“Can we stay sober, keep in emotional balance, and live to good purpose under all conditions?”

I.E., when reality jumps up and says “hello” will we be grounded well enough in The Twelve Steps where we can call on our tools to help us go through whatever it is that life has to offer us, good or bad?

From today’s Daily Reflection;

“I have found that pain lets me know there is something wrong with my emotions, just as physical pain lets me know there is something wrong with my body. When I take appropriate action through the Twelve Steps, the pain gradually goes away.”

And… my oh my… do we hate pain eh?

Back to pgs. 74-75 in the 12&12;

“Our eyes began to open to the immense values which have come straight out of painful ego-puncturing. Until now our lives have been largely devoted to running from pain and problems. We fled from them as from a plague. We never wanted to deal with the fact of suffering. Escape via the bottle was always our solution… Then, in A.A., we looked and listened. Everywhere we saw failure and misery transformed by humility into priceless assets. We heard story after story of how humility had brought strength out of weakness. In every case, pain had been the price of admission into a new life.”

Suffer well…

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When The Rubber Hits The Road

Daily Reflections

Remember, from the Seventh Step;

“In every case, pain had been the price of admission into a new life.”

I’d asked God for dozens of do-overs, never believing there was any hope. In addition, I sure didn’t exactly perceive that were I to be graced with a new life that, by necessity, it would have to be born through pain!

“But this admission price had purchased more than we expected. It brought a measure of humility, which we soon discovered to be a healer of pain.”

In our Eighth Step we discover more about pain: “I learned that the pain of my defects is the very substance God uses to cleanse my character and to set me free.”

We might want to consider embracing our pain as we grow…

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The Pain Of My Defects

This applies to me as well folks! Today’s Reflection;

Shortcomings Removed

“When I put the Seventh Step into action I must remember that there are no blanks to fill in.”

Isn’t this interesting? If I hadn’t read this I’d be wondering what they meant. They go on to say;

“It doesn’t say, ‘Humbly asked Him to (fill in the blank) remove our shortcomings.’ For years, I filled in the imaginary blank with ‘Help me!’ ‘Give me the courage to,’ and ‘Give me the strength,’ etc. The Step says simply that God will remove my shortcomings.”

Must be my lack of faith that keeps me in a never-ending condition of keeping my shortcomings…

What do you think? About you, not me

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So… You Say You Still Have Your Shortcomings Eh?

From page 75 in AA’s 12&12;

“During this process of learning more about humility, the most profound result of all was the change in our attitude toward God. And this was true whether we had been believers or unbelievers. We began to get over the idea that the Higher Power was a sort of bush-league pinch hitter, to be called upon only in an emergency.”

You know what the two foxhole prayers are – don’t you?

The first is “Please dear God, get me out of this one and I swear, I’ll never do it again!”

The second? The second is – “phew………”

“The notion that we would still live our own lives, God helping a little now and then, began to evaporate. Many of us who had thought ourselves religious awoke to the limitations of this attitude. Refusing to place God first, we had deprived ourselves of His help. But now the words ‘Of myself I am nothing, the Father doeth the works’ began to carry bright promise and meaning.”

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Of Myself I Am Nothing

“For thousands of years we have been demanding more than our share of security, prestige, and romance. When we seemed to be succeeding, we drank to dream still greater dreams. When we were frustrated, even in part, we drank for oblivion. Never was there enough of what we thought we wanted.

In all these strivings, so many of them well-intentioned, our crippling handicap had been our lack of humility. We had lacked the perspective to see that character-building and spiritual values had to come first, and that material satisfactions were not the purpose of living.”

The person in our literature who was allowed to respond to this says;

“I understood my shortcomings: I constantly put tasks off; I angered easily; I felt too much self-pity; and I thought, why me? Then I remembered, ‘Pride goeth before the fall,’ and I eliminated pride from my life.”

To those who perpetrate injustice upon me and other human beings, know this and hear it loud and clear! There is a God! And you aren’t it! That God brings all things full circle and what you have wrought upon others will be, in turn, wrought upon you. May He show you mercy in your suffering…

And to all my friends in recovery please know and understand that injustices brought upon us need not be used as excuses to kill ourselves by whatever addiction we might have! If God is for us, who can be against us? No one…

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When We Were Frustrated, Even In Part, We Drank For Oblivion

From The Seventh Step in the 12&12;

“True, most of us thought good character was desirable, but obviously good character was something one needed to get on with the business of being self-satisfied.”

Yeah – right. In the case of most alcoholics and also most humans, we were previously told “Instead of regarding the satisfaction of our material desires as the means by which we could live and function as human beings, we had taken these satisfactions to be the final end and aim of life.” How true! And how perverse was that thinking…

That led to others judging, then self-judging, that if we didn’t provide enough therefore we weren’t good enough. This one still haunts me with my “family.”

But the 12&12 lays it out, for me, very nicely.

First the sarcasm – “With a proper display of honesty and morality, we’d stand a better chance of getting what we really wanted.” Wrong again. There simply is no method with which to always determine we’ll be getting what we want. It truly isn’t up to us.

Then the old reality – “But whenever we had to choose between character and comfort, the character-building was lost in the dust of our chase after what we thought was happiness. Seldom did we look at character-building as something desirable in itself, something we would like to strive for whether our instinctual needs were met or not.”

Now, I ask you, when can you recall considering character-building when you were drinking? My answer would be – never!

Thirdly, our literature offers us what I believe becomes the answer when they tell us “We never thought of making honesty, tolerance, and true love of man and God the daily basis of living.”

When I can practice that, life is so much better!

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Displaying Honesty and Morality To Get What We Want

With an added feature – alcoholism… Permanent, progressive, fatal and damn patient! Mighty damn patient.

Mary Christine said: “Hang in there and know that God loves you and is being kind and loving towards you even though it feels horrible.” Think about that for a moment. It reminds me of a prayer I found during the divorce days while looking through Rosary prayers. I needed some level of comfort from the pain and alcohol was no longer available to offer relief. I found this: “Sometimes, in His wisdom, He allows the suffering to continue.”

I thought to myself “What kind of God is that?” The answer wasn’t positive. It became positive later.

Today, Linda said: “I know today I look at the way I act as sometimes being alien when in fact I am applying spiritual principles.” Think a bit harder about this.

Those oldtimers told me I’d never be a finished product. Dammit – they were right. It is foreign for me, still, to consider that I’m doing the right thing, doing what I need to do to maintain my peace of mind. Walking away from what was once perceived by my brain as something from God yet it had turned completely. Considering that the possibility exists that a relationship with another human being would have been wrong – for me! That is why it didn’t work out. Oftentimes my brain wants to remain in crisis mode when it doesn’t need to. There is no crisis. I’m better off because my God loves me. If you don’t love me, oh well.

Now, if we could just let brain in on this…

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Even Though It Feels Horrible?

I’ve written on this before and it is both timely and – well, timely.

From the Daily Reflections for July 9th;

I Am An Instrument

Humbly Asked Him To Remove Our Shortcomings. (12 and 12, p. 70)

The subject of humility is a difficult one. Humility is not thinking less of myself than I ought to; it is acknowledging that I do certain things well, it is accepting a compliment graciously.

God can only do for me what He can do through me. Humility is the result of knowing that God is the doer, not me. In the light of this awareness, how can I take pride in my accomplishments? I am an instrument and any work I seem to be doing is being done by God through me. I ask God on a daily basis to remove my shortcomings, in order that I may more freely go about my A.A. business of “love and service.”

From the Daily Reflections on the previous day, July 8th;

An Ever-Growing Freedom

The Seventh Step is where we make the change in our attitude which permits us, with humility as our guide, to move out from ourselves toward others and toward God. (12 and 12 p. 76)

MC, you’ve made a wonderful point and I am very thankful.

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Not Thinking Less of Myself Than I Ought To…

The Seventh Step Prayers

“I humbly offered myself to God, as I then understood Him, to do with me as He would. I placed myself unreservedly under His care and direction. I admitted for the first time that of myself I was nothing; that without Him I was lost. I ruthlessly faced my sins and became willing to have my new-found Friend take them away, root and branch.” (p. 13)

“My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding. Amen.” (p. 76 BB)

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7th Step Prayers

Then, directly related to self-centeredness in the extreme, “Unless they develop much more of this precious quality than may be required just for sobriety, they still haven’t much chance of becoming truly happy.”

Which, for now, is where I lose understanding.

The state of mind is such that faith and humility are sorely lacking meaning that selfishness is on the table. Do the right thing, do the right thing, do the right thing… and? What?

“Humility, as a word and as an ideal, has a very bad time of it in our world.” It is having a very bad time of it in my world – now! Thankfully, this too shall pass.

Whenever God seems as if He’s farther away than normal, check who’s moved. Me. Selfish.

Do the right thing and the exact same old crap continues to happen, without fail. One specific area, the single most fearful area, stays precisely where it has always been despite making use of new lessons and “seeing” God at work.

“Not only is the idea misunderstood; the word itself is often intensely disliked.”

Master of self-delusion. Keep my will out of it, part of the solution. Let Go and Let God. Same results. Faith struggles.

What am I willing to do today to not drink alcohol? ANYTHING!!! Whatever it takes…

Meeting – check. Shared it – check. Prayed – check. Talked to another alkie – check. Gave thanks – check. Helped someone else – check.

Acceptance? Nope! God Box? Been there, done that with this again and again. Willing to do it again? Nope… Selfishness.

“We are sure that no class of people in this world ever made a worse mess of trying to live by this formula than alcoholics.”

“Material satisfactions were not the purpose of living.” That’s right! That was etched in stone decades ago and also hasn’t changed ever! Hell, now there’s two areas…

In a few minutes my head will hit the pillow and there won’t be any booze in me! I’m damn well a miracle!

“The attainment of greater humility is the foundation principle of each of A.A.’s Twelve Steps!”

Accept and deal… and… have a good night…

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Without Some Degree Of Humility