share.

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

Until we had talked with complete candor of our conflicts, and had listened to someone else do the same thing, we still didn’t belong.  (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 57)

After four years in A.A. I was able to discover the freedom from the burden of buried emotions that had caused me so much pain. With the help of A.A., and extra counseling, the pain was released and I felt a complete sense of belonging and peace. I also felt a joy and a love of God that I had never experienced before. I am in awe of the power of Step Five.

END OF QUOTE

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Connection.  I need it.  I suspect that we all do on some level.  The invisible barrier of self-protection that I exaggerate in my heart from fortress to prison fails to protect me from myself.  I lived locked up with an internal judge dogging my heals.  Sometimes, I drank to make those persistent condemnations shut up, because my only reprieve was an isolated oblivion.

I was recently encouraged to allow myself to become vulnerable.  I asked what she meant about being vulnerable.  “Vulnerable enough to look for help, to talk to your sponsor or someone you wish were your sponsor when that’s the next right thing to do.”

The liberating vulnerability of the fifth step is as powerful as my willingness to embrace complete candor about those internal conflicts.

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

Another great dividend we may expect from confiding our defects to another human being is humility – a word often misunderstood. . . . it amounts to a clear recognition of what and who we really are, followed by a sincere attempt to become what we could be.  (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 58)

I knew deep inside that if I were ever to be joyous, happy and free, I had to share my past life with some other individual. The joy and relief I experienced after doing so were beyond description. Almost immediately after taking the Fifth Step, I felt free from the bondage of self and the bondage of alcohol. That freedom remains after 36 years, a day at a time. I found that God could do for me what I couldn’t do for myself.

END OF QUOTE

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I was cut-off from God and man.  Alcohol was like an abusive and predatory mate that I had allowed to dominate my life.  In order to have the most effective control over my mind,  to manipulate me, it had to isolate me from my traditional support network.  It developed in me an ability to believe and speak deception.  It used my own desire for recognition and empowerment to enslave me to an “isolated me,” which is the lowest version of myself.  This was my bondage to self.  This was my bondage to alcohol.  I avoided the humiliation of this reality by learning to lie.  I thought this skill development was to protect myself or to protect others I loved.  It was actually to protect my pathological relationship to alcohol.

In step one of this program I had to come to realize the nature of my relationship with alcohol.  I had to let go of the dubious skill of self-deception and recognize the nature of this abusive and humiliating union between myself and my chemical rapist.  I was powerless to control my drinking because I had developed a need for the intoxicated state.  My life had become unmanageable because of the progressive isolation.  This does not mean that I could not function.  It simply means that I no longer believed that I could function without the aid of alcohol and that its aid trumped any other relationship so that I could maintain that illusion of lone wolf self-reliance.

This principle behind step one has been expressed both as Honesty and Surrender.  The principle behind step five has been expressed as Truth and Integrity.  Step one is an event that requires a recognition of our humiliation.  Step five is the culmination of a process that builds in us humility because we can see more clearly who we are.  That truth begins the process of my freedom from the bondage of my isolated self and my bondage to alcohol.  We know we are free when we no longer feel the need to lie about who we are.  My ability to recoil from alcohol is directly related to my ability to recoil from the deception within my head and what spills from my lips.

I am grateful to be connected to a program that allows me to humble myself in integrity rather than live in the humiliation imposed by denial.

SOURCE ON AA PRINCIPLES:  [ http://www.barefootsworld.net/aaprinciples.html ]