Alcoholics Anonymous | March 30 2013 | Steps In Action | Step 3 "Your Higher Power" "contingent on the day I ask and remind myself, twelve steps to improve my emotional and spiritual experience…" And in fellowship: "twelve traditions, which hold us in unity, service and recovery…" What about me!? One voice in recovery one day at a time is not enough. We all share together, experience strength and hope. And we hear our own story in the words shared by many sober people and we can have hope, and learn life as it can be today…
Video For Today:
I was listening to a documentary about survivors of cancer. Once they have the "all clear" they are discharged and given a set of recommendations. And the overwhelming news from the survivors: "people don't understand what we've been through, they don't realise that being cured, or at least in remission, life was changed forever. And we don't know how to live it." But like all professionals in any field which saves lives, resources are limited and discharge does not mean that people are equipped to deal with life after the life-saving intervention. I have enormous gratitude that two people sat together and worked out that survivors with like experiences might be able to develop a way to learn how to live life and keep safe in recovery one day at a time…
Even if we have been physically cured of something, the emotional impact is profound. All types of feelings come out after a life changing event, extreme feelings which no one really knows what to do with on a personal basis, because no one can be taught. We can know the theory, but until we are in the experience of post-traumatic shocks, seeing it from the outside, is never the same as seeing it from the inside. Even when we know the theory, practice will always be difficult at the extremes of life events. It is remarkable that there is any type of fellowship, like Alcoholics Anonymous because the survival rates into recovery have always been low and still remain so, because it is uncharted territory for the majority of humans living today…
I am powerless over alcohol and if I take a drink life will get unmanageable. I do believe that a power greater than me helps me be restored to sanity on a daily basis. Made a decision to let go and ask for help, to keep on learning the truth, love and wisdom of now, which changes all the time. Remember my self-appraisal of assets and liabilities to help me be aware (shortcomings and defects), which can be triggered on any given day. Accept the truth of who I am and willing to share it. Be aware that my liabilities of fear, pride and ego, can well up again if I am agitated. Be aware that my assets, courage to change, faith in doing the next right thing and confidence can develop by asking for help. Having made a list of amends and willing to make them and add to the list those I have forgotten. Continue to make amends, appropriately and when possible. I can stop in any moment and look at my feelings and behaviour to improve outcomes today. Pausing for reflection, meditation and prayer will improve my conscious intentions to live to the truth, love and wisdom of now. My spiritual awakening is continuous contingent on my personal awareness of my intentions and especially my actions. My actions are what people see, and sharing a message, freely given, and freely received is all part of life, one day at a time…
A desire to stop drinking: that is the only requirement suggested to be a part of the fellowship of AA, Alcoholics Anonymous. And as I often say, and my videos and in my writing, when I first got to AA, it was not under my own steam, it was a distraught family member who pushed me through the doors of a meeting many years ago. And even when I thought it was probably a good idea to go to seek professional help for my problem with drink and admit I'm an alcoholic, I still needed the approval of my family before I went. Over the years, family did not want me to be an alcoholic, and I did not want to be an alcoholic. It was entirely disagreeable to think that if they I drank like I did, was I the only one in the family? An alcoholic? Everyone is always aware that there is a level of drinking, which is seen as acceptable. And a rite of passage… I just found out the other day, that a distant family connection, a whole branch of my family, took the pledge many decades ago, because there was something wrong with the way they drank… Useful to know as a piece of history, it would have had no impact on me and my rite of passage and subsequent and headlong jump into ignorance and alcoholism…
How am I feeling today? I feel okay just now, and quite serene. It is early though, and the world is quiet in some parts, and in other parts at war with itself. The madness of being at war with oneself is something any alcoholic in recovery knows and so does the active alcoholic. The addiction is so strong and our emotional situation so bleak, that although we know the answer is to stop being at war with ourselves, we cannot stop fighting, and we cannot risk surrender without losing everything that we thought we were. Breaking habits of a lifetime, on the emotional level, the ones which suggest that we are powerful over everything can keep us in everlasting ignorance of the answer. Today it's not about power for me, and it's not about proving myself in some way to you. It is about knowing my emotional and spiritual condition, my ability to cope with what is going on today. I can make progress in the company of fellowship, family and community. By asking for help and sharing experience, strength and hope all day long. And finding out more about how to love, how to be loved back and find useful things which I enjoy and give me happiness, peace and serenity today. Of course in any given day there will be good, bad and ugly because that is life, and once we accept that life is full of good, bad and ugly bits, each bit is not a problem unless we make it so, over and over again. Life is the journey, and the destination the same for everyone…
Alcoholics Anonymous | March 30 2012 | Steps In Action | Step 3 "Your Higher Power" Today's AA daily reflection: "group conscience…" The group conscience, one of the mainstays in our anarchic democracy. Recovery is about reality, developing our emotional range which fits with reality. Life is full of passion and compassion, as we start to feel life in the moment, emotions and actions can be balanced or at the extremes. The many voices in a group conscience provide experience, strength and hope and wisdom as we find our path day by day in Fellowship…
Video For Today:
Learning with humility means we share the experience of learning. It's not about being perfect, unless it is true to say that the best way forward is always in the imperfectly perfect moment of now. Nothing stays the same, everything changes for us as individuals and for families, communities and societies. And whether we are in Fellowship or interconnected in the big world, everything is changing and not much of anything is standing still if it is to survive evolution and often revolution…
In Fellowship we are all trusted servants, and we all have ideas and preferred outcomes? And this can cause strife and difficulties. What makes Fellowship strong and able to continue to grow and develop is the passion and compassion we develop in our group conscience. And because we do not instruct or demand compliance in any way, we usually find a way forward which works for everyone and not just a few. When a faction tries to rule the majority in a group, and dictate rules, laws and regulations, the outcome is decline and dissolution. Unity service and recovery, no requirement to control, no need for exclusion, simply a desire to stop drinking and to be included offers the best way forward just for a day…
"Trust your gut!" Or in other words trust your feelings and then think about it, whatever "it" may be. In the blink of an eye, we can make our minds up about a lifetime partnership based on nature and nurture delivering us into a new relationship in a split second. That is the power of nature and nurture. Being complicated people, when we try and think it out, our thinking often takes us in another direction and then into the world of prejudice and harmful outcomes…
If we have lost or never had, or never learned what our feelings are, it can be a shock to the system to start to recognise the range of feelings we have as human beings. Often we do not have the words in our vocabulary or understanding to express our feelings clearly to those around us and this takes time to learn. Learning about our feelings, in this emotional and spiritual Fellowship is one of the greatest gifts anyone can receive…
When we drop our guard and show the world who we are, those who can help us will. Those who cannot help us, will fade away… No need to guard the inner me or pretend, at the same time it is a frightening prospect to listen to another person's reality until we actually experience our own reality and get used to learning and sharing our experience strength and hope of life just as it is today…
DonInLondon 2005-2011
Twelve steps helps us find acceptance daily and a new way of life, we still have consequences from our past ~ Gerald Jampolsky "Forgiveness means letting go of the past..." Acceptance from others is subject to their understanding, our past actions as well as current attitudes and behaviour...
Life is difficult enough, we need not make it more difficult! People are the way they are and we need find ~ Jessica Lange "Acceptance and tolerance and forgiveness, those are life-altering lessons..." So we may experience life as it is and not as we may wish!
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AA Daily Reflection: OUR GROUP CONSCIENCE “. . . sometimes the good is the enemy of the best.” ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS COMES OF AGE, p. 101 I think these words apply to every area of A.A.’s Three Legacies: Recovery, Unity and Service! I want them etched in my mind and life as I “trudge the Road of Happy Destiny” (Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 164). These words, often spoken by co-founder Bill W., were appropriately said to him as the result of the group’s conscience. It brought home to Bill W. the essence of our Second Tradition: “Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.”
Just as Bill W. was originally urged to remember, I think that in our group discussions we should never settle for the “good,” but always strive to attain the “best.” These common strivings are yet another example of a loving God, as we understand Him, expressing Himself through the group conscience. Experiences such as these help me to stay on the proper path of recovery. I learn to combine initiative with humility, responsibility with thankfulness, and thus relish the joys of living my twenty-four hour program.
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As Bill Sees It ~ In God's Economy... "In God's economy, nothing is wasted. Through failure, we learn a lesson in humility which is probably needed, painful though it is."
We did not always come closer to wisdom by reason of our virtues; our better understanding is often rooted in the pains of our former follies. Because this has been the essence of our individual experience, it is also the essence of our experience as a fellowship. 1. LETTER, 1942
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.
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Alcoholics Anonymous, 12 Steps AA, Addiction And Recovery, DonInLondon, Don Oddy,
Just For Today, and every day cherish always...
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AA Official Online Site: Daily Reflections
http://www.aa.org/lang/en/aareflections.cfm
AA Official Online Site: Big Book And Twelve And Twelve
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