God is everything or He is nothing! What is my choice today? If I find myself in fear and trying to control a situation, you can bet I am not trusting God... If I am in fear over a loved one, my checkbook, my job, anything at all it is because I have predetermined what the outcome needs to be.
In other words I am playing God... Not trusting God, playing God... This is simply a resurgence of the ego... And for me this is deadly... I can run from task to task and deny it. I can stay constantly on the move "helping others" and ignore it. But at some point I have to face it...
Step 1 Do I really believe my life is unmanageable by me?
Step 2 Do I believe there is a Power greater than me that will solve my problem?
Step 3 Am I suffering from the delusion that all would be well if only I manage better? Am I trying to control the situation to insure the outcome I want, or am I trusting God that the outcome will be what I need.
I must take these actions, I must look at my part. If I don't pretty soon I will have taken back over completely and I will be trying to stay sober on my own power... My experience has shown me, that does not work...
How about yours?
If my fear and expectations are rising my ego is just ahead of both of them... That is a bad place to be...
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Sunday, November 10, 2013
THE Program
The "we" in the Big Book is the first one hundred recovered alcoholics. My job is not to show new comers what I did... It is to show newcomers what the first one hundred did...
This is a big mistake we make. "If you want what I have, then do what I did" We say that with good intentions sometimes. I have said it myself. When you look at that statement, it sounds pretty arrogant. We need to always take it back to the book. In this way errors don't get multiplied.
The more proper statement is possibly; "If you want to be happy, joyous, and free, if you want to be recovered, then let me show you this program of action in the book. I followed IT and it happened for me. I will show you how to follow IT and it will happen to you.
It is like cutting boards for a fence. If you use each board as a marker for the next, the measurement gets off. But if you always go back to the ruler then the boards are consistent. And if you always go back to the book the message is consistent.
Can I share my experience around that? Absolutely!. But the path they must go down for recovery is the path laid out in the Big Book...
What I have is a Gift from God... It is called the Grace... It is called Sobriety... It is a result of conscious contact with God, as a result of working THE PROGRAM of AA... Not my sponsor's program, not my program, but THE PROGRAM...
My sponsor says it all the time; Everybody wants to take shots, that's not what my sponsor said, that's not what my therapist said, that's not what I did....... But it is what the BIG BOOK says... Not much else matters for a REAL alcoholic...
This is a big mistake we make. "If you want what I have, then do what I did" We say that with good intentions sometimes. I have said it myself. When you look at that statement, it sounds pretty arrogant. We need to always take it back to the book. In this way errors don't get multiplied.
The more proper statement is possibly; "If you want to be happy, joyous, and free, if you want to be recovered, then let me show you this program of action in the book. I followed IT and it happened for me. I will show you how to follow IT and it will happen to you.
It is like cutting boards for a fence. If you use each board as a marker for the next, the measurement gets off. But if you always go back to the ruler then the boards are consistent. And if you always go back to the book the message is consistent.
Can I share my experience around that? Absolutely!. But the path they must go down for recovery is the path laid out in the Big Book...
What I have is a Gift from God... It is called the Grace... It is called Sobriety... It is a result of conscious contact with God, as a result of working THE PROGRAM of AA... Not my sponsor's program, not my program, but THE PROGRAM...
My sponsor says it all the time; Everybody wants to take shots, that's not what my sponsor said, that's not what my therapist said, that's not what I did....... But it is what the BIG BOOK says... Not much else matters for a REAL alcoholic...
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Next, Launch, Vigorous...
I have heard in a lot of meetings that anything worth doing takes time. My experience after working with a lot of people is that usually people that take the steps slowly, never finish them...
Read the Book, it does not say stop and make sure you or your sponsor thinks you are ready. It says "Next we launched out on a course of vigorous action..."
It tells me after step 5 to spend an HOUR reviewing the first 5 steps and make sure I was thorough... AA is not therapy, the steps are not therapy, the longer I take on them does not mean I am doing them better.
This is about surrender, removing blockage, and asking God to remove my shortcomings, taking the actions to get my daily reprieve while I am cleaning up my past, and then jumping out there and helping the next person...
If a real alcoholic does not do this quickly they are playing with fire... The ego rebuilds and they think they can stay sober on their own... That is my experience...
Read the Book, it does not say stop and make sure you or your sponsor thinks you are ready. It says "Next we launched out on a course of vigorous action..."
It tells me after step 5 to spend an HOUR reviewing the first 5 steps and make sure I was thorough... AA is not therapy, the steps are not therapy, the longer I take on them does not mean I am doing them better.
This is about surrender, removing blockage, and asking God to remove my shortcomings, taking the actions to get my daily reprieve while I am cleaning up my past, and then jumping out there and helping the next person...
If a real alcoholic does not do this quickly they are playing with fire... The ego rebuilds and they think they can stay sober on their own... That is my experience...
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