Daily Reprieve

From the Daily Reflections of October 23;

“Shoemaker, stick to thy last!” . . . better do one thing supremely well than many badly. That is the central theme of this Tradition [Five]. Around it our Society gathers in unity. The very life of our Fellowship requires the preservation of this principle.   (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 150)

The survival of A.A. depends upon unity. What would happen if a group decided to become an employment agency, a treatment center or a social service agency? Too much specialization leads to no specialization, to frittering of efforts and, finally, to decline. I have the qualifications to share my sufferings and my way of recovery with the newcomer. Conformity to A.A.’s primary purpose ensures the safety of the wonderful gift of sobriety, so my responsibility is enormous. The life of millions of alcoholics is closely tied to my competence in “carrying the message to the still-suffering alcoholic.”

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The Fifth Tradition of AA states, “Each group has but one primary purpose—to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.”

For me, there are two implications of this tradition for the individual member of AA.  The first is that the multitude of personal desires and other goals that come with a very active ego must be extinguished within the recovery rooms.  I cannot proselytize for my religion or system of belief within the rooms.  I cannot focus on improving my finances or fulfilling relationship desires.  I cannot bring into the rooms my personal political schemes.  I began to learn this lesson early in my sobriety.  I remember in one meeting, a beautiful young woman came up and sat in the chair next to me.  There were other empty seats.  Her leg touched mine.  I was attracted and she could hardly keep still in her seat.  I interpreted that she was also feeling the energy.  I determined that after the meeting, I would talk to her and if nothing developed, give her my number.  What a great meeting this was going to be.  Then she shared with the group that she really needed a meeting because afterwards she was going to go visit a friend who had been drinking and driving and was in the hospital after  a car accident.  The intoxicated driver’s friend in the passenger seat had been killed and she was going to have to tell him about it.  I was horrified at how inappropriate my self-interest would have been that night.

So, I do not pursue sisters in recovery.  I am open to a relationship if I and the other are fairly free of the duress of the addiction and have found a way of emotional-spiritual stability and growth.  For me now, going after females who have just entered the room is akin to recovery rape.  The girl is not capable of giving clear-headed consent to interaction.    This goes the other way as well.  Women who go after new males in recovery are threatening their lives.  This is the primary area of self-interest I sacrifice in the rooms.  There are others.

The second implication for me as an individual member is that it is expected and needed for my sobriety to always hold top place in my list of personal priorities in my day to day living.  Words alone will not provide a saving message to other alcoholics or addicts.  They must be reinforced by example in order to have the needed substance to truly share experience, strength, and hope.

Art Credit:  Demon of Lust by KJ Kallio

From the Daily Reflections of October 22;

Finally, we begin to see that all people, including ourselves, are to some extent emotionally ill as well as frequently wrong, and then we approach true tolerance and see what real love for our fellows actually means.   (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 92)

The thought occurred to me that all people are emotionally ill to some extent. How could we not be? Who among us is spiritually perfect? Who among us is physically perfect? How could any of us be emotionally perfect? Therefore, what else are we to do but bear with one another and treat each other as we would be treated in similar circumstances? That is what love really is.

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For me, the worst thing about death of some one loved is the dismissal of significance.  When my mother died in 2006, the significance of who she is was relinquished to the vault of memory.  I found it unbearable to take during a time when my faith in anything beyond organic life was gone.  In the funeral procession, I was crushed by the weight of loss of this important connection in my life.  Then I saw that a man driving a log truck had pulled over to the side of the road, and I looked to see that he had dismounted his vehicle and stood outside with his hat off and hand over his heart.  His face is forever burned in my mind.  He gave to me what no religion could. His respect transferred dignity to my mother.

Real love is the assertion of the significance of life.  Dignity is what we do to embrace our own lives.  Respect is what we do to give significance to others.  Love is connection which enables the growing vulnerable of intimacy.  Love is the strength of heart to interact; it is courage.  It is the opposite of apathy.  Tolerance as expressed here is not the absence of revulsion.  It is the very active search and investment in the value of one another.

What if this universal illness that makes us frequently wrong is something the Infinite One created to be overcome?  What if perfection is the way of Angels, but not the way of God?  What if God is both infinite order and infinite chaos?  What if God conspires to have a race of beings who can embrace the universal order, as do the angels (if you believe such), and the universal chaos?  What if our treatment of one another is a demonstration of our spiritual romance with Gomu?   What if God never wanted a perfect people, but instead hungered for ones who knew what it meant to overcome imperfections of all sorts?

Regardless of the what ifs, we are all in this together and are more powerful together than a part.  The closer we are to one another, the closer we are to the center of the circle.

From the Daily Reflections of October 21;

We will want the good that is in us all, even in the worst of us, to flower and to grow.   (As Bill Sees It, page 10)

With the self-discipline and insight gained from practicing Step Ten, I begin to know the gratifications of sobriety — not as mere abstinence from alcohol, but as recovery in every department of my life.

I renew hope, regenerate faith, and regain the dignity of self-respect. I discover the word “and” in the phrase “and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.”

Reassured that I am no longer always wrong, I learn to accept myself as I am, with a new sense of the miracles of sobriety and serenity.

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LOTR:  Light of Earendil

When darkness represents the various forms of self-deception, then it is a true statement for me that nothing grows in the dark.  Sanity is challenged in that kind of darkness.  Emotional stability is an unobtainable goal in that kind of darkness.  The discipline of a frequent, even daily, moral inventory thus represents a light in dark places.  In this kind of light I grow in spiritual strength, moral courage, the sanity of knowing the truth about myself, and the serenity of emotional stability becomes a progressively regular way of life.

From the Daily Reflections of October 20;

Obviously, the dilemma of the wanderer from faith is that of profound confusion. He thinks himself lost to the comfort of any conviction at all. He cannot attain in even a small degree the assurance of the believer, the agnostic, or the atheist. He is the bewildered one.   (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 28)

The concept of God was one that I struggled with during my early years of sobriety. The images that came to me, conjured from my past, were heavy with fear, rejection and condemnation. Then I heard my friend Ed’s image of a Higher Power: As a boy he had been allowed a litter of puppies, provided that he assume responsibility for their care. Each morning he would find the unavoidable “byproducts”of the puppies on the kitchen floor. Despite frustration, Ed said he couldn’t get angry because”that’s the nature of puppies.” Ed felt that God viewed our defects and shortcomings with a similar understanding and warmth. I’ve often found solace from my personal confusion in Ed’s calming concept of God.

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My loss of faith opened the door to my alcoholism.  In my post-marital apocalypse that ensued after 2003, I no longer believed there was anything beyond death.  It was a sickening epiphany to live out.  As the character Graham Hess in the movie Signs said, “deep down, they feel that whatever happens, they’re on their own. And that fills them with fear.”  That was my lot.  I felt ashamed that I had trustingly brought two beautiful children into a world that would eventually exterminate them.  My self-awareness only tormented me and all loving relationships were tragedies waiting to happen.  Neither agnosticism nor atheism provided comfort or guidance.  I found it as foolish as religion.  I wished that my state of mind could simply have been described as confusion.  Everyday was a replay of the same horror.  I was so grateful for the oblivion of alcohol.

I was sent to rehab and confronted with the prospect that I either reconnect with a Higher Power or I die tragically.  I am amazed that the program was able to escort me out of that black hole universe and restore to me a faith that is so much more real and effective.  And I am grateful for it.

Artwork:  Wanderer above the Sea of Fog

From the Daily Reflections of October 19;

The principle that we shall find no enduring strength until we first admit complete defeat is the main taproot from which our whole Society has sprung and flowered.   (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, pages 21 – 22)

Defeated, and knowing it, I arrived at the doors of A.A., alone and afraid of the unknown. A power outside of myself had picked me up off my bed, guided me to the phone book, then to the bus stop, and through the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous. Once inside A.A. I experienced a sense of being loved and accepted, something I had not felt since early childhood. May I never lose the sense of wonder I experienced on that first evening with A.A., the greatest event of my entire life.

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The greatest events of my entire life are found as a result of my interactive union with a Higher Power.  My personal mythology has evolved over time, but there has been an entity out there that we humans have called God.  It is a place-holder name for the Infinite All just as Zero is the place-holder name for the infinite nothing.  We assign other names based on our personal experience with that which works the best to foster our relationship with the Infinite One.

The contributor to this Daily Reflection looks at that first evening with A.A. as the greatest event of his entire life.  I have no such singular event.  My infant children’s heads resting with complete trust upon my shoulder as I walk about to help them sleep is burned deeply in my heart and comes close to being exalted among the greatest events of my life.  This event was the result of faith in a God that loves family.  Yet, when I felt that I had lost all including precious faith, I wrestled with God like Jacob, and I did it in the rooms of AA.  Although I walked away limping, I found GOMU (God of my understanding).  I can now see that this simple faith is with the Infinite One that loves my sanity and encourages a very pragmatic morality to protect my heart.  A.A. is my Peniel.

From the Daily Reflections of October 18;

True humility and an open mind can lead us to faith, . . .   (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 33)

My alcoholic thinking led me to believe that I could control my drinking, but I couldn’t. When I came to A.A., I realized that God was speaking to me through my group. My mind was open just enough to know that I needed His help. A real, honest acceptance of A.A. took more time, but with it came humility. I know how insane I was, and I am extremely grateful to have my sanity restored to me and to be a sober alcoholic. The new, sober me is a much better person than I ever could have been without A.A.

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 Photographer:  Open Source, unable to locate.

Finding myself in trouble for things that only a stupid or insane person would do was my first humiliating admission.  It was a slight crack in the door of my double life.  My self-deception was the primary core of my alcoholic insanity.  I relate to the progressive acquisition of sanity that was the result of my participation in A.A. and I have become less susceptible to the dominating deception that mind-altering strategies found in any addictive behavior will improve my life.  Even if I give way to the lure of perpetual intensity, I know it to be self-deception.  For me it is the choice of seeking lighting bolt experiences or oak tree growth.  That choice is no longer hidden from me.  I am better as an AA oak than an alcoholic burst.

Photo Credit: Jeannine of Garden Envy

From the Daily Reflections of October 17;

Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God’s will into all of our activities.   (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 85)

How do I maintain my spiritual condition? For me it’s quite simple: on a daily basis I ask my Higher Power to grant me the gift of sobriety for that day! I have talked to many alcoholics who have gone back to drinking and I always ask them: “Did you pray for sobriety the day you took your first drink?” Not one of them said yes. As I practice Step Ten and try to keep my house in order on a daily basis, I have the knowledge that if I ask for a daily reprieve, it will be granted.

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It seems to me, that the contributor is trying to help those who relapsed to find their part in it, as well as how to maintain distance from the relapse.  Finding my part in something that happens to me is not the same as holding or being held accountable for a crime committed in a Life’s court.  I am not turning myself over to the authorities for my misdeeds.  I am going back to a place where I have experienced failure and seeking out something, anything, where I played a part in my tragedy.  In the recovery program, this skill is the beginning of overcoming areas of personal powerlessness.  The vision of God’s will in all my activities is the vindication and power of GOMU (God of my understanding) in my life.  It begins with a daily habit of discovering my part, useful or useless, and letting it catalyze my internal power to live and prosper.

From the Daily Reflections of October 16;

This is not an overnight matter. It should continue for our lifetime.   (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 84)

During my early years in A.A. I saw Step Ten as a suggestion that I periodically look at my behavior and reactions. If there was something wrong, I should admit it; if an apology was necessary, I should give one. After a few years of sobriety I felt I should undertake a self-examination more frequently. Not until several more years of sobriety had elapsed did I realize the full meaning of Step Ten, and the word “continued.” “Continued” does not mean occasionally, or frequently. It means each day.

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I have worked the steps four or five times and each time I have gone deeper and found something I missed before.  This last time, I actually finished my ninth step completely.  I realized that because I viewed the last three steps as maintenance steps, I did not believe them to be mission essential.  They were good ideas that I approached with the mindless performance of brushing my teeth or cooking or laundry.   They were chores that required discipline and consistency but would do nothing to improve life, just maintain it.  This has been particularly true of the tenth step.  Now that I have actually developed a system for working it, I am making more discoveries about myself and using the subsequent transformations to live life more powerfully.   The maintenance of step ten is to keep climbing upward in the way I live my life.  It is not the maintenance of the flat line ritualistic performance I accepted in active alcoholism as my highest achievement.   Devotion to step ten is easier when I realize positive growth one day at a time.

From the Daily Reflections of October 15;

Gossip barbed with our anger, a polite form of murder by character assassination, has its satisfactions for us, too. Here we are not trying to help those we criticize; we are trying to proclaim our own righteousness.   (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 67)

Sometimes I don’t realize that I gossiped about someone until the end of the day, when I take an inventory of the day’s activities, and then, my gossiping appears like a blemish in my beautiful day. How could I have said something like that? Gossip shows its ugly head during a coffee break or lunch with business associates, or I may gossip during the evening, when I’m tired from the day’s activities, and feel justified in bolstering my ego at the expense of someone else.

Character defects like gossip sneak into my life when I am not making a constant effort to work the Twelve Steps of recovery. I need to remind myself that my uniqueness is the blessing of my being, and that applies equally to everyone who crosses my path in life’s journey. Today the only inventory I need to take is my own. I’ll leave judgment of others to the Final Judge — Divine Providence.

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There are two individual attributes that are discussed in this contribution that, when I perceive them threatened, I might react with gossip; my righteousness and my uniqueness.  If I am righteous, I am justified in the power placed in my hands.  If I am unique in this culture of mass production, I have demonstrated the value of my individuality.  I can lift myself higher than my peers as more righteous and unique by seeking personal excellence or by attacking those who threaten my current claims.  I say ‘or’ because I believe they are mutually exclusive propositions.  Those who pursue excellence give others the permission and encouragement to do the same.  They are inclusive in their upward climb.  The treacherous gossiper cannot build long term trust in relationships and his exclusiveness pushes him toward isolating selfishness.  The tenth step can allow me to see the logical conclusion of my current actions and alter course before the painful tragedy ensnares my life.  The path of inclusive empowerment requires a personal inventory rather that overrides a personal hit-list.

From the Daily Reflections of October 14;

When we retire at night, we constructively review our day. . . . On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. . . . Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives.   (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 86)

I lacked serenity. With more to do than seemed possible, I fell further behind, no matter how hard I tried. Worries about things not done yesterday and fear of tomorrow’s deadlines denied me the calm I needed to be effective each day. Before taking Steps Ten and Eleven, I began to read passages like the one cited above. I tried to focus on God’s will, not my problems, and to trust that He would manage my day. It worked! Slowly, but it worked!

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It is really pathetic when I try to manage the results of life.  I am filled with stress and I view people as things to be managed and manipulated.  I am filled with self-judgment in failing to express the unquestionable authority and infinite power necessary to fulfill such expectations.  My designated area of living is to perform tasks as revealed through my connection with God and other life representatives.  I do tasks.  Gomu (God of my understanding) does results.  I perform tasks effectively when I stay connected.  This is simple enough for me to hook in.  It does work.  I need this simple vigilance to embrace the task and release the results.

(Unable to locate artist for image – viral on internet with no credit)