Passion

"Practical experience shows that nothing will insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. It works when other activities fail."  BB pg 89

Can someone please explain to me how we got from that to "you shouldn't sponsor anybody till you have been sober at least a year, you can't chair a meeting till you have been sober for at least 6 months.

OK, nobody did so I will.  It has been passed along by a bunch of people in our fellowship that were taught in some treatment center that they will always be recovering, that they should stay away from their triggers, and that if they get too hungry, angry, lonely or tired they might drink.  Just try your best to not drink today.  It will be OK just keep coming back. 

I would bet that a good percentage of these people aren't even real alcoholics.  Yet, they rise to power in our groups and make these rules because the real alcoholics are either out in the trenches doing the deal, or trying to practice "love and tolerance." Right???  Nope.... The answer is self-centeredness and fear.

We alcoholics are a sensitive lot.  We let this stuff grow and fester in our fellowship because it might be uncomfortable to call people on their BS and tell them the truth.  People might not like us.  Love and tolerance, absolutely!  I need to love people enough to tell them the truth.  And tolerance for me is talking to the guy on the phone, one more time that just can't get it.  Tolerance is loving someone out when you oppose their entire lifestyle. 

My God does not ask me to tolerate evil, He does not expect me to sit idly by, while someone goes on a rant about some BS in a meeting, while the newcomer is dying because he can't hear the truth.

All I hear in AA is how tough everybody used to be back in the day.  What a bunch of bad asses we all were.  Yet we let some one hijack the meeting because we want to sit back and timidly sip our coffee.

I know confrontation is scary.  I get it.  But we are walking hand in hand with the Creator.  Where is the passion, where is the willingness, the desperation of a drowning man?  So let me get this straight; when we are dying of this disease and trying to get sober we don't let anything stop us.  But when it is the other guys life that hangs in the balance, we just sit by and let him hear a bunch of error.

Stand up guys and gals.  Stand up, learn the book. Speak it, live it, get passionate about it.  If you hear error, correct it! It is our job, if we won't do it who will?  Who cares what people think.  What does God think?  That quote from the big book says "intensive work".  Sometimes things just get intense in this deal.

I don't know about ya'll but with the passion for this way of life comes the Happiness.  With the zeal of passing it on comes Joy, and with the boldness to proclaim the Truth comes Freedom.

God Showed Up....

Do you remember in the Forrest Gump movie when he says "and just then God showed up".  Then the storm hit.   That is how it is sometimes there is no doubt God is here right now in this meeting, or in this moment, no doubt...

But then again sometimes it is in more subtle ways, the stillness of a calm lake, or the gentle breeze of a summer morning, or the gift of a sunset.  Sometimes it is in the glory of a million stars, and other times in the joy on a grandchild's face..  I can see God in my wife's smile, or in the glimmer of hope in an alcoholic's eyes.

The whole point in all of this is;  God just doesn't show up.  He is with me all the time, yet my awareness of this great fact comes and goes.  The more I take action, the more I do what I am supposed to do even when I don't want to, the more I try to help another one of God's kids for free and for fun, then the more aware of God I become.

Sometimes I feel Him, sometimes I am aware of Him, and sometimes I am not.  Doing the maintenance that my spiritual program of action requires, no matter how I am feeling is the only faith I know today.  I have experienced the spiritual truth that if I do the next right thing then it will all turn out the way it is supposed to.

Those wonderful feelings I get, those glimpses of God I perceive are the reward for faith.  They just happen as long as I stay close to Him and perform His work well. 

Luckily my God rewards persistence and perseverance, not perfection.  If I could define God I wouldn't, I wouldn't change one thing about Him.  He may just be perfect...

Action

And action is the answer to all my problems today.  When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place or thing - some fact of my life -unacceptable to me and I can find no serenity until I take the actions required to help someone else and deflate my ego, one more time. Nothing absolutely nothing happens in God's world by mistake.  Until I took the actions required to connect with God and let Him treat my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I continue to take the actions required to fit myself to be of maximum service, I cannot be happy.  I need to concentrate not so much on what other people are doing, as on what I am doing.  When I straighten out spiritually the mental and physical will follow. Then and only then will I be capable of living life on God's terms.