When one alcoholic/addict shares with another alcoholic/addict

[MajestyJo]

You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go.

God as We Understand God

God is subtle, but he is not malicious. --Albert Einstein

Recovery is an intensely spiritual process that asks us to grow in our understanding of God. Our understanding may have been shaped by early religious experiences or the beliefs of those around us. We may wonder if God is as shaming and frightening as people can be. We may feel as victimized or abandoned by God as we have by people from our past.

Trying to understand God may boggle our mind because of what we have learned and experienced so far in our life.

We can learn to trust God, anyway.

I have grown and changed in my understanding of this Power greater than myself. My understanding has not grown on an intellectual level, but because of what I have experienced since I turned my life and my will over to the care of God, as I understood, or rather didn't understand, God.

God is real. Loving. Good. Caring. God wants to give us all the good we can handle. The more we turn our mind and heart toward a positive understanding of God, the more God validates us.

The more we thank God for who God is, who we are, and the exact nature of our present circumstances, the more God acts in our behalf.

In fact, all along, God planned to act in our behalf.

God is Creator, Benefactor, and Source. God has shown me, beyond all else, that how I come to understand God is not nearly as important as knowing that God understand me.

Today, I will be open to growing in my understanding of my Higher Power. I will be open to letting go of old, limiting, and negative beliefs about God. No matter how I understand God, I will be grateful that God understands me.

I can go through anything a day at a time, a moment at a time with the faith and the knowledge that my Higher Power is guiding me to peace and security. --Ruth Fishel

When I came into recovery. I said I know who God is. I was raised in the church, taught Sunday School, sang in the choir and did church 3 times on Sunday. When I got to my first year, I didn't know who God was, I went on a Spiritual Quest and found out that my Gd was so much bigger than I knew Him to be, and I had to make my relationship with my God personal, not what other people had told me He was to them. God was an old tape. He was too big to fit in church. God is evrywhere. my God is as He revels Himself to me in today.

[MajestyJo]

From "How It Works:"

"Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to
the agnostic, and our personal adventures before
and after make clear three pertinent ideas:

(a) That we were alcoholic and could not
manage our own lives.
(b) That probably no human power could have
relieved our alcoholism.
(c) That God could and would if He were sought."

c. 1976, Alcoholics Anonymous, page 60

Love this, Steps 1, 2, and 3 Waltz. I came, I came to, and I came to believe.

As a dear friend reminded me, it says 'could' doesn't say 'would' restore me to sanity. i prayed for my sense of humour to be healed and he wanted his to remain the same.

[MajestyJo]

During the sixties the old-timers referred to a prayer as the "Seven Magic Words of AA"

And now the story behind the story:

It was the Saturday before Mother's Day 1935. A gentleman from NY named Bill Wilson was staying at the Mayflower Hotel in Akron, Ohio. He had come to town for a business deal that had gone sour.

He was in the lobby of the hotel feeling angry and depressed as he heard the tinkling of glasses and music coming from the hotel's bar.

*He wanted to drink* after being sober for six months.

He prayed "God, don't let me think this way" as he went to the phones, found Dr. Bob.............................and the rest is history.

Over the decades, in the history of AA, this story has gotten lost.

During 1974 while in Akron, Ohio (not on Founder's Day), myself, my wife and my sponsor (Papa Frank) met one of the first 100 members of AA He verified the authenticity of the above story.

Boy, talk about ammunition (bullets).................God, Don't Let Me Think This Way!

Tiger

My drug of choice in the moment, be it people, places, or things, is but a symptom of my disease. The problem is me. I don't have a drinking problem, I have a thinking problem.

[MajestyJo]

Choice

from: "A Day's Plan"

"Every day I ask God to kindle within me the fire of His love, so that love, burning bright and clear, will illuminate my thinking and permit me to better do His will. Throughout the day, as I allow outside circumstances to dampen my spirits, I ask God to sear my consciousness with the awareness that I can start my day over any time I choose; a hundred times, if necessary."

© 1990, Daily Reflections, page 80

This is a solution that has worked many times for me over the years. A day can start any time, each day is a new beginning, so have a great one.


It never ceases to amaze me how people can make the decision to stay stuck, to continue acting out in old patterns, and allow themselves to slip into depression and self-pity and not take action before it gets to the wallowing stage. This program is one of freedom. I don't have to live that way anymore.

So many people don't know they have choices, sometimes ignorance is not bliss. Yet I have found myself back there lately, at least I am able to recognize it and have the tools that I can pick up and help myself get out, and a God to not only to show me the way, but give me the courage, strength and wisdom as to what I need to do.

I know I didn't know how to have fun. I didn't know how to "lighten' up" and not take life so seriously as it says in Tradition Four. I didn't know how to let my inner child come out and play, let alone anything about giving her permission to do so. Life is for living and enjoying it. I was asked in early recovery, what makes you happy and I didn't know.

I didn't know I could choose the reactions, the actions and the moods, etc. that I had toward people, places and things.

Written in part in 2004.

This may be a duplicate but the thought spoke to me.

[MajestyJo]

We are granted freedom of choice. It took me a long time to choose recovery. I was so busy blaming others for my problems, that I had no idea, until I had pushed everyone away, that the problem was me. I had no one left to point a finger at.

Who would want to choose, which one you wanted amongst these adorable critters? Making decisions are not one of our strong points. It is something we never had to do before. Our drug of choice always made our choices for us.

The self is not something ready-made, but something in continuous formation through choice of action.

- John Dewey

The relationship builds after we make the choice. It wouldn't matter which one we chose, the love is found as the connection grows and more choices are made.

If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is a compromise.

- Robert Fritz

We can limit ourselves by our choices. When we ask for God's will, all things are possible. Many times over the years, I have asked, "Are You sure about this?" It was me that was unsure. I had to learn to utilize the gifts that He bestowed on me. I am so grateful for the people He put in my path that taught me and guided me on my journey, who directed me towards making healthy choices, things that were good for my body, mind and spirit.