Alcoholics Anonymous Blog/Video August 29 DonInLondon Step 8 "Amends And Willing"
August 29, 2013: "it is a mad mad world!" A film some time back with the actor Peter Finch, "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more!" Feels like the world is in one of those moments, needing to do something to put something right and yet the evidence is incomplete, and we have not got a mandate to do it. And yet for years we have been driven mad wanting a change for the good and yet unable to find a way. Or the way is blocked by something somewhere beyond our control.
The dawning of a new age in recovery, seeing the madness in the world and also seeing just how difficult it is to influence people to change. As we start to get sober, feel better in the moment of now, we see the madness of doing the same things over and over again and expecting a different result. That is why nations find themselves in conflict with each new generation having to learn what it is to be grown up. Rock bottom as an individual is devastating, rock bottom as a nation is a blight on humanity. Personal principles and ethics are something we learn as we grow up, or something we ignore because we are mad as hell and we won't stand for it any more and we need to get the job done. We forget to win hearts and minds.
Sobriety has taught me to apply the principles of the program to the way I live, twelve steps and twelve traditions which are timeless in the main and almost agreeable? Some traditions written in haste when the world was in a different state, where self prejudice and fear shaped some outlooks. As we come of age as a Fellowship and we feel more confident in personal recovery and in the understanding of recovery is a Fellowship, almost everything changes very subtly to a more open, honest and willing outlook. As we approach times where transparency, seeking truth, with love in our hearts and learning the wisdom of life, we have nothing to hide in the moment of now.
Learning to live to the truth of now, coping with reality. This is the emotional and spiritual journey for every human. The emotional and spiritual journey includes everything, and everyone. No matter what belief system or non-belief system, no matter where we come from, if we have integrity and truth, we start to understand our motivations and feelings in the moment of now. And when driven to extremes of feeling, our motivations and our actions most often need pause for thought. Cooling extreme feelings and understanding the consequences of actions in the heat of the moment is an imperative or we can lose everything in blind fury and justifiable anger.
"When war is declared, Truth is the first casualty." On a personal level when we are at war and in battle with ourselves, truth is the first casualty. Ask anyone about denial in recovery, actually when it comes to recent times I have not heard much about denial in recovery in our meetings round here. Somehow it seems like it's forgotten, that the truth was lost about our condition because denial kept it hidden. When a person closes down the borders and hides, the same can be true of Nations on either side in a conflict where denial makes truth almost impossible to find. To thine own self be true, this is the starting point at the beginning of the day, and therein lies the key to serenity. What we can do and cannot do and the wisdom to know the difference one day at a time.
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