Thereafter having admitted that I was alcoholic I soon found out that alcohol in and of itself was not my problem, but was the manifestation of my problem. The true problem was self-centered fear - afraid that I was not going to get what I want and afraid that I was going to lose what I had. In the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous it says, "When dealing with the fear problem, or any other problem, perhaps there is a better way as we are now on a different basis, the basis of trusting and relying upon God. We trust infinite God rather than finite self. We are in the world to play the role God assigns. Just to the extent we do as we think God would have us do and humbly rely on God, does God enable us to match calamity with serenity. We never apologize to anyone for depending on our creator. We can laugh at those who think spirituality is the way of weakness. The verdict of the ages is that faith means courage. All possessors of faith have courage. They trust their God. We let God demonstrate through us what God can do. We ask God to remove our fear and direct our attention to what we should be doing. At once, we commence to outgrow fear."
The integration of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous into our lives leads to a personal relationship with God. Prior to that occurring, fear haunted all of our being, was in all of our moments, driving all of our decisions in an attempt to satiate our instincts. We were afraid that we were not going to get what we wanted and afraid that we were going to lose what we had. Today, in this moment, that can change. That will change for all of us if we are in alignment with God's will for us. We will then know a peace we have never before experienced.
Written by Armand
Armand,
ReplyDeleteWithout God, life is a headlong stumble through a "house of mirrors" eventually becoming the distorted image reflected in every wavy glass. The very instant I surrendered to God I passed, not into a new world, but an entirely new dimension. I was immersed in a sure knowledge that the God I once rejected was in complete control of a world that once baffled me. And, all would be well..
As Step Eleven prayerfully brings me Into His presence, an instantaneous awareness proclaims that the old familiar false flag adventure of two dimensional living must be forever abandoned. Serenity now continually grows through willingness to accept, by His grace, His divinely inspired ideals through seeds of faith that continuously casts out fear as my imperfect apprehension of that faith is refined in practice, throughout the day, in the fire of His perfect guidance and eternal love.
A Gratefully Recovering Alcoholic
A Gratefully Recovering Alcoholic a surrendered day at a time...Thank you...Armand
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ReplyDeleteMichael C.
For me, it’s a matter of simplification. Fear, the ignominious detractor of all possibilities, must be replaced with Trust, the necessary precedent to Faith. It is in The Second Step that I learned that I must have a personal relationship with a Higher Power. That would occur when I stopped fighting and started practicing the remaining Steps in my life. That process simply defined Trust. On the basis of Trust, my fear-based human nature was to give way to The Power Within me whereby The Spirit Within me was awakened. By integrating all Twelve Steps into my life, the specter of fear would, at first, be neutralized, and then removed. This process is salvific and is available to all who seek it. We must know fear in order to conquer it. We must trust in order to do so and to live in peace.
Michael. Part of the definition of Belief is trust. In the 2nd Step we come to believe...Thank you...Armand
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