Daily Reprieve

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.

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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.

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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 ]

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

If we still cling to something we will not let go, we ask God to help us be willing.  (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 76)

When I had taken my Fifth Step, I became aware that all my defects of character stemmed from my need to feel secure and loved. To use my will alone to work on them would have been trying obsessively to solve the problem. In the Sixth Step I intensified the action I had taken in the first three Steps – meditating on the Step by saying it over and over, going to meetings, following my sponsor’s suggestions, reading and searching within myself. During the first three years of sobriety I had a fear of entering an elevator alone. One day I decided I must walk through this fear. I asked for God’s help, entered the elevator, and there in the corner was a lady crying. She said that since her husband had died she was deathly afraid of elevators. I forgot my fear and comforted her. This spiritual experience helped me to see how willingness was the key to working the rest of the Twelve Steps to recovery. God helps those who help themselves.

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I think facing fear is one of the big ways in which the steps cause us to move against our natural desires. In many ways, my fear-meter is as broken as my guilt-a-meter.  Fear is meant to protect us from danger.  It is such a primal emotion and takes many spiritual modifications to keep our protector from being the warden of our imprisoned soul.  I think a key to overcoming fear paralysis is to be able to discern the true from the false, with a willingness to walk out whatever we discover to be our reality.  The exploration and sharing of the moral inventory starts this process of an altered perception of hopeless victim to connected empowerment.

“There is no spoon” – Neo in the Matrix

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

All of A.A.’s Twelve Steps ask us to go contrary to our natural desires . . . they all deflate our egos. When it comes to ego deflation, few Steps are harder to take than Five. But scarcely any Step is more necessary to longtime sobriety and peace of mind than this one.  (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 55)

After writing down my character defects, I was unwilling to talk about them, and decided it was time to stop carrying this burden alone. I needed to confess those defects to someone else. I had read – and been told – I could not stay sober unless I did. Step Five provided me with a feeling of belonging, with humility and serenity when I practiced it in my daily living. It was important to admit my defects of character in the order presented in Step Five: “to God, to ourselves and to another human being.” Admitting to God first paved the way for admission to myself and to another person. As the taking of the Step is described, a feeling of being at one with God and my fellow man brought me to a resting place where I could prepare myself for the remaining Steps toward a full and meaningful sobriety.

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I take away the following thoughts from the today’s meditation.

“All of A.A.’s Twelve Steps ask us to go Contrary to Our Natural Desires,” and they “Deflate Our Egos.”  This is especially true of Step Five.

The long term effect of step five is to produce a “feeling of being at one with God and my fellow man,” and to find a Resting Place used to build “a Full and Meaningful Sobriety.”

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

Such parts of our story we tell to someone who will understand, yet be unaffected. The rule is we must be hard on ourself, but always considerate of others.  (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 74)

Respect for others is the lesson that I take out of this passage. I must go to any lengths to free myself if I wish to find that peace of mind that I have sought for so long. However, none of this must be done at another’s expense. Selfishness has no place in the A.A. way of life.

When I take the Fifth Step it’s wiser to choose a person with whom I share common aims because if that person does not understand me, my spiritual progress may be delayed and I could be in danger of a relapse. So I ask for divine guidance before choosing the man or woman whom I take into my confidence.

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Must I now consider a magical element of this program?  After I have established some form of relationship with a loving Higher Power, I must ask for guidance in the choosing of a sponsor or one who I can trust with my completed moral inventory.  It must not be the product of isolating selfishness.  This cuts off vital connections.  Whoever I tell it to, must not be harmed in the telling.  In order to hear from a loving Gomu (God of my understanding), I must be loving.  Even if just long enough to hear.

I disagree that selfishness has no place in A.A., because there is a self-love, a self-preservation, that gets me into the rooms and causes me to be willing to go to any lengths for sobriety.

On page 62 of Alcoholics Anonymous, it states that “Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness.”  It does not say that we are to be rid of selfishness, but THIS selfishness.  What kind of selfishness?  Prior to the statement isolating selfishness is described.  It is a good read, particularly with this in mind.

That is why you can hear that this is a “selfish program” and we must be “rid of this selfishness,” and both be absolutely true.

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

The real tests of the situation are your own willingness to confide and your full confidence in the one with whom you share your first accurate self-survey. . . .Provided you hold back nothing, your sense of relief will mount from minute to minute. The dammed-up emotions of years break out of their confinement, and miraculously vanish as soon as they are exposed. As the pain subsides, a healing tranquility takes its place.  (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, pages 61 – 62)

A tiny kernel of locked-in feelings began to unfold when I first attended A.A. meetings and self-knowledge then became a learning task for me. This new self-understanding brought about a change in my responses to life’s situations. I realized I had the right to make choices in my life, and the inner dictatorship of habits slowly lost its grip.

I believe that if I seek God I can find a better way to live and I ask Him daily to assist me in living a sober life.

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My sense of self relief came from finishing a difficult task.  My guilt-o-meter is broken, so that I feel guilty for things I have no control over, and no guilt for things that I hear others say sparked great remorse in them.  I do not know why this is.  Maybe the emotional tripwires of my family of origin, my mother being an adult child of an alcoholic father that she lost to this disease when she was around seventeen.  My stomach acid is composed of 78% constant anxiety knowing that on some front, somewhere, I am going to get in trouble.  This probably makes me a “double dipper,” someone who is both an alcoholic and qualifies for Al-Anon.  I have visited them before.  For now, I will stay with AA and try another time to work the fourth step, if a new sponsor thinks that is necessary.

I am intrigued by one phrase from the above contribution; “the right to make choices in my life” while “the inner dictatorship of habits slowly lost its grip.”  This seems to ring in my ears, as if it is a spiritual clue.  Or maybe an inner child’s hope.

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

. . . what comes to us alone may be garbled by our own rationalization and wishful thinking. The benefit of talking to another person is that we can get his direct comment and counsel on our situation. . . (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 60)

I cannot count the times when I have been angry and frustrated and said to myself, “I can’t see the forest for the trees!” I finally realized that what I needed when I was in such pain was someone who could guide me in separating the forest and the trees; who could suggest a better path to follow; who could assist me in putting out fires; and help me avoid the rocks and pitfalls.

I ask God, when I’m in the forest, to give me the courage to call upon a member of A.A.

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This powerfully resonates with me.  Finding someone who is committed to the greatest version of myself is often a process and takes courage to pursue.  Being that person takes courage as well.  We all get lost in the forest of fears from time to time.  I believe that it is a basic skill that is provided in this program.

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

We must be entirely honest with somebody if we expect to live long or happily in this world.  (Alcoholics Anonymous, pages 73 – 74)

Honesty, like all virtues, is to be shared. It began after I shared “. . . [my] whole life’s story with someone . . .” in order to find my place in the Fellowship. Later I shared my life in order to help the newcomer find his place with us. This sharing helps me to learn honesty in all my dealings and to know that God’s plan for me comes true through honest openness and willingness.

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I have a real problem with this, because I have such a profound distrust of others.  I also have a profound distrust of myself.  This is something I need to take to my sponsor, and I think I may need to find a new sponsor.  I like the one I have now, but he is just so friendly and laissez faire and I am so likely to pull away.  For me, I have found that truth seems to come through confrontation.  If I intend to embrace some new idea or person, and you hold that concept or relationship to be sacred, avert your gaze and find a radioactive shelter.  I simply cannot overcome my internal doctrines of distrust without kicking in a door or two.  Once the blast radius has calmed, I am ready to work things out.  There has to be a better way.  It is hard to build connections with this sort of approach.

From Yesterday’s Daily Reflections;

Somehow, being alone with God doesn’t seem as embarrassing as facing up to another person. Until we actually sit down and talk aloud about what we have so long hidden, our willingness to clean house is still largely theoretical.  (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 60)

It wasn’t unusual for me to talk to God, and myself, about my character defects. But to sit down, face to face, and openly discuss these intimacies with another person was much more difficult. I recognized in the experience, however, a similar relief to the one I had experienced when I first admitted I was an alcoholic. I began to appreciate the spiritual significance of the program and that this Step was just an introduction to what was yet to come in the remaining seven Steps.

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I have done the fifth step several times.  I remember my sponsors yawning toward the end.  Their stories seemed so much more dramatic than mine.  I have never felt a sense of a weight being lifted from my shoulders.  I just had to drop the expectations I had of myself and the program and get busy doing the work.

And the work is not over, I am sure.

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

Cling to the thought that, in God’s hands, the dark past is the greatest possession you have – the key to life and happiness for others. With it you can avert death and misery for them.  (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 124)

No longer is my past an autobiography; it is a reference book to be taken down, opened and shared. Today as I report for duty, the most wonderful picture comes through. For, though this day be dark – as some days must be – the stars will shine even brighter later. My witness that they do shine will be called for in the very near future. All my past will this day be a part of me, because it is the key, not the lock.

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This is new to me.  My past is no longer my personal possession.  When I entered this program and demand recovery, hungered for it, the possession of my past was transferred to the very program that prevented the tragic and logic end to that past.  It makes sense.  I had not considered it.  I am considering it now.  Oh Gomu (God of my understanding), help me incorporate this reality.