Alcoholics Anonymous Blog November 25 2014 "Truth Love Wisdom”
Video November 25 Video
How to love, how to be loved back, and then the understanding between who people are and their behaviour. I still feel sad that somebody felt I hated them, and it was only when I was able to open the door to that misunderstanding that friendship can happen. Love people, love their behaviour? This can happen. Love people, dislike their behaviour? This is so often the case or we wouldn't feel the hurt or the exclusion going on.
Love is the deepest emotion. Love of another takes many forms. From lover and romance which may be unconditional, to unconditional love for people we know in family, community and society. And there will be many people we love, and we love their behaviour. And there will be many people we love and at the same time find ourselves confounded by their behaviour.
In active addiction, drinking because there was no other way of surviving self harm, there is no love for oneself or for other people in the truest possible way. Self harm, self medication into oblivion takes away all remnants we might have to love other people unconditionally. We still have love for them and we are often confounded by our own inability to connect with anyone in a meaningful way whilst under the influence of something which is controlling what we do day in and day out. And addiction has no boundaries, we might try to stop one thing and then find ourselves hooked into something else to ease the intolerable pain which never seems to go away.
Learning to love oneself enough, learning how to stop the destructive behaviour and restart, is a revolutionary act, and for myself, I needed to trust and accept the inevitable pain which had to come, taking away the self-harm and self-medication. Or did I just hate myself enough to give recovery and sobriety a go? Facing death was not enough until I realised that life could really get no worse. And asking for help, the humility to do this, ask became the starting point. The love hate relationship in early days with myself, I never thought I was worth it in the beginning, I just immersed myself in meetings. Humility, simply to ask for help was actually the key to saving my life and many other people I have met on the journey.
Sounds easy? Not likely for anyone to start learning what love can be without any conditions. Unconditional love is kinship with oneself and the world. Love flows out, love flows in. I shared in a meeting about the incident where a person thought I hated them, and they were surprised when I said to them that I love them as a brother. I feel the shock was two ways, first knowing this person for some years and their feelings of exclusion and dislike from me, and my shock and the impact I had on them without being aware that there was ever a problem.
Assumptions are made so easily, that we get on with certain people, and that we cannot get on with other people. Sometimes we just need to say out loud, that we love people, sometimes love their behaviour, and sometimes their behaviour may be intolerable in certain situations. Most people are good, capable of love without conditions when they feel secure in their own outlook. And it takes time to feel secure in oneself, when the world seems to be setting people up for failure, rather than success.
Step Eleven Reading 12 & 12
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