Seek Rectitude, and Joy Will be Your Reward | 名 正直 = 动 搜寻 + 名 喜悦

Don't Seek Happiness

Seek Rectitude, and Joy Will fill Your Wake

The road to happiness is paved with despair. I know, I tried to do everything to become happy except try to help somebody else become happy; and I only did that under penalty of death. Like page 55 says, it is only there that God may be found. I didn't come to AA to find God or even by happy - I simply couldn't stop drinking and had nowhere left to go.

Today, I consider myself blessed beyond my capacity to receive. Well do I remember when I was a newcomer. Life was so bleak then! Hope is what I yearned to hear from the podium, for my life was already a tale of desperation. I KNEW how to drink – now what? I remember listening in vain for a glimmer of hope, but all I seemed to hear was a lot of people patting themselves on the back for having discovered the fact that drinking kills alcoholics. Got it.

Now what?

Ok – they had an answer for that one, too. ‘Don’t pick up the first drink and you can’t get drunk’. Ok – sounds good so far – even a rocket scientist like me gets that angle. Is that all? Well no….(here’s where I get nervous, because the story always seems to be changing): ‘don’t drink no matter what’, 'don’t drink and go to meetings'), etc. Basically, all variations on: JUST STOP.

Well, if I could do that, what do I need AA for? Well, for the average problem drinker, just stopping IS good enough. But what those grizzled old timers forgot to tell me is that if I actually have alcoholism (not a drinking problem), ‘Physical Sobriety’ is only the tip of the spear. For real, stage four or ‘chronic’ alcoholics, there’s a voice in my head that’s trying to kill me who starts screaming the minute I put the drink DOWN. That voice is called alcoholism, and the only way out is up to God though the steps. I know – I’ve tried everything else – God and the Book Alcoholics Anonymous were all that worked, and it was the very last thing I tried – just like is says on page 55.

So, I didn’t come to AA seeking God – I came to AA seeking mercy, and though the steps I’ve found a merciful God. He was the only one who had the same asking price, the price never wavered: ‘The only requirement was the destruction of self’.

Now, it’s been a while since I've started this journey and each day I must die a little and surrender a little more to God to be happy, joyous and free. Today, kindness is a little more than helping an old lady across the street with her groceries; sometimes, it’s snapping the phone of a newcomer in half when you know it’ll save his life AND break his wallet at the same time. It’s saying the right thing in a dark meeting knowing they will seek retribution, yet you say it anyway, because you know it’s the right thing to say. It’s staying away from the girl across the room that you have a very deep crush on because you know she needs at least one real hero in AA, and if you hit on her you will have invalidated everything you’ve said and done in AA.

In short, it’s honor that is the price of my sobriety today – I must continue to seek to do the right thing, especially when nobody is looking. I must seek right living, and happiness will be my reward. There is actually a quote in piece of non-AA approved literature I read in my first year that used to make me quite literally gasp – for it was everything that I knew could be true in my life if I work the steps. And, like everything else in AA, I was never lied to, and here it is:

Life is not a search for happiness. Happiness is a by-product of living the right kind of a life, of doing the right thing. Do not search for happiness; search for right living and happiness will be your reward. Life is sometimes a march of duty during dull, dark days. But happiness will come again, as God’s smile of recognition of your faithfulness. True happiness is always the by-product of a life well lived.

-Twenty-Four Hours a Day (Hazelden Education Materials) December 16th.

After many years on the 'firing line', I can tell you from hard earned experience that searching for happiness always ends in despair. Kind of like California; it seems everybody I meet is from somewhere else, and they are all looking of 'it'. Well, 'it' is inside of each and every one of us, not on the outside (again, page 55). That's why it's the glitter capital of the world - it's all fools gold. There aren't enough houses, cars or women out there that wil fix what wrong for me - alcoholism.

Now, the truth is I am not wild about sunny California. Too much botox and plastic surgery for me. However, I gave my word I’d restructure this company, and now I have a moral obligation to the men I sponsor, many of whom are deep in inventory and are counting on my to be the man I say I am – so I shall, for their lives are more important than my comfort. I shall continue to trudge and try to do the right thing, for I know from experience that happiness will eventually be my true reward. My sponsor told me once: "if you're in AA, and you're unhappy, shame on you. Buy the book - and if you're bored of AA, it must be because of only one of two possibilities: either you're boring, or or you may just be in the wrong place". How true - with a world full of newcomers, how could I get bored?

And so it goes.

|…day 68/90 and I miss my friends already. After 30 days of praying for everybody I've run out of enemies and now I pray for their families, too. Why? I need the practice. Although I've fallen in love with that clubhouse, it’s not for me. I need daily prayer, mediation and Big Book Study to remain free, and that is what we are going to do. Additionally, I’ve been invited to a local private dojo and I need to start practicing again. I’ve got 22 days left there – God grant me the strength to go out in style – they deserve my best, and before God I swear I shall try to my best. Anything less would lack ˈrek-tə-üd-tyüd'.

COG, 1st Cl.|