How we handled relationships can be the window we seek to peer into to take a good look at our inventory. Remember when we took our 4th step our sponsor said we needed to record both the good and the bad? And when we looked at the wreckage in our personal lives some of the damage we did we will never be forgiven. And when it comes to relationships we might have to suspend any notion that we did anything right. Those things may come later but they are not important now. When we start to see clearly we might wonder just what kept people in our lives based on the hell we put them through.
People took a lot of abuse and some of it we weren’t even aware of. Beginners sometimes have a difficult time letting go that our loved ones had some complicity in our dysfunction. We have to release that which is a challenge for our ego that is trying to survive and hold onto something, anything to redeem ourselves in the eyes of the world. We need to focus on what our part was not what someone else did or didn’t do. Not an easy task when we are faced with what might be an onslaught in the beginning of our sobriety. More on this in a day or two.
Posts
JB-
ReplyDeleteFrom my seat I see you taking responsibility for your actions- what more could one ask for??
As far as making your lists, I see quite a lengthy list of attributes. As for the character defects, no matter how long or short, it only matters that you take responsibility for them. No matter what the list says, you were undoubtedly the best husband and stepfather you could be. That is what truly matters!
But Why?
ReplyDelete1. You have No power
2. Find power in us
3. Surrender
4. Give one of us leverage over you
5. Our perspective... we love you, the world is wrong
6. Think about it you're kind of a defective person
7. Surrendor to us and we will help
8. Think about all the wrong you have done
9. Make it right and let it be known the AA is the reason
10. Keep up the great work
11. You are superior to the world now
12. Become an evangelist
Kind of sounds like a cult doesn't it? By the way your on fire so long as your not thinking independently.
If AA didn't exist you wouldn't either. And it works for some lets face it. I don't particularly care if it is a cult or not because there's no harm done with a group of people trying to stay stopped. I know it's not the only way I know that. In some ways it is an archaic system that may have lost its effectiveness but some of the principles are very good ones. AA only works if you put down the drink otherwise its just a set of suggestions not taken.
ReplyDeleteDon't get me wrong, I don't think it's evil or even bad, but it is certainly not for me. Moreover,I learned a great deal from the program and I very much enjoyed my experience with the group. Where I became concerned was with the 7th tradition and or how the language is used. Up until that point it's a program of choice that only suggests certain steps that can be used as effective tools for recovery.
ReplyDeleteHowever, long before this point the program cultivates fear within it's prospective members as it teaches perspectives only at opposite extremes. For example, how is it possible that I wouldn't exist without AA? Am I doomed to die an alcoholic death without the program? Am I doomed to be alone without the group?
Those are the extremes that I became concerned with. More specifically, I do not agree with how the program teaches that sobriety itself can only be achieved with that particular program as everyone else is just dry and or hopeless. Furthermore, that all of ones individual thoughts are not in the middle of the boat, and therefore a product of an alcoholic (defective/insane) mind.
The group is able to create these realities with in its members as those teachings slowly become self fulfilled prophecies upon exit and or relapse. Hence it has the potential to be harmful. For example, people from AA that relapse tend to do so more violently than those that relapse in other programs... But why? Because they are taught that alcohol can only be abstained from or abused to severity. Further, their entire social network vanishes in an instant, very much like it did when they quite using drugs and or alcohol which creates an added burden of a void.
The initial void is the piece de resistance to entree for the program. The program itself becomes an addiction for many of its members. Which to your point can be a good thing, because it keeps people sober.
It just seemed to me that I might be smart to limit my exposure to such a program. After all I have been working hard on myself for the better, and as a result of that and god I have received so many blessings. 10 years from now I don't need a crisis of identity to send my world plummeting to the depths of doom because all of my friends disappear as they only accept me on a the condition that I am in the middle of the boat. See because those aren't friends at all, its an illusion that requires upkeep. I can get that from a parasitic banker.