Daily Reprieve

Courage to Change of Jun 11:

Step Nine says I need not make direct amends to those I have injured if, in doing so, I might cause further injury. How do I know whether or not to take action?

If direct amends are inappropriate, I can trust my Higher Power to let me know. Otherwise, if I have worked the Eighth Step and become truly willing to make amends, I believe the opportunities will arise when I am ready.

For example, I was unable to discuss my personal life with my mother. Fearing her rejection, I rejected her instead. An upcoming visit presented an opportunity to make amends, but I wasn’t sure I was ready. Would making amends at this tie injure me?

After my mother arrived, I had the feeling that this was “the time.” I prayed for courage and asked my Higher Power to help me find the words. My mother sat down with me in a quiet moment and, to my amazement, brought up every subject I had wanted to discuss. I realized that the opportunity to be close to her had always existed, but I hadn’t been willing, until then, to take part in it.

Today’s Reminder

My Higher Power does not put any challenges before me that I am unable to face. The comfort I find in that knowledge can overcome my fears.

“The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are.”

~ John Burroughs

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It sounds to me that the best approach to the Step Eight and Nine amends is to list all, to become willing to make amends to all, and then, after an honest conversation with my sponsor or other points of accountability, to make a notation, a mark, and to set aside those that might cause further harm.

These set-aside amends, I make to my Higher Power and seek inspiration for a lifestyle amends. I pray for those who deserved an amends from me, and only if my Higher Power gives me opportunity and inspiration, do I carefully move forward.

Otherwise, I change the way I live in honor of that karmic debt.

Courage to Change of Jun 10:

When it came time to actively pursue the Eighth Step (“Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all”), I stopped dead in my tracks! I knew of quite a few people I had harmed but I was absolutely unwilling to even consider making amends to some of them!

My Sponsor suggested I divide my list into three categories: those to whom I was willing to make amends, those to whom I might make amends; and those to whom I would absolutely not ever make amends. When I finished, I started Step Nine by making amends to those on the first list.

The amazing thing was that, as I proceeded, I found some of the names from my “maybe” list shifting to my “willing” list. In time, even some “absolutely not” people appeared on my “maybe” list. Eventually it became easier to make amends, even to “absolutely not” people. My reward? Some renewed friendships and family ties; more importantly, an ability to face the new day without guilt, because I had owned up to my responsibilities.

Today’s Reminder

I will not let myself be stopped from taking Step Eight or Step Nine because I can’t do it perfectly overnight. I will let myself be where I am today, and do what I am able to do.

“It does not matter how slowly you go

So long as you do not stop.”

~ Confucius

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I was told to face my most difficult amends first. I suppose I was willing to take on the entire list as long as it was taken one by one in my mind. I gave my full attention to one target at a time making sure that I was prepared to actively listen, to consider and learn for my own battle with that mental obsession, and with the hope of finding a very pragmatic way to make things right. I spent time with my Sponsor preparing, to make sure that I was not preaching nor was I making it about me. It was the beginning of learning to be an active listener which is a skill I need as a Sponsor. It was just another way I was being enhanced or modified by the process. One Step at a time toward a better, freer version of myself.

Courage to Change of Jun 9:

When my study of the Steps reached Step Seven (“Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings”), I stumbled on the very first word. “Humble!” I thought, “The last thing I need is to be more humble.” Hadn’t I been humble all my life, putting everyone’s needs ahead of my own? What had it ever brought me except abuse?

But Al-Anon suggested that perhaps I had confused humility with humiliation. Humility does not mean begging for mercy. Real humility, I discovered, is the ability to see my true relationship to God and to my fellow human beings.

The second word wasn’t much easier. I had learned not to ask anyone for anything. Al-Anon showed that my knowledge and experience are limited. I don’t know all the answers – and I don’t have to know them! I can ask for help.

My concept of the last word has also changed. I used to think of shortcomings as crimes, faults, sins, or mistakes. Now I think of them as blocks within me that prevent me from reaching my full potential and distance me from my Higher Power.

Today’s Reminder

There are many things that I can do to improve my life and to further my recovery, but I cannot heal myself. Today I can ask for help in becoming free of all that blocks me from my true self.

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Step 7 – Humbly asked Him, the God of our understanding, to remove our shortcomings.

Alternative versions of the Seventh Step minus humility:

Step 7 – Impatiently told the God of our understanding to get His ass over here and remove our shortcomings.

Step 7 – Expectantly allowed God to review our self-appraisal and remove the shortcomings we have identified.

Step 7 – Resentfully asked God to remove His own shortcomings of neglectful detachment and blood magic.

Step 7 – Apathetically told God our shortcomings and their elimination are His job and not ours.

Step 7 – Despairingly asked God to remove our emotions and transform us into automatons.

Step 7 – Fearfully asked God to print out a blueprint of self-transformation and cheer us on as we prevent social criticism.

Humility activates the magic of connection and is necessary to embrace the truth of my situation. For me, this Step touches on the one aspect of this program that gives us permission to seek out the loving supernatural of something greater than myself, that truly seems to care about my life and our Fellowship. It is the beginning of seeking conscious contact with My Higher Power.

Courage to Change of Jun 8:

Step Six speaks of being entirely ready to have God remove all my defects of character. Yet I find that I often cling to my defects because they give me a certain amount of pleasure.

What defects could possibly give me pleasure? Revenge, for one. I spend lots of time creating mental scenarios in which I punish those who have hurt me. I also get a great deal of enjoyment from thinking that I am never wrong; in other words, I cling to my pride. Yet these characteristics are defects that get in the way of living the king of life I want to live and prevent me from treating myself and others with love and respect. There is abundant reason to let them go, but to do so, I have to become willing to lose the enjoyment they sometimes deliver.

My recovery will have a giant void as long as I am unwilling to give up my shortcomings. If I want healing, I must turn over my will, my life, and my character defects to God.

Today’s Reminder

Are the small, temporary pleasures I get from my defects of character worth the price I am paying to keep them? If not, I may be entirely ready to let some of them go today.

“I know that help is waiting only for my acceptance, waiting for me to say, ‘Not my will but Thine be done.”

~ The Dilemma of the Alcoholic Marriage

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The primary focus of removing defects of character aka shortcomings is to remove thoughts and behaviors which impede my connection with my Higher Power. I suspect that some of them might remain to keep me in need of my Higher Power until other more subtle but insidious defects are discovered and targeted for removal. The litmus test for me is to ask what is getting in the way of being a part of something bigger than myself. What makes me devalue a fellowship that has my best interest at heart? What turns the genuineness of my interaction with the Higher Power into perfunctory ritual? What calls to me to become a god in isolation rather than a child of the Infinite, a dweller between the worlds?

I want to change frequencies and connect to the beyond. I am entirely ready.

Courage to Change of Jun 7:

When I took Step Five I looked carefully at the words, “Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being . . ..” The order of these words, placing God first, then myself, and then someone else, struck me. So often I have been vaguely aware of some truth in my life that I was unwilling to admit to myself. Yet my Higher Power had already placed that thought in my mind. He must have –if I’m trying to ignore it, I surely didn’t put it there.

I try to use this when making decisions about my life. When I assume that my Higher Power has already put the answer in my mind, I can then be willing to acknowledge that answer– whether I think I’ll like it or not. It may rise up into my awareness right away, or it may take some time and patience, but I can trust that it will become clear. Then I share my thoughts with another person I trust. This process helps me to take action on the answers I receive and to move forward with my life.

Today’s Reminder

There is nothing in life that need confound me. With my Higher Power’s help, I can find the answer to any problem I face. This knowledge gives me courage to follow through with action. I need only be willing to accept the answer I receive.

“Look within! . . . The secret is inside you.”

~ Hui-neng

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There was once a great argument about whether zero actually exists. Mathematics deals with calculations of what is. Was there actually a place where absolute nothingness was true? In the end, pragmatism won out. Zero makes mathematics work. Is the concept of God a variable for the absolute infinity of existence? In the 12 Step program, the God concept wins out because it works. Not because we can answer with absolutes.

“I try to use this when making decisions about my life.” Pragmatism over absolutes. Transformation over transaction. I never face impossibilities, mystery, or completions without a surrender to my Higher Power’s pragmatic reality protecting my efforts. As in mathematics, I have an “order of operation.” I seek inspiration from the macro-infinity (God out there), confirmation from the micro-infinity (God within me) and working validation through the connective infinity of those invested in recovery of the highest version of self.

Personology is a word I created by splicing Personal Mythology. Because the denotation of mythology is something not true but fabricated from imagination, it was inadequate to describe what I meant when I said Personal Mythology. There are four parameters that define one’s Personology:

• Creative Story Writing to capture elusive or paradoxical concepts and express them with the simplest clarity possible
• Spiritual Hypothesis Testing to explore incoming evidence and ongoing experience with life beyond the organic veil
• Establishes a Peace Treaty with the swirling chaos and mystery of our environment
• Provides Pragmatic Inspiration for the living of our individual mortal lives

Use it if it fulfills the pragmatic imperative of your recovery.

Courage to Change of Jun 6:

How easy it can be to justify our own unacceptable behavior! Perhaps we excuse ourselves, claiming that we were provoked or had no choice. Or we dismiss our actions by telling ourselves that everyone does the same thing. With these and other justifications, we pretend that our wrongs don’t count. This denial must be overcome when we take the Fourth Step.

With this Step we take a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. It is fearless because of the strong spiritual foundation we have established by taking the first three Steps. It is moral because we list what we feel has been right or wrong about our conduct. And it is searching. The only way we can take this Step thoroughly, searchingly, is to resist the desire to justify and excuse what we uncover. It may demand courage and self-discipline, but by freely acknowledging who we have been, we can make positive changes about who we are becoming.

Today’s Reminder

I am a human being with strengths and weaknesses, capable of achievements and mistakes. Because I accept this, I can look closely at myself. Today I will find something to appreciate and something to improve.

“You never find yourself until you face the truth.”

~ Pearl Bailey

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There are several delusion producers in my life: programing from a dysfunctional family, addiction’s self-protection in my psyche, layers of fear from perceived threats, and the manifold coping skills to accommodate pain aversion.

In the 12 Step program, I have found that Hope and Action with a litmus test of whether I am helpful to others is my primary method of living a genuine life. Hope targets a destination of value. Action keeps that hope from metastasizing into wishful thinking. The usefulness to others proves the value of my work.

The moral inventory helps me see the truth about me and the life I have been living. It is a process that gives spirituality and self-recovery a pragmatic push toward fulfilment of whatever part of the Higher Power has been embedded within.

Courage to Change of Jun 5:

The Third Step talks about placing my will and my life in the care of a Higher Power. For me, this Power is a presence that loves me as I am, that accepts me with compassion on the bad days as well as the good. Once I have accepted that the destructive presence of another’s alcoholism has affected my life, I need the benevolent influence of a Power untouched by this disease. What I do in turning over my will and my life is to become receptive to guidance; I become willing to accept the care of a Power greater than myself.

I think of this care as a source of love and support that surrounds me in my daily life. I do not need to earn it or to work for it; I need only be receptive to it. I continue to have a will to exercise and a life to live, but I do so bathed in a light of love and understanding.

Today’s Reminder

When I open my heart to a Power that fills me with love and acceptance, I can begin to extend those qualities to others. I may not do it perfectly or even consistently, but I can recognize my progress one day at a time.

“God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to shame.”

~ Elizabeth Barret Browning

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I did not seek a Power “untouched by this disease.” There is a natural cruelty to a Higher Power that only officiates the big, infinite reality of life. I looked for a power intimately acquainted with my own suffering. I looked for a Power that embraced my individual life. Is it possible that when the words, “it is not good for the man to be alone,” were written, this Higher Power was letting us all know that It was lonely.

“I believe the universe wants to be noticed. I think the universe is improbably biased toward the consciousness, that it rewards intelligence in part because the universe enjoys its elegance being observed. And who am I, living in the middle of history, to tell the universe that it-or my observation of it-is temporary?”

~ John Green, the Fault in Our Stars

It is this intimate Higher Power that I seek, and that I trust to care about me and mine.

Elizabeth Barret Browning began writing poetry under the protective umbrella of her father’s massive slave-owning business in Jamaica. She sacrificed that protection for the intimate love of a fellow poet. He had fallen in love with her through her writing. The marriage of Elizabeth and Robert Browning brought an end to her affiliation with her Father’s individual-crushing dominance and a new poetry arose from the intimacy of the married couple as they moved from England to Italy.

For me, the ultimate god-gift is genuine, intimate care that hungers for my reciprocation. No more distance. I seek an exclusive relationship with a Higher Power that hungers for the same. The paradox is that when I have such a reality in my life, I want to share it with others. I suppose the Infinite One can have an exclusive relationship with everyone and there is no risk of losing my own private intimacy.

Be prospered.

Courage to Change of Jun 4:

The Second Step is about possibility, about hope. With this Step, we come to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. We are asked to open our minds to the possibility that help is available. Perhaps there is a source of assistance that can do for us what we have been unable to do for ourselves. We don’t have to believe that it will happen, only that it could.

This little bit of hope, this chink in the armor of despair, is enough to show that we are willing to move in the direction of healing. Once we recognize that the possibility of help exists, it seems worthwhile to explore a relationship with a Higher Power. A little willingness can go a long way toward making hope and faith an ongoing part of our lives. In the hands of a Higher Power, sanity and serenity become realistic hopes.

Today’s Reminder

Our literature speaks of the possibility of finding contentment and even happiness through recover in Al-Anon. Today I will take the Second Step in that process and open my mind to hope.

“Finding inner strength is looking beyond the visible and focusing life’s search on the unseen.”

~ As We Understood . . .

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As a young man, I never understood why hope was considered a virtue. The word feels like a synonym for wishful thinking. It seemed to be an excuse to daydream about better days ahead. Wasn’t hope an admission of abdication?

Then I witnessed the ignition of hope in my own life and in the lives of others in these rooms devoted to personal recovery. This is what I now know about the capacity for hope. It is a trained response to those times in life when the wolves are at the door. It is for the time when retreat and surrender will only invite further destruction, a shrinking brain, a tragic end. Surrounded by the confident assertion of impossibility, hope garners intelligence, builds networks, and remembers the place where life spirits are forged. Hope sharpens my senses to a course of action in the midst of the overwhelming clamor of fear. Isn’t hope the first step in the hero’s journey?

“What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end…”

~ Friedrich Nietzsche

UNLESS the God of my understanding builds my home, it is futility for me to build in isolation. I ask the Infinite One to build through me.

UNLESS the God of my understanding guards the city of my birth, no security system will keep it safe. I ask the Complete Entity of the Universe to keep safe that which is important in my life.

It is futility for me to get up early, go to bed late, and eat the bread of anxious toil, for the God of my understanding gives blessings to me even when I am sleeping. I ask for the loving embrace of the Spirit to help me pause, relax, take it easy, and to listen.

Behold, my new life is a heritage and a gift from the God of my understanding. Gomu causes the womb of my soul to bring forth a reward. I shall not close the door on it but will learn to pack it all into the stream of life. I ask you to relieve me of the fears that come with this mortal body.

Like the precision strikes of a warrior’s arrows, so are the works of the God of my understanding from within me. I am blessed with a full quiver of new life because of my connection with Gomu. Help me to walk the narrow path of my own individuation that gives permission to others to do the same.

I will not stand in my isolating selfishness, and when I meet my adversaries at the city gate of my mirror, I will not be ashamed. I will address my true wrongs, make amends, and forsake debilitating shame. Help me, Gomu, to be useful through this process.

Speaking for me, I will look expectantly to You, God of my understanding, and with confidence in You I will keep watch;

I will take this confident expectation with me today and wait for the God of my recovery of the true Self.

I know that You will hear me.

Do not rejoice over me when I suffer the tragedies of life, O my enemy!

Though I fall, I will rise;

Though I sit in the darkness of distress, the Spirit of Gomu shall be a light for me.

So be it and so say we all.