UNLESS the God of my understanding builds my home, it is futility for me to build in isolation.
UNLESS the God of my understanding guards the city of my birth, no security system will keep it safe.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
One gift of being a longtime Al-Anon member is that I have accumulated a large supply of healthy, positive experiences which remind me that my Higher Power is worthy of my trust. Although I have faced many challenges and difficulties over the years, my Higher Power has never let me down. This hasn’t prevented me from having problems; if that had been the case, I would have missed out on life-changing lessons I might not have learned any other way. Instead, I was given challenges and opportunities – but never more that I could handle. Even when I feared that my circumstances were too much for me, help, guidance, and comfort were always there.
Today when I encounter a crisis, I have no need to fear. My own experience teaches me that I can rely on a Power greater than myself to help me through whatever happens. At first, I had to “act as if” I believed that I’d be cared for. But each time I took this risk, I observed the results. Again and again, my Higher Power stepped in to help. I have never once regretted my decision to trust.
Today’s Reminder
Each day is an opportunity to build a supply of positive experiences. Today I will take note of what happens when I trust my Higher Power.
“By far the best proof is experience.”
~ Francis Bacon
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Francis Bacon and the English monarch of the time, King James I, both were pedophiles by today’s standards. Bacon is considered the Father of Empiricism and the Bible project under the reign of his King created a source authority for the Christian Protestant religions, the King James Bible. There is some pretty significant evidence that both of these men used young boys for sexual satisfaction. When Bacon was 45, he took a 13-year-old bride, Alice Barnham. So, the quoted assertion that the best proof is experience takes a bit of a twisted turn in my own mind. These fathers of science and religion had achieved what Joe Rogan calls “escape velocity” in any attempts to hold them accountable at the time. There is also the distinct possibility that there is some character assassination that has integrated itself into the historical record. But when I see the quote by Francis Bacon, my mind causes it to transform:
“My consuming lust was to experience their bodies.”
~ Jeffery Dahmer
I have experiences with seeking the Higher Power that honors the big picture of reality and sometimes disregards the significance of the individual, such as the death of my infant son in Augsburg Germany, the post-marital apocalypse of divorce for words that I wrote in a journal, the death of my stepson, the robbing of my own childhood development, and the witch hunt betrayal of church leaders. I have acceptance issues.
Out of these horrendous events in my life, I have seen “lost child” introspection develop into writing skill and depth of thought. I have experienced a heart of empathy for those that suffer but fight to live. I have seen the chaos storm of “life’s terms” free me from social constraints allowing me to become open to something more useful than scientific nihilism and religious dogma. I have found the God of my own understanding only after surrendering to alcoholic isolation to weather the big picture of God’s will.
I have experienced something genuine in the spiritual pursuit encouraged in the recovery rooms of the 12 Step program. Something out there does seem to give damn about us. But I have a healthy respect for the cruelty of the big picture psychopathy of my Higher Power. I have been in the military and know that the mission outweighs the significance of individuals on the battlefield. The only path of sanity in such circumstances is acceptance of big picture cruelty as one of life’s terms. When such a time comes, we most hold on to one another and be better than our God to each other. Later we may understand. And I will continue to seek conscious contact, because, for the most part, it works in making me a better person.
“Tyger, Tyger, burning bright, in the forests of the night, …Did he who made the Lamb make thee?”
A longtime member says, “An expectation is a premeditated resentment.” I take this statement to suggest that when I have a resentment I can look to my expectations for a probable source.
Here’s an example: I have a brother who is less attentive to being prompt than I am. When I make a plan with him that involves meeting at a certain time, I am cooperating in establishing conditions that encourage me to nurse a resentment. On the other hand, when I make a plan with my brother that is based on no expectation of promptness, I feel no resentment.
Today’s Reminder
I have the right to choose my own standards of conduct, but I do not have the right or the power to impose those standards on others.
“I have accepted myself and I’m beginning to accept other people the way they are each day. Now I have fewer resentments.”
~ Living with Sobriety
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I would say that an expectation that goes against established experience is a resentment waiting to happen. I do have a right to seek reciprocated respect. When someone proves that they are incapable of personal integrity in their interaction with me, resentment comes when I take no action to care about myself. Their word, their expression of Self, is weak and corruptive. Nursing a resentment is weak and corruptive on my part.
I have no expectations of a corpse. I have very little expectations of a stranger. The more intimate a relationship becomes, the more I seek reciprocated respected. Resentments, I believe, come from my inactivity and whining more than from expectations. I could be wrong. I have been before. I don’t think I am.
Legends have often told of spiritual journeys in which the hero must face great challenges before gaining treasure at the journey’s end. As the heroes of our own stories, we in Al-Anon have also embarked upon a spiritual journey – one of self-discovery.
With the help of our program and the support of our fellowship, we explore our hidden motives, secrets, buried memories, and unrecognized talents. As we draw upon the wisdom of Al-Anon’s Steps, principles, and tools, we learn to overcome obstacles to personal growth, such as the effects of alcoholism and a variety of defects of character.
We are guided on this journey by a Power greater than ourselves, but the steps we take must be our own. Only by facing the darkness can we receive the treasure – the light and joy of emerging released from all that has held us back.
Today’s Reminder
Self-knowledge is the path to personal freedom. The Steps give me directions and help me to cope with anything I encounter along the way.
” The world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles . . . only by a spiritual journey . . . by which we arrive at the ground at our feet, and learn to be at home.”
~ Wendell Berry
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The above diagram shows my inner onion of mental and emotional challenges that often manifest in defects of character. Any one of the outer circles could trip a self-destructive reaction. I used to say that my inner child would go radioactive. Once I had activated my alcoholism, I could not see any of this. All I knew was that I needed to quit feeling what I was feeling. I needed to find a way to separate myself from the radiation pouring out of my inner core. It has taken me 17 years and so many alcoholic relapses to create the above chart in my mind.
The voices of my early development have not yet gone and may never. But I can better see the true from the false. When someone in the Fellowship “calls me on my shit,” I am able to stop and see if that is valid. I do not automatically embrace criticism. I become an advocate for that little boy I have hidden away. There are people in recovery who have stopped drinking or have better relationships with their family, but who have not peeled away their own onion. They might project their internal coping mechanisms into my life. They have learned to lock their inner child away in the downstairs basement and believe that telling me to do so as well is part of recovery. It took me seventeen years to come to this level of clarity, and most people are not willing to do that much work. I can understand why. But I cannot stay sober without doing so.
Ebby Thatcher should have been listed as one of the co-founders of AA, in my opinion. He was not because the program was designed to help overcome alcoholism and he kept suffering relapses. He continued to struggle but died sober. If you are having problems staying sober even while working the Steps, I would suspect that you have some onion peeling to do. You are really going to have to know who you are, and that is not easy if you have spent a lifetime burying your inner child. If you need someone to talk to, email me and I will encourage you to do what you need to do.
As a result of living in a household where alcohol was abused, the concept of being gentle with myself was foreign. What was familiar was striving for perfection and hating myself whenever I fell short of my goals.
I first heard, “Be gentle with yourself,” at an Al-Anon meeting. I had a hard time with the idea until I put my imagination to work. I pictured myself finding a kitten and holding it in my cupped hands. I imagined the feelings I might have toward this sweet creature — tenderness, patience compassion, wonder, and love. I quickly put myself in the kitten’s place and focused all of those gentle feelings in my own direction. It worked!
As I have grown in Al-Anon, I have come to see that my Higher Power holds me in the same gentle way–protecting me, guiding me, and loving me every day.
Today’s Reminder
If I am being hard on myself, I can stop and remember that I deserve gentleness and understanding from myself. Being human is not a character defect! Today I will be gentle with my humanness.
“The question is not what a man can scorn, or disparage, or find fault with, but what he can love, and value, and appreciate.”
~ John Ruskin
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The greatest care I knew to give myself was to find ways to enter oblivion. No more ridiculous expectations. No more vacuum-packed living. No more embracing of titles only a child would not be embarrassed to accept. That was me being gentle with myself. That was me being a very ill informed third parent as I moved into adult life. The Twelve Step program and the AA / Al-Anon fellowships helped me to recognize that I was responsible for the little one within my core. Today I enter the placenta of this Earthbound spiritual gestation and seek to make sure that precious fetus of self-awareness receives from me what my family of origin simply could not give. It is time to recreate my life.
Worry and fear can alter our perceptions until we lose all sense of reality, twisting neutral situations into nightmares. Because most worry focuses on the future, if we can learn to stay in the present, living one day or one moment at a time, we take positive steps toward warding off the effects of fear.
In the past, many of us tried to anticipate all possible disastrous outcomes so that we would be prepared to protect ourselves. But today, our program, our fellowship, and a Higher Power allow us to view this self-protectiveness more objectively. When we anticipate doom, we lose touch with what is happening now and see the world as a threatening place against which we must be on constant alert.
Most of our fears will never come to pass, and if they do, foreknowledge probably won’t make us any better prepared. But as we grow in faith, self-esteem, and trust in our Higher Power, we become capable of doing for ourselves what our anticipations could never achieve – taking appropriate action in any situation.
Today’s Reminder
Today I will recognize that worries can be potent and mind-altering. I choose not to indulge in them at all.
“I am not afraid of storms for I am learning how to sail my ship.”
~ Louisa May Alcott
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Miss Alcott faced her family’s financial problems with a desire never to be poor. She inherited an inclination toward perfection from her parent’s transcendentalism. Her mother equated the family’s poverty with the inequality between the genders. Miss Alcott never married and became a (first wave) feminist. She was also an abolitionist and a nurse in the Union Army during the War for Southern Independence. She indeed saw storms in her time.
But more than anything, she was an individual. Her writing helped her claim that reality. Most writers do what they do out of necessity as much as desire. Her developing individuality helped her claim her gift, because she was ready to let it claim her. The causes that she embraced were necessary for the exaltation of the individual. It only makes sense that she would be drawn to them.
The Twelve Step program helps me to recognize that I am so much more than a member of this group or that one. I am an individual and my manifestation as such will embolden others. When groups are dominant, individuality becomes a crime. The manifested individual produces the positive freedom that justifies the negative freedom produced by a group. Worry is the abdication of the individual to the demands of the group, whether it be family, religion, or government. If the individual feels the need to hide, the group has become an oppressor.
I have heard it said that the only valid comparisons are between myself as I am and myself as I used to be. When I think of Step Two and of being restored to sanity, such a comparison comes to mind.
I remember an incident some twenty years ago in which I was riding my motorcycle to a meditation class. I was late and in a big hurry to arrive on time. Right outside the meeting place I crashed my bike. My attempts to force solutions, to rush to an encounter with serenity, had failed. Did I feel contrite? Not exactly. Even then, I felt the irony of rushing to meditation, but mainly I felt angry that the town had failed to maintain the road on which I was riding. Rather than taking responsibly for my own haste and carelessness, I blamed others and saw myself as a victim. I did not feel thankful to have survived; I felt angry that I had been roughed up and thrown off schedule.
Today’s Reminder
Looking back, I see many examples of the grace of a Power greater than myself at work in my life. I see progress in being restored to sanity, and I am increasingly confident that my progress will continue.
“Our business in life is not to get ahead of other people, but to get ahead of ourselves.”
~ Maltbie D. Babcock
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Rev. Babcock was a Presbyterian minister and an American writer. He was known for his intelligence and oration. He battled depression, and was, at one point, hospitalized for this condition. He spent four weeks in a sanitarium in Danville, New York for “nervous prostration.” He visited the Holy Land a decade later and on his return trip, he and some of his associates contracted Mediterranean Fever, now known as brucellosis, which is known to cause depression. He ingested mercuric chloride and slit his wrists and died at 42. His wife published one of his poems after his death that has since became a Christian hymn, called, “My Father’s World.” He and his wife had two children, both of which died in infancy.
His wife lived on to be 86 years of age. If not for her, her husband’s writings would not have survived his suicide. If not for her, the Christian hymn would not have been preserved. Her name was Katherine Elliot Babcock (nee Tallman). I have found no significant biography on her life.
I have heard that it is a fallacy of logic to dismiss the message because of the failings of the messenger. I have also read that the Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche believed you have to consider the messenger in conjunction with the message. I’m not sure which camp I sit in. If you are preaching and teaching about a way to live that you yourself cannot live, should I trust the burden of these words in my life?
Maybe it is best just to share one’s experience and let the listener chose what is best for themselves.
I suppose Rev. Babcock left it to his wife to live out the Step Two ideals he invertedly wrote about. If you hear harshness in my words, it comes from my heart for the apparently devoted wife he decided to leave behind.
Here are a few more quotes from Rev. Babcock:
“to have failed is to have striven, to have striven is to have grown.”
“Opportunities do not come with their values stamped upon them. Everyone must be challenged. A day dawns, quite like other days; in it, a single hour comes, quite like other hours; but in that day and in that hour the chance of a lifetime faces us.”
~ Maltbie D. Babcock
I suspect he missed a “chance of a lifetime” on the return trip from the Holy Land, there in Italy, with associates he could have reached out to.
There have been days when many of us felt that good times would never come again. After so many disappointments, it seemed too painful to continue to hope. We shut our hearts and minds to our dreams and stopped expecting to find happiness. We weren’t happy, but at least we wouldn’t be let down anymore.
Caring, hoping, wanting — these are risky. But as we recover from the effects of alcoholism, we may find that the risks are worth taking. In time, it may not be enough to simply avoid disappointment; we want more; we want rich, full, exciting lives with joy as well as sorrow. Just finding the willingness to believe that joy can exist in our lives today can be very challenging, but until we make room in our hearts for good times, we may not recognize them when they arrive.
Nobody is happy all the time, but all of us are capable of feeling good. We deserve to allow ourselves to experience every bit of joy life has to offer.
Today’s Reminder
I will not let fear of disappointment prevent me from enjoying this day. I have a great capacity for happiness.
“I want to grow in my willingness to make room in my life for good times, having faith in their arrival and patience in my anticipation.”
~ Living with Sobriety
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I have no investment in notions of feeling good. Feelings are what fall off of me while I am moving, pushing forward in life. They are the breeze that comes through the open window of my vehicle. For me, emotions are the most deceptive of guides. They only become relevant if I can dominate them and use them to support the vital plans of my daily living.
Now, intuitive connection across the Veil of life and death is magical. That sense of life beyond the frivolous mundanity is where I am invested. Emotions tend to make their home in my autonomic nervous system, like my beating heart and regular breathing. That is the animal of my life. That is the impulse of biology.
But there is a space between stimulus and response in the human psyche. It can and should be expanded. It is the place where freedom is forged. In that place, I can slow down enough to listen to Infinity and translate that to a properly employed will. It is why I was created with a frontal cortex and a somatic nervous system.
“Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives. Under these conditions we can employ our mental faculties with assurance. For after all, God gave us brains to use.”
“Anything worth doing,” goes a slightly cockeyed version of the old saying “is worth doing badly.” Perfectionism, procrastination, and paralysis are three of the worst effects of alcoholism upon my life.
I have a tendency to spend my life waiting for the past to change. I want to spend the first hundred years of my life getting all the kinks ironed out and the next hundred years actually living. Such an inclination to avoid taking risks, to avoid doing anything badly, has prevented me from doing some of the things I enjoy the most, and it has kept me from the regular practice that produces progress.
If I’m unwilling to perform a task badly, I can’t expect to make progress toward learning to do it well. The only task that I can pretend to perform perfectly is the one that I have left entirely undone.
Today’s Reminder
Al-Anon encourages me to take risks and to think of life not as a command performance but as a continuing series of experiments from which I learn more about living.
“All the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.”
~ James Russell Lowell
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Living a life dancing around emotional tripwires has definitely led to the second-guessing of my intent of will. And yet, doesn’t the Twelve Step program show us the importance of evaluating our motives? How do I separate these two similar roads that lead to very different lives?
For me, I have to slow down and move away from living (or not living) life on impulse. It can be impulsive to withdraw or to immediately apologize for something my broken guilt-o-meter misidentifies as wrong. The plan is everything for me. There are specific times and places to look back over my day, a day that I took the courage to live. I find the correct ways to use my will as identified in the program, moving slow enough to make my mind more effective. Over time, I can make on the spot corrections based on habitual, planned, self-evaluations. But in the beginning, I need to be free to make on the spot errors to learn. I cannot grow into life with an atrophied soul.
An Al-Anon meeting is where I am most likely to get an honest answer to the question, “How are you?” This is refreshing to me, because for a long time my only possible answer to this question was, “I’m fine, how are you?” — even when I wasn’t fine at all.
Denial is a symptom of the effects of alcoholism. Just as alcoholics often deny their drinking problems, many of us who have been affected by this disease deny our problems as well. Although we may have been living in chaos, worried about our families, full of self-doubt, and spiritually, emotionally, and physically depleted, many of us learned to pretend that everything was just fine.
Today it is important for me to be in an environment in which honesty is practiced. I don’t necessarily launch into a detailed description of my woes or my joys — but when asked how I’m doing, I try to ask myself what the real answer is. This frees me from the habit of denial and gives me choices.
Today’s Reminder
How do I feel today? How am I doing? If I can answer those questions truthfully, I am more likely to pursue the help I need and to share the happy times with others as well.
“We can say what we mean only if we have the courage to be honest with ourselves and with others.”
~ The Dilemma of the Alcoholic Marriage
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Those of us who have experienced intimate betrayal, the witch hunt of religious organizations delving into private writings, and the prejudice of a judicial system aiding in the kidnapping of one’s children, know that a person’s honesty can be forged into a devastating weapon.
The anonymity of the Twelve Step program was essential in finding a safe place to evaluate my own motives and learn to trust again. The principle of being honest, truthful, and genuine is a hard-won prize in recovery and can only be fostered with others you know are truthfully invested in the well-being of its members. Not everyone can be trusted with our vulnerability. But I absolutely need to be honest with myself and with others who live in self-benefiting altruism. Those who claim to be offering aid self-sacrificially are a threat. If I am able to be honest with myself, I can choose to be honest with others. And I can choose who those others are.
Daily Reprieve 
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