Live Free or Die | 自由に生きるかさもなくば死を | Ago Solvo Vel Intereo

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"WE NEVER APOLOGIZE TO ANYONE FOR DEPENDING UPON OUR CREATOR..."

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"...WE CAN LAUGH AT THOSE WHO THINK SPIRITUALITY THE WAY OF WEAKNESS.  PARDOXICALLY, IT IS THE WAY OF STRENGTH..."

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"...the verdict of the ages is that faith means courage. All men of faith have courage. They trust their God. We never apologize for God. Instead we let Him demonstrate, through us, what He can do. We ask Him to remove our fear and direct our attention to what He would have us be. At once, we commence to outgrow fear"... 

-Alcoholics Anonymous, p68

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|…..certainly everybody in alcoholics anonymous is entitled to their opinion, as it is (hopefully) based on their experience and therefore their truth. An expression I’ve been hearing a lot lately is that ‘some days sober has to be good enough’. While that may hold true for others, I’m not sure it holds true for me. I want it to be, for I am going through some rough times right now, and that expression gives me solace – because it’s easy. It let’s me off the hook; it gives me a blank check to do and act as I would, because ‘sober is good enough’.  In other words, it gives me license to be selfish and self-centered like the man on page 62, or, as polite society would call it, to act like an assh*le.

     Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, my experience is somewhat different. I have come to rely on the God of my understanding, not some dime store slogan that get’s me through the moment. And today, God has to be good enough for me, for I have so many things going wrong at the same timeI have nowhere to look – but up. Physical sobriety is essential, don’t get me wrong; but my spirit thirsts for more, for something else, for loftier things.

     Without trying to be overly dramatic, I can honestly say this is the worst it’s been for me since I first walked into Alcoholics Anonymous nearly twenty years ago. Yet, from the lowest valleys in AA, my experience has been that every dip in the road brings me yet closer to God, and that is enough for this alcoholic.

     Am I afraid? Damn right I’m afraid. I’ve got judges and doctor’s and lawyers flinging at me from every direction; but I rest in God, and that has to be enough. Our Book asks us the second step proposition: “God is everything or he is nothing; what is our choice to be”? Today I choose God, and He is enough. If my suffering brings me closer to God, and it always does, I say: bring it on. If my dying brings me closer to God, I say: bring it on. If I suffer, it is because my Father requires it of me, to learn, to grow, to move on to better things.  Of this I am certain, also.

     Our Book says it better, though: “I must turn in all things to the Father of light Who presides over us all”.  (Alcoholics Anonymous, p14)

     There are good times in AA, and there are bad times in AA.  These are the bad times...now, for sure, God is to be sought and found; the trick, though, is to seek out our Father when things are going well - that is when my realtionship with my Father pays the most dividends.

     Just for today, there are only one set of footprints on the beach, for I rest ably and well in the loving and capable arms of my Father, secure in the knowlege that "this, too, shall pass".

     And so it goes.

COG, 1st Cl.

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