The "Big Book" Alcoholics Anonymous states, in reference to the Ninth Step and the Promises, "If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves."If we are willing to surrender to the will of God through the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous then we can be free of the manifestation of our character defects in our behavior. Our self-centered life will begin its departure as we experience serenity and peace - peace which allows us to perceive life in a way that is joyful. We can then respond to that joy with love for others even though the circumstances of our lives may be unchanged. This love for others is the expression of us experiencing a beautiful life.
Written by Armand
The Promises of the AA program! They are real. They only come to me when I am willing to subjugate my will and ego to the will of God. It takes time to first unlearn what was my way of life and relearn to live in the will of God. This is a lot of work, trial and error, until I learn to break through the human experience and find peace in the love of God. Bad things still happen to me, but I know it is part of a bigger plan beyond "what's in it for me". What is I it for me is the Love of my Father for all eternity.
ReplyDeleteJim a life lived through the will of God is the life we were created to live...Thank you...armand
DeleteI believe that Beauty is what we're created as in the first place. We're born beautiful, we see beauty, we feel beauty, we aspire to beauty. Yet, as alcoholics, we run our lives onto the rocks where we neither see nor feel anything of beauty. Instead, we see only darkness and despair. Alcohol speeds and assures our bottoms. In The Big Book program of recovery, I have learned this: that I must integrate all Twelve Steps into my life in such a way that they become my life. I can stop right there. Why? Because in that process, I re-see beauty, I re-feel beauty, I re-aspire to beauty, I re-cover beauty. To keep it beautiful, I simply have to give it away. There is nothing more beautiful.
ReplyDeleteMichael a life of love lived in thw will of God is a beautiful life...Thank you...Armand
ReplyDeleteArmand,
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for sharing.
For far too long I chose the broad road of living that can only produce the shadowy human doing that I had become, vacuously stumbling through an incomprehensible world of similar lemmings all trying to swim up the same waterfall of misspent lives. What joy and freedom there is to escape the self imposed prison of that totally me-centered empty, lonely world of desolation, to that of a real human being, made in the image and likeness of God and dedicated to His eternal plan. There are no words fit to describe the gift, or convey the experience of the "peace that surpasses all understanding" when one surrenders to God and is finally, willingly and joyfully being conformed to His purpose.
A Gratefully Recovering Alcoholic
A Gratefully Recovering Alcoholic the most important thing I learned and truly believe from Catholic School Catechism is that I was made in the image and likeness of God...thank you...Armand
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