Alcoholics Anonymous Blog January 1 2015 "Powerless”
Video January 1 2015
Happy New Year! My New Year's resolution? Resolve to live sober just for today is my goal and will continue on a daily basis. I never knew what it would be like to have so many friends in Fellowship and in the world by being sober one day at a time.
Every month, I am lucky and fortunate to pray and meditate, take action to be free and have the choices open to me on a daily basis by utilising everything I've learned and being able to experience for more than a decade with a sober heart and a clear head. When I suggest sober heart, I now know more about my emotions and how they work without having to think about how I should be feeling, I just am a human being with feelings based on life right now and in the moment. Peaceful and content is the best description, with a great deal of forgiveness for all the mistakes I have made and will continue to make. Courtesy of the wisdom shared by fellows in fellowship, family, community and society. And this is the integration of how the twelve steps help me be an emotional and spiritual person today. I hope these words are understandable, sometimes life is so confusing I just don't know the answers in the moment of now, and the best news of all is I am able to put in the action of asking for help human to human.
January, all about step one, "we admitted we were powerless over alcohol-that our lives had become unmanageable." So each month is about step, one step a month as I go through the year. I never ignore the other steps or forget them, the principles enshrined in the steps gives me a freedom beyond my wildest dreams, and into reality where freedom and choice based on the current conditions today, it makes life more enjoyable, being included in whatever way possible and however it emerges. In other words if I don't try control life, life happens and expands far beyond what I might imagine or try to do alone.
Powerlessness is a state of being. Accepting that I am powerless over alcohol, and have no desire to control drinking at all means I have the opportunity to be free of everything associated with that addiction. By admitting complete defeat when I finally hit rock bottom years ago, meant I didn't know the answer to my problem. And it was a blinding flash and relief to know I needed help with my malady and disease of alcoholism. Life is taught me and everything we learn in Fellowship enlightens all of us to the cunning and baffling desires which can crop up in recovery and make us feel the need to change our outlook through drink, drugs, people, places and things.
I never really understood how easily I was triggered into using anything external to try fix the madness and unhappiness inside me all those years ago. Learning to drink at an early age to celebrate anything, and to grieve everything, took away my ability to cope with reality with a clear and peaceful understanding that I was simply learning life. And especially when life is difficult and heart-breaking, rather than cope with the feelings, I could use anything to try blot out the hurt and loss.
These days, with a greater understanding of my emotional and spiritual journey forever incomplete until my last breath, step one was and continues to be at the top of my gratitude list every single day. My daily reflections these days starts with a gentle reminder of step one, "I am powerless over alcohol and if I take a drink or fix myself in some other way in an addictive way, my life is most likely to become unmanageable." And then step two, all about doing the same old same old and expecting something different. And step three reminds me to let go, ask for help and don't imagine for a moment that I can solve my own problems all the time, or actually try solve your problems for you, we all work together hopefully in this necessarily inclusive world. And then all the steps start to make complete sense in time and continue to get broader and deeper in their meaning just in the moment and ongoing together.
Other things that cross my mind today, about acceptance generally, if I don't know what is right for me, I cannot possibly know what is right for you, and judging beforehand or before consultation, will lead to conflict most likely on any given day.
Expectations and entitlements, based on fear pride and ego, or blind faith without foundation, will lead to frustration and resentments.
Another thing which I heard recently when we were reading from one of the texts, the emotional orgies that can go on in our minds when we don't get our way. Being angry or resentful usually comes when we have made decisions without any possibility of achieving them or even knowing the next action to take. Sometimes, the world and our current situation is joyful and awful in the same moment because we have more than one thing going on at one time. There is always more than one thing going on in our lives and if we try nail everything down, you can guarantee someone somewhere is tearing up the nails and ripping our hearts out as we feel hurt by their actions. Coping with the situations, happens as we grow into living in the moment and coping with reality as it is right now. Challenging everyone every day.
I feel humble and often overwhelmed by everything shared by human beings on the planet. And trying to make a contribution is why I write about recovery because of all the experience, strength and hope I hear most days and the ability to listen and relate and understand people. This has helped me understand what goes on emotionally for me. It is meditation and prayer in action. Everybody meditates and has the ability to pray, to sort out what we can and cannot do today. The God of my understanding need not be the God of your understanding and I believe that Gandhi helped me resolve and accept that God is love and God is truth which comes from the many in the moment of now. Implicit in this understanding is that I am not God, that God works through people and like all life, the devil can well be in the details. Wisdom comes as we live learning the can do and cannot do today.
Step One Reading 12 & 12
Alcoholics Anonymous Videos, AA is for Alcoholics, AA 12 Steps, Addiction And Recovery, DonInLondon, Don Oddy,
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