Alcoholics Anonymous Blog November 15 2014 "Truth Love Wisdom”
Prayer and meditation to whatever higher power you understand is so important. I wake up in the morning, sometimes very early due to insomnia. It's not that my head is full of thoughts which caused me grief, it simply that I have always been an insomniac, and then it's a choice what to do next. Dale Carnegie, he suggested, "If you cannot sleep, best to get up and do something useful." Most days this is fine, in the grip of the illness of addiction and alcoholism, this was not fine, trying to find oblivion by whatever means possible.
Over 7 billion people on the planet, and every single person comes to believe in something, and this is the basis of faith. I still find myself troubled, or used to find myself troubled by trying to understand God as you see it. My first step in understanding a higher power was made easy, realising if I were not God and you weren't either, between you and me, understanding the truth of now is made possible by sharing experience strength and hope. Surrendering to the truth shared by the many through experience strength and hope, is my way of understanding how God works through people. The experience strength and hope leads to wisdom as we find the truth of now. And the truth of now might be agreeable or disagreeable, it still remains the truth if truth is shared.
So many meetings in recent days, and seeing many people I have not seen for a long time. The good fortune of many meetings in my local area means I hear experience strength and hope from many individuals on a daily basis. Recently, I have also been focused on family matters, my mother has been very ill, and is still very fragile and in need of further medical treatment. This can weigh heavy on one's mind, even though I know the can do and cannot do around my mum being ill. She is as frustrated as anyone about her situation, and sometimes long conversations can be very helpful for her and for me. I worry less knowing she is still breathing. And meetings help me find balance in my outlook. Sober first and then I can work out the can do and cannot do today, and also ask for help when I feel unable to absorb or work through the feelings I have. Not morbid at all, sometimes feelings are just overwhelming and take time to live through and then cope as life changes.
Understanding this emotional and spiritual journey is about coping with reality and when we cannot cope we share and listen and ask. And often the answers come about our own circumstances from listening when we can, and listening can be very difficult when we are focused on our own issues today. Prayer and meditation help: prayer to look outwards, meditation to reflect on the priorities today. Clarity comes when we routinely look outwards, and then understand the priorities with a quiet mind.
When somebody asks me, "how are you feeling?" I often ponder for a moment before responding. Sometimes I hear people share that they are 150% great. A superhuman response. The brain capacity that we all have works at 100% all the time. Something we are forgetful about or misunderstand how emotional and spiritual works, feelings fitting the moment of now. Overworking our pride, ego and fear means we are not able to function with courage faith and confidence. And as each emotion rises and falls depending on our circumstances, we are working harder in one emotional area than another. And we can learn how our feelings are fitting in the moment of now, an angry encounter will reduce serenity to nil very quickly, and it can take a while to bounce back. That's life.
Paranoia came up this morning as a topic. Compared to the olden days of active addiction, paranoia in recovery can still occur but never the same levels under the influence. Unless of course somebody is out to get you, and then paranoia has its place. Fortunately, within Fellowship we can share about it, and maybe someone somewhere may have a useful suggestion. Not always in our time, but hopefully in time to help find our path to a better day, even if it is just for today.
Step Eleven Reading 12 & 12
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