Monday, November 23, 2009

Belonging...


I have found it hard to get an article written and posted for a couple of days now.  During that same time, I've been struggling meeting other commitments and also have been doing some reflection around AA's 12th  Tradition (anonymity).  Funny how, for this alcoholic, the most difficult part of my existence is to just belong into my own life.

Huh.

I can't tell you the number of times I've been on the phone with my sponsor and I hear myself whining "...well, it may be a perfectly fine life, but it sure doesn't feel like my life..."

It's about surrender and sacrifice.

Bill wrote in the essay "Why Alcoholics Anonymous is Anonymous" (Language of the Heart):
...Powered by alcohol and self-justification, many of us have pursued the phantoms of self-importance and money right up to the disaster stop sign. Then came AA. We faced about and found ourselves on a new high road where the direction signs said never a word about power, fame or wealth. The new signs read, "This way to sanity and serenity--the price is self-sacrifice."
I was marveling with a sponsee, new in sobriety the other day, how we - even with years of experience, still continually balk at this sacrifice.  If I can't uphold the image I want, if I can't have the relationship I want, if I can't eat/drink what I want, when I want it, if I can't do what I want when I want - then, I may as well just die.

And so, many of us die.  Some slowly.  Others, not so much.

But, when I let go of that almighty "I", the reward is sanity and serenity.

Amazing.

5 comments:

steveroni said...

Ed, your posts make such good reading, I should say, make such good sense, and I appreciate every word.

Self-importance, almighty "I", me, me, me...peeps who have left those things behind ARE the happy, serene (and sane) ones. I see them all around me --grin!

Thanks for good posts.

Mary Christine said...

"We are sure that humility, expressed by anonymity, is the greatest safeguard that Alcoholics Anonymous can ever have." Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 187.

God help us.

wendy said...

that idea that if I can't get exactly what I want or have things my way on my schedule I might as well just die hits very close to home. thanks for sharing...

- wendy (a sorta longtime reader of MC)

Pammie said...

This was an excellent reminder for me today Mr. Ed...thank you so much.

Unknown said...

Great reminder and post..the almighty I...I remember when my HP was me..boy that did not work out so well, I am grateful today to be a worker bee among many...for me that's the best way to be...
Thank you,
G