Thought to Consider…
Every recovery from alcoholism began with one sober hour.
“When the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically.”
Faith dares the soul to go beyond what the eyes can see.
Alcohol gave me wings to fly, and then it took away the sky.
The joy is in the journey, so enjoy the ride.
Humility
STEP FIVE: Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
“Another great dividend we may expect from confiding our defects to another human being is humility – a word often misunderstood. To those who have made progress in A.A., it amounts to a clear recognition of what and who we really are, followed by a sincere attempt to become what we could be. Therefore, our first practical move toward humility must consist of recognizing our deficiencies.”
In A.A. we learn that since we are alcoholics, we can be uniquely useful people. That is, we can help other alcoholics when perhaps somebody who has not had our experience with drinking could not help them. That makes us uniquely useful. The A.A.s are a unique group of people because they have taken their own greatest defeat and failure and sickness and used it as a means of helping others. We who have been through the same thing are the ones who can best help other alcoholics.
Four Horsemen
“The less people tolerated us, the more we withdrew from society, from life itself. As we became subjects of King Alcohol, shivering denizens of his mad realm, the chilling vapor that is loneliness settled down. It thickened, ever becoming blacker. Some of us sought out sordid places, hoping to find understanding companionship and approval. Momentarily we did – then would come oblivion and the awful awakening to face the hideous Four Horsemen – Terror, Bewilderment, Frustration, Despair.”
“We used to amuse ourselves by cynically dissecting spiritual beliefs and practices when we might have observed that many spiritually-minded persons of all races, colors, and creeds were demonstrating a degree of stability, happiness and usefulness which we should have sought ourselves. Instead, we looked at the human defects of these people and sometimes used their shortcomings as a basis of wholesale condemnation. We talked of intolerance, while we were intolerant ourselves. We missed the reality and the beauty of the forest because we were diverted by the ugliness of some of its trees. We never gave the spiritual side of life a fair hearing.”
“A.A. is no success story in the ordinary sense of the word. It is a story of suffering transmuted, under grace, into spiritual progress.”
Step Six: Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
“It is plain for everybody to see that each sober A.A. member has been granted a release from this very obstinate and potentially fatal obsession. So in a very complete and literal way, all A.A.’s have ‘become entirely ready’ to have God remove the mania for alcohol from their lives. And God has proceeded to do exactly that. “Having been granted a perfect release from alcoholism, why then shouldn’t we be able to achieve by the same means a perfect release from every other difficulty or defect? This is a riddle of our existence, the full answer to which may be only in the mind of God”.
Dianne