Alcoholics Anonymous | Step 3 | March 16

Alcoholics Anonymous | Step 3 | March 16 |

A great privilege to hear a first chair last night. Similarities were so close and very happy to see how a common set of principles can keep us sober. As long as we do practice them! Other feelings come out as we listen, and also we get tuned into conflicts and potential disputes. Always alert these days, toes get trodden on and anger and resentments are but moments from expression, life is difficult... acceptance?

I missed a meeting yesterday and today waking up, I felt alone. Morning meditations helped me. And then contact with another human being by phone helped me feel more myself. If I know how I am feeling, and why I can make conscious contact and speak with another person... Steps 1 2 3 and serenity prayer, now feel good enough for today...

Diverse, unique and authentic, with clear similarities, in the moment of now ~ Maya Angelou "While I know myself as a creation of God, I am also obligated to realize and remember that everyone else and everything else are also God's creation." -/-

We need find our own path, understand the truth of now and find how to cherish living ~ Thomas Jefferson "Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear." -/- Fear, a brave face, ego closes us down, faith courage and confidence opens us to every possibility life affords..

In recovery it is often suggested we find our own conception of God ~ Thomas Jefferson "It does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no God." To God as you understand this day, and to thine own self, be true..

AS WE UNDERSTAND HIM MARCH 16 My friend suggested what then seemed a novel idea . . . “Why don’t you choose your own conception of God?”
That statement hit me hard. It melted the icy intellectual mountain in whose shadow I had lived and shivered many years. I stood in the sunlight at last. It was only a matter of being willing to believe in a Power greater than myself. Nothing more was required of me to make my beginning. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 12

I remember the times I looked up into the sky and reflected on who started it all, and how. When I came to A.A., an understanding of some description of the spiritual dimension became a necessary adjunct to a stable sobriety. After reading a variety of versions, including the scientific, of a great explosion, I went for simplicity and made the God of my understanding the Great Power that made the explosion possible. With the vastness of the universe under His command, He would, no doubt, be able to guide my thinking and actions if I was prepared to accept His guidance. But I could not expect help if I turned my back on that help and went my own way. I became willing to believe and I have had 26 years of stable and satisfying sobriety.

Into the fabric of recovery from alcoholism are woven the Twelve Steps and the Twelve Traditions, steps to be open honest and willing to learn, traditions to live unity service and recovery.

Spiritual principles ~ acceptance surrender faith open-mindedness honesty willingness moral-inventory amends humility persistence spiritual-growth service

Step 3 "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him" Practicing Step Three is like the opening of a door which to all appearances is still closed and locked. All we need is a key, and the decision to swing the door open. There is only one key, and it is called willingness. Once unlocked by willingness, the door opens almost of itself, and looking through it, we shall see a pathway beside which is an inscription. It reads: "This is the way to a faith that works." We find faith in doing the next right action, based on truth, love and wisdom we learn as life unfolds.

Open To Truth, Love And Wisdom of Others [we let go having to be right, self obsessed and self medicating our lives away into oblivion and harm’s way]

We find it amazing that the newcomer can start the A.A. program without any specific beliefs or, for that matter, without any beliefs whatsoever. All a person needs is the open-mindedness and the willingness to believe that WE BELIEVE this program works...

"God [it is what I understand to be God or a "Higher Power," always a personal understanding we have for ourselves, there is no AA or common understanding, simply what you believe] God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference" God is often understood to be: Truth, Love and Wisdom in the moment of now... your faith, your understanding.

Alcoholics Anonymous, DonInLondon, Life Works In Recovery, Addiction And Recovery, Alcoholic, Alcoholism

Alcoholics Anonymous | DonInLondon | Life Works In Recovery |