A Writing on AA and the Higher Power

God In His wisdom, selected this group of men and women to be the purveyors of his goodness. In selecting them, through whom to bring about this phenomenon, He went not to the proud, the mighty, the famous, or the brilliant; He went to the humble, the sick, the unfortunate; He went right to the drunkard, the so-called weakling of the world.

Well might He have said to us:

“Unto your weak and feeble hands, I have entrusted a power beyond estimate. To you has been given that which has been denied the most learned of your fellows. Not to scientists or statesmen, not to wives or mothers, not even to My priests or ministers, have I given this gift of healing other alcoholics which I entrust to you.

It must be used unselfishly; it carries with it grave responsibility. No day can be too long; no demands upon your time can be too urgent; no case too pitiful; no task to hard; no effort too great. It must be used with tolerance, for I have restricted its application to no race, no creed, and no denomination. Personal criticism you must expect; lack of appreciation will be common; ridicule will be your lot; your motives will be misjudged. You must be prepared for adversity, for what men call adversity is the ladder you must use to ascend the rungs toward spiritual perfection, and, remember – in the exercise of this power, I shall not exact of you beyond your capabilities.

You are not selected because of your exceptional talents, and be careful, always, if success attends your efforts, not to ascribe to personal superiority that to which you can lay claim only by virtue of My gift. If I had wanted learned men to accomplish this mission, the power would have been entrusted to the physician and the scientist. If I had wanted eloquent men, there would have been many anxious for the assignment, for talk is the easiest used of all talents with which I have endowed mankind. If I had wanted scholarly men, the world is filled with better qualified men than you, who would be available.

You were selected because you have been the outcasts of the world and your long experience as drunkards has made or should make you humbly alert to the cries of distress that come from the lonely hearts of alcoholics everywhere.

Keep ever in mind the admission you made on the day of your profession in A.A., namely that you are powerless and that it was only with your willingness to turn your life and will unto My keeping that relief came to you.”

Makes a few things more clear – for me…

[Edited: For the heck of it, this evening I Googled "We Are Chosen" without the quotes and discovered this page at The Orange Papers. (If you are not familiar with The Orange Papers be prepared before you go there. This author is quite vitriolic towards Alcoholics Anonymous). What was posted above apparently was excerpted from an address given by Judge John T. at the 4th Anniversary of the Chicago Group on October 5, 1943.]

Post from: Blisstree

AA And The Higher Power

And so am I…

Our brains get in the way of sensible, responsible and mature computing because we “looooooove” negative thinking. We “looooooove” negative thinking because we are self-centered in the extreme! So self-centered that we’ll walk into a meeting late, shuffle around noisily making our coffee while disrupting the meeting, park our a**es and immediately raise our hands making a seriously self-centered statement like “Sorry I’m late and didn’t hear your qualifications but…” followed by some inane comment having nothing to do with anything other than our self-serving agenda (although we “think” we have it disguised as recovery).

Happens everywhere, not just on Long Island.

Which is why I believe today’s reflection is paramount.

“Mysterious Paradoxes”

Such is the paradox of A.A. regeneration: strength arising out of complete defeat and weakness, the loss of one’s old life as a condition for finding a new one.

Personally, I don’t believe that whether you have 1 year, 10 years, twenty years, or whatever, sober in AA that you are avoiding the inevitable if nothing changes. The inevitable? Well, the longest I’ve heard in meetings is someone with 37 years drinking again. Damn right – that’s the inevitable! We are doomed to drink again! Unless…

“this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of recovery.”

My goal, yes – goal, is to die sober. And today’s reading goes a long way towards achieving that goal.

“What glorious mysteries paradoxes are! They do not compute, yet when recognized and accepted, they reaffirm something in the universe beyond human logic. When I face a fear, I am given courage; when I support a brother or sister, my capacity to love myself is increased; when I accept pain as part of the growing experience of life, I realize a greater happiness; when I look at my dark side, I am brought into new light; when I accept my vulnerabilities and surrender to a Higher Power, I am graced with unforeseen strength. I stumbled through the doors of A.A. in disgrace, expecting nothing from life, and I have been given hope and dignity. Miraculously, the only way to keep the gifts of the program is to pass them on.”

The only way to keep the gifts of the program is to pass them on!!!

From pg. 164 – “The answers will come, if your own house is in order. But obviously you cannot transmit something you haven’t got. See to it that your relationship with Him is right, and great events will come to pass for you and countless others. This is the Great Fact for us.”

The lack of humility described by Mike above has an inevitable conclusion. The exact moment is unknown. It is my responsibility to do whatever I can to carry the message and also to pray this person has a moment of clarity and gets back on track, then passes the information along. I’d love to suggest to you that if you find yourself in a meeting with this type, lose your fear and carry the right message – “when I face a fear, I am given courage.”

[P.S. - This is a quick note to my troll "buddy" David/Mickey/whatever. Each time you attempt to post another comment it goes into moderation and is then reported to Aksimet as spam - by me Enjoy trying to extract yourself from that mess.]

Post from: Blisstree

Mysterious Paradoxes – They Do Not Compute

We pray and pray for something we want. We exert ourselves with an effort beyond any we’d ever made before. We just aren’t sure we’ll get what we want so we ask God to please, please God, let me have this just this one time, please…

God, you know how hard we worked, you know how qualified we are, you know how much we want this in our hearts.

We’ve been good God! Honest! You know we have… We’ve fulfilled all of your requests, even did things we didn’t want to do! Come on God – you know we’re “in between” what we have and what we want.

Just this one time God please, I promise I’ll do whatever you want, give up whatever you want, change however you want, if you please just let me have this one, simple thing. PLEASE!

Besides this form of prayer being distinctly discussed in Step Two – “We had always said ‘Grant Me My Wishes’ instead of ‘Thy Will Be Done’ and also becoming more a demand than a prayer, the simplicity of it is that God has, very simply put to me by Matt Monahan, only three answers that He avails Himself of;

1 – Yes

2 – No

And…

3 – NOT NOW!!!

When God answers NOT NOW we have arrived in God’s waiting room.

Something Bill Wilson says in the Big Book (pg. 13) became very important to me on this topic;

“Never was I to pray for myself, except as my requests bore on my usefulness to others. Then only might I expect to receive. But that would be in great measure.” (You might want to reference Job)

Thy Will Be Done, Not Mine eases the wait.

Post from: Blisstree

God’s Waiting Room

Perfection. I was the type who had an unrealistic expectation of perfection from those around me. Who were those around me? Those who now have their own unrealistic expectation of perfection from me.

I must have taught them well.

My friend Mike is right on…

The disease hasn’t gone away and it still has the same agenda. It wants us dead, as in “US!” Everyone. With no prejudice. I must remember that and, as Mike said, be on guard for the unguarded moment. AA and my God were with me through the last few days because I’ve immersed myself, taken a bath, in AA, like I was strongly suggested to do.

It works if you work it.

The shame of it? As it appears today, doing my best to keep it in the day which isn’t working very well, these relationships will never reach “healthy.” They may never even reach “communicating” again. Of course, that is up to God’s plan, not mine and thankfully so…

I have this “clown” to thank for that if indeed that is the deal;

Things like this are the lower power’s work. [Graphic found at Uselessgraphics.com]

Post from: Blisstree

A Glimpse Into An Alcoholic Mind

The recent events that have come and passed with my son and brother. “I’m a lover not a fighter.” How many times have you heard someone say that?

I had no control. I tried. I couldn’t change what happened. I tried again and again. Nothing changed. Thank God for AA and the 12 Steps. Eventually I let go.

I had come to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity and I saw that it said “ourselves” and “us.” Did they need to be restored? I didn’t know but, on the chance that they did, I believed that only He could. Eventually I let go.

I learned and then felt it to be right that the most loving thing I could do for those I loved was to leave them in God’s hands. There is just simply no better place to leave them!

Then I struggled with letting go of … me! As some of you may have noticed, I can still struggle with that but I made a world of progress considering I had never done it before AA. Now I’ve been practicing it for a long time and guess what? Nobody said it would be easy. Sometimes it isn’t.

It has been over a decade.

The people I haven’t seen for so many years have zero, nada, no information about my life at all. They may know where my Blog is, they may know where a web site or two are, they may know an email, but that is about where their knowledge ends.

Why? I really do not have to answer the question – why? I was locked in a battle with life for a long time. And I didn’t drink. That’s enough. I won’t forget – those that matter don’t judge, those that judge don’t matter. I had put myself in God’s hands and stayed locked in battle with life. I Let Go and Let God and stayed locked in that battle. Eventually I determined I was meant to be in this battle and I did whatever I could to learn what I needed to learn.

Now, I’m taking care of business. I’m no longer locked in the same battle. I’m making use of the lessons.

I made my amends. Obviously they didn’t accept them. I still made them and am living sober which is another amend. I no longer harm any of them which is a living amend. My brother sided with my ex-wife Barbara and cursed me. He was drinking then (he says he isn’t now, I don’t believe him). He didn’t want to hear any AA crap.

A Doctor told him, after having sewn his liver and spleen up from an accident, that were he to take one more drink he was a dead man. The moment he admitted to me he’d started drinking again is the moment he said he didn’t want to hear any of that AA crap. I walked away. If you don’t want it I won’t waste my time trying to give it to you.I haven’t seen him again and it was a long time before I left Long Island and there were many opportunities for meetings. None happened.

I think in these years I’ve lived in approximately 40 different places across the entire US and in some cities many different spots in the same cities. Funny – I’ve been able to access the Internet just about the entire time. But to pack up and move, often without notice at the hands of “friends,” takes a toll. You get tired but you are required to keep moving which I did. The day came when I was able to settle down.

I’ve been asked often why I didn’t call. First – I didn’t want to hear Barbara’s voice. Very, very simple. The times I did after the divorce it was painful. Secondly – to talk about what exactly? I remember a brief “conversation” with my son around Christmas 1997 when I told him I had no money for Christmas and he absolutely lambasted me for not buying them gifts. I was having trouble eating.

I Let Go and Let God. I had to!

But I didn’t tell them.

Perhaps I should have kept calling so I could allow myself to be continually beat up for being a failure. I don’t think so. I fed myself instead. I won’t apologize for feeding myself. I needed to live, if it was meant to be, so when the day arrived, I could take care of business. Today I’m taking care of business -

And they want to rip my heart out once again and stomp on it. WELL, IT ISN’T GOING TO HAPPEN!!! AND I DAMN WELL AIN’T GOING TO DRINK AT IT!!!

My God loves me and if you don’t, so be it. For those who judge, you aren’t the first and won’t be the last – so be that also. I answer to a much higher power than you anyway. You can’t open the doors of heaven for me because you don’t have that power! And – you’re powerless over alcohol too…

Post from: Blisstree

I Put Them In God’s Hands