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...
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Hopefully you did as "they" did. And they are one in the same.
ReplyDeleteWhat I tell people I am taking through the steps is this, “I can't make you do anything at all. All I can do is show you what I did that brought about a spiritual awaking and what I do to maintain that awakened state.” And , “If you are willing to do that, then I will put my life on hold and bend over backward to show you what I did. It happens to be 100% in sync with what the co-authors tell us they did in this book.”
The procedure delineated in the book and my own practice mirror each other exactly. “I got” exactly what “they got.” I am not one of the “We”s as I am not co-author. But I do convey the 12-step work in the FIRST PERSON because I transmit my own experience, not anyone else’s.
djs