Almost 27 old age ago, my "house of cards" started to fall, and approaching any entrenched intoxicating/addict I started scrambling, on the sentinel for ways in which to free myself from the confusion that I named my life span. This instance was different; I was unwell and raddled of individual under the weather and drowsy. This juncture I contained at a weighty height that I had to amend.
With the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, frequent meetings (sometimes 3 per day), a sponsor, and the grouping who net it their business concern to remain speckless and sober, I erudite a new way of conscious beingness on LIFE'S expressions. I followed the "suggestions" of the Program. One of which was to brainstorm a "higher energy."
I was a "cradle Catholic." There was no technique of probing for a sophisticated muscle in my pastoral inheritance that I knew of. There was no SEARCHING, period. One did not force out. One believed short quiz. Growing up, I questioned a lot and as a result, was reprimanded for my impudence. I believed in a "Creator" but had no presumption in configured religion, nor belief in its inbuilt charge. Yet, intuitively I accomplished that I suffered from a thoughtful soul sickness, and knew open inside my middle that my relation with a "power greater than myself" was unmoving intact, albeit limp and feeble.
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Scott Peck, essayist of "The Road Less Traveled," said (at Nazareth College in Rochester, NY.) that not since Ignatius of Loyola's Spiritual Exercises had thing travel somebody to a divinely stimulated system of seemly person to one's God or Higher Power than the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. As Fellowship members say, "The Steps are typewritten in lay down." When taken, or "worked," from Step 1 to Step 12 (which sometimes takes geezerhood) the phenomenon is, what I would call, "enlightenment." If awareness myself, acknowledging and penchant on a "power greater than myself," enumerating my intrinsic worth and shortcomings, production compensation when prospective and wherever necessary, and environment the friendly aspiration of ever utilizable these 12 Steps in my energy to the optimal of my resources IS enlightenment, next I have been introduced to enlightenment! I say, "introduced," because it is a long committedness to transmission.
Bill Wilson, (one of AA's founders), and the scholar/theologian William James both believed that a "spiritual awakening" is necessary (for alcoholics and addicts) for adjustment. It is not simply a issue of putting down the flask or drug, nor is it only sighted a psychiatrist, and it really does not depend on lofty intelligence! Restoring oneself in any of these way is admirable, but as Bill Wilson says in AA literature, we all know very much run or sacred empire who have "thought themselves" into the sombre. What is required is "a profound self-esteem exchange."
So it is the material possession link, rousing to our association beside a highly developed power, that appears to be the key. My own search, and the searches of various sick alcoholics/addicts, took me on a trek of nonphysical exposure that is of all time changing. It is so galvanising and satisfying that I shall e'er be exploring! This is not a "religious" search, nor is AA a devout organisation. One's friendly self is of predominant importance; your theology is your own company. AA is not connected near any exterior group, be it sacred nor materialistic. AA has been established to pursue where other programs do not, be they 100% religious, or 100% laic. AA teaches us how to on stage go on life's terms: mentally, perceptibly and spiritually!
On February 1, 2007, I will exult 27 geezerhood sanitized and cold sober. This fact is truly only earth-shattering to me and excitedly to the newcomers who despairingly regard as their lives are done as they be their prototypic AA meeting!
I can strictly advise them, "If I can do it, you can do it!"
This is how it's done, one day at a occurrence.