I had admitted I was alcoholic. I believed in God. I drank twice while a member of Alcoholics Anonymous - once for thirteen months and once for ninety days. Only after the second relapse did I fully realize that I had to make a choice. As the "Big Book" of Alcoholics Anonymous says, "When we became alcoholics, crushed by a self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or evade, we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing. God either is or He isn't. WHAT WAS OUR CHOICE TO BE?"
Early on I chose - God is everything. When I made that choice I had no idea of the power of the human instinct, how pervasive it is and how difficult it would be to turn from my nature and to live in the will of God. The second relapse brought me to a state of reasonableness in which I clearly saw that the surrender had to be absolute. In Bill's Story in the "Big Book" it says "Simple, but not easy; a price had to be paid. It meant destruction of self-centeredness. I must turn in all things to the Father of Light who presides over us all." What will you chose - He is and He is everything or the nothingness which envelops one in the darkness?
Written by Armand
Beneath that choice I had to spiritually affirm that either my Life was everything or my Life was nothing. I knew all I needed to know about a nothingness life and nothing about an everything life. The question of God had always been a difficult one for me until I learned of Ebby's kitchen table advice to Bill that his belief had to be personal. How much more personal can it be if it already exists deep down within each and every one of us? The minute I came to the recognition of that unsuspected inner resource through The Power Within me is the minute I surely new. With that awareness, I simply had to "stop fighting it and practice the remaining Steps of the AA Program as enthusiastically as I could." In that process of integration, I found everything - which I now possess. Everything. The ultimate beauty of possessing everything is in the commitment to giving it all away. A paradox with only a spiritual basis for understanding.
ReplyDeleteMichael the whole focus of a recovered life is a personal relationship with God in this moment...Thank you...Armand
ReplyDeleteBeautiful words. Acceptance was my challenge. Page 417 says it all. "I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be chaged in me and in my attitudes." Like you, I believed in God walking into the Program. But I did not believe in my relationship with Him. How could I if there is no relationship? AA taught me the HOW and the WHAT of it. Very practical and simple to follow. But simple is never easy. You have to do the time and the work.
ReplyDeleteJim Simple but not easy. It meant destruction of self...Thank You... Armand
DeleteHaving been brought to my knees through my own best efforts, I soon discover that any further attempts at self reliance are now pure acts of insanity birthed in the mind of a madman who's been locked too long in the basement of a three alarm blaze. Yes, a life lived free from the slavery of alcohol is indeed a very brief proposition If I linger too long at the precipice of Step Three while continuing to entertain those same thoughts, behaviors and lifestyle choices that precipitated my demise.
ReplyDeleteI was now left with a final frightful choice, for the 12 step program of AA tells me there is only one way to bridge the gap to the "Father of Light" who was and is the only true path to freedom and the serenity that follows. But who is this God and how would I know for sure that He will even hear me? After all, It is one thing to believe there is a God and quite another to make a decision to actually surrender to His absolute sovereignty. For some, the living testimony of their sponsor is enough. For others a little investigation into the history and practices of the founders will be essential and will clearly reveal that the miracle of regeneration they experienced, the strength they received, and the hope they conveyed to those still suffering is hidden in plane sight on almost every page of the very book they used before their personal testimony contained in the Big Book was ever published. That book is the Bible and the Gospel of Mark 9: 14 - 29 holds the answer..
For here we find a frantic father, desperately seeking relief for his demonized son. Not only out of the immense love for his son but no doubt to also be freed from the constant burden that caring for such an individual, so loved, requires. No doubt he sought every local logical source of human and spiritual ingenuity available to effect a cure, all to no avail. He hears of the miraculous works of Jesus, a furtive hope is kindled, he sets out into the wilderness. But hopes are dashed as Christ's own disciples are impotent against the author of his sons's beastly captivity .
Jesus arrives on the scene, questions the father who relates his desperation, the failure of His disciples to effect a cure, then pleads "Have mercy on us and help us if you can." "If I can?" Jesus asked. "Anything is possible if a person believes." The father's heart laid bare instantly cries out "I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!" Having opened his heart and laid his innermost need bare before the Master. He asked for a miracle and, It was provided.. Jesus cast out the Demon and the son was restored to full health. In that instant, the fathers willingness to surrender all of his future hope's and dreams for his tragically afflicted son transformed into saving faith as they both became living testimony of what the world at large considers impossible.
For me, the father represented the "fox hole functional alcoholic" I considered myself to be in this seeming dichotomy and his possessed son, my disease. His plea to Jesus, "Have mercy on us and help us if you can." makes it clear that he considered the demonization a shared experience inexorably linking the two of them together for a seeming eternity of pain and horror with absolutely no cure on the horizon. He, like I, had no idea of what to expect, only that having tried all other manner of "cures" I was now willing to reach out in desperation to a Hand unseen whose promise of recovery was still in my mind an improbable myth. This, I did. And my obsession for alcohol and the diseased thinking of an alcoholic mind was removed as far as the east is from the west and so it has been for the past 33 years. Not by my efforts, but by His amazing grace.
It matters not how we come to the Mercy Seat. All that matters is that we are willing to come.
A Gratefully Recovering Alcoholic.
A Gratefully Recovering Alcoholic "believe that you have received it and it shall be yours" is not just a slogan for positive thinking. it is the outgrowth of complete and absolute trust in God...Thank you...Armand
DeleteOne of my favorite passages in the book. God is either everything, or nothing. And if there is no God, then it means, to quote the book again, that "the whole thing was nothing but a mass of electrons, created out of nothing, meaning nothing, whirling on to a destiny of nothingness." That "nothingness" is what I used to believe, and feel-- and I thought that in the face of that void I could rely only on my Self-- but I was never strong enough, smart enough, fast enough-- so I was always defeated, and eventually I drowned myself in the oblivion of alcohol and drugs. Thank God for the spiritual program of steps which has led to a belief in a Higher Power personal to me, to which I have turned over the running of my life, so that I can achieve a measure of serenity and peace. As the old saying goes, I thank God for AA, and I thank AA for God.
ReplyDeleteDan a reliance on self is what led us to the "nothingness' you described so well. A reliance upon God leads us to serenity...Thank you...Armand
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ReplyDeleteGod is everything. I must trust And believe. It is quite easy to say “ I surrender my nature” however it harder to live in the will of God. I pray only for knowledge of God’s will for me and the power to carry it out. God is everything, he is the solution. I must rely and trust more on him to solve all my problems. I can’t at times to seem to let go of the need to figure it out, that is when I pray for guidance and rely on God’s power to lead me. I cannot live my life in the self-centered fear, it is my problem, I can find myself in a state full of fear unable to accept what is, that is when I pray and remember God is everything, he will provide.
ReplyDeleteThanks
Jessica
Jessica a day at a time through the grace of God you will be healed...Thank you...Armand
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