THE BAFFLING PART OF ADDICTION EXPLAINED. How does an emotional pain morph into spiritual blindness and darkness that would cause a man to self destruct?
WHY PEOPLE RUN FROM A.A.
AA IS A PROGRAM OF ATTRACTION RATHER THAN PROMOTION
IF WE WANT TO STAY SOBER WE MUST BE WILLING TO BECOME TEACHABLE
Why would people who need help so badly run from the very program that has helped so many with the same malady? Without the ingredient of ‘desperation’ the alcoholic addict will try anything except giving up and signing over power to a sponsor and A.A.
What would keep me from being teachable?
1. FALSE PRIDE AND SHAME-, False pride tells me that if I don’t know literally EVERYTHING then I am stupid, wrong, and bad. False pride says that only the most brilliant people are qualified to teach me anything. Working the steps and getting a sponsor curtails the lies my psyche is telling me to keep me sick.
2. . TRUST ISSUES Clearly I can’t get a sponsor because everyone is out to get me. The world revolves around my belly button therefore the world wants to know my fifth step and if I get a sponsor, he will sell tickets to the opening night show. “Mickey’s Fifth Step on Parade”. Yikes! However, realize this; there are only so many deadly sins. Seven to be exact. Most people’s step five are pretty much the same…boring sex, wrath, thieving, and the like.
3. FEAR OF COMMITMENT Omg! In my past addiction I made so many appointments that I could not keep. I am now gun-shy of commitment. I use words like ‘maybe’, ‘probably’, ‘most likely’ but never ‘yes I will be there’. Commitment is hard for me because of my past failures to keep them. The good news is now I am so desperate to get sober that I WILL KEEP MY APPOINTMENTS WITH MY SPONSOR NO MATTER WHAT. In addition, by doing that I am walking through the fear and building my self-worth. I am working the good principles and that magically feeds recovery to my soul.
4. FEAR OF BEING CONTROLLED BY OTHERS I used to hand over power to my partners to make them feel good so I could get what I wanted from them. After they made my choices for me (so I would not have to fear the outcome), they would put me on a time clock. Where are you going? What time will you be back? Whom are you going with? etc., etc. After a while, I would snatch back the power I had turned over. My codependent dance partner would then suffer from intense anger and lash out at me as if I had done something terrible. Won’t a sponsor do the same thing? Won’t the same sick dance take place? Fortunately not. Sponsors know we only suggest, we do not control our sponcees. We suggest to them what worked for us. It is my choice whether I do what is suggested therefore I reap the good consequences of my new actions.
5. ‘FEAR OF RELIGION’ . Religion told me that I am bad and going to Hell. I believed it. I was young and innocent yet they told me of a place of suffering and despair. Moreover, since I was bad, spilled my milk, and made an F on my report card they said I would surely be sent to the lowest pit in the underground skyscraper called “Hell”. I cannot bear to be terrorized by religious views anymore. AA must not be religious, we are a spiritual program. Step 11 proves that we are a spiritual not religious program of choice. There is no Hell in our Big Book.
6. THE FEELING I AM GOING TO LOSE SOMETHING VERY IMPORTANT TO ME. My addict is scared to death of not having the drugs that worked to suppress my fears and emotional pain for so long. NOW MY DOPE HAS STOPPED WORKING. I have hit a brick wall. I drank and drugged repeatedly so many times I nearly killed myself. Therefore, I walk through the fear and distrust. I muddle though the past betrayal, I walk in the rooms, shrouded in shame and I say with all my heart; I am Mickey and I want to change, I can’t go on like I am, please show and teach me how to recover.
HERE ARE THE NINTH STEP PROMISES THAT DO COME TRUE WHEN WE WORK THE STEPS HONESTLY AND THOROUGHLY
If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook on life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us____sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.
Daily Meditation By Fred Hundt
Good Morning, Fillae Blusterers. I don’t know about you, but I have one of those brains which is constantly talking to me. It wants to analyze every situation I encounter, inventing reasons why each thing happens and how it is all part of a plan to hurt me (or, more precisely, my ego). It parses the speech of everyone around me, inventing motives for their words and fanciful backstories filled with sinister purposes. It loves to re-tell stories from my past, pointing out the errors I made and inviting me to feel badly all over again.
One of the most amazing things I’ve learned on my journey in recovery and spirituality is this…I can tell my brain to EFF OFF! I’m not a slave to all of the ego-driven thoughts and messages it creates. I can choose to accept certain messages (“Turn right at the next corner to avoid traffic”) and let go of others (“Here’s an opportunity to get even with someone”).
Even better, I’m learning that I can give my brain direction. I can order it to use its pattern-recognizing powers to see how all of the beautiful little things occurring around me reveal the presence of a Divine Spirit. I can guide it to look for the good in each person I meet. It can watch for opportunities for me to help others, serving joyfully. And, I can tell it to take a break from time to time, letting me just be, quiet and peaceful, right here right now.
___________________________________________–by Fred Hundt
Ninth Step Promises
Ninth Step Promises click
The program does work. Fear of people and what they think of us will leave us. If we work the steps and do plenty of step twelve service work. If we bring meetings into jails and institutions, chair meetings, and work on our core issues and underlying causes. Furthermore if we build a relationship with our Higher Power and do a thorough fourth step we will get not only a psychic change but also a spiritual experience that will help us to rely on God rather than mankind for what we need emotionally and spiritually.
“Fear of people will leave us” is a quote from The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. It is written under the “Step Nine” heading in the “Into Action” chapter and considered one of the “Ninth Step Promises”.
This link is to the Twelve & Twelve Step Nine:
http://www.aa.org/assets/en_US/en_step9.pdf twelve and twelve step nine
In the Big Book step nine is on page 76 and starts in the middle of the page. The ninth step promises are on page 83 starting at the bottom of the page.
http://www.aa.org/assets/en_US/en_bigbook_chapt6.pdfNinth Step Promises
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If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook on life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us____sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them. *****************************************************
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| I believe that when Bill W. wrote “Fear of people will leave us” in The Big Book under the Ninth Step, what he actually meant was, “fear of what people think of us will leave us.”
Alcoholics and addicts when in their addiction and early recovery tend to be nervous around other people. Alcoholics have anxiety attacks, they have the desire to isolate and steer clear of other people often. All these symptoms show a fear of being around other people. But not because they are afraid of being robbed or attacked. These fearful behaviors stem from our own insecurities and self-loathing. We addicts often simply feel like other people are better than us. We are afraid of being judged by others. We fear getting close to people because they may hurt us emotionally. We don’t want to set ourselves up for another emotional loss so we reject human interaction and relationships all together. We often feel (subconsciously) that if people get to know us they won’t like us much because… bottom line…after years of going against what our own conscience says to us we don’t like ourselves much so how could anyone else like us…we think. Many times in meetings and around A.A. people will say “I don’t care what people think of me” usually we, say this as a defensive measure to make ourselves look better to others, as if it is weak and socially shameful to care what others think of us. However, caring what people think of us is an emotionally balanced social human trait. So many recovering addicts and people in general say they don’t care what others think of them, yet their actions prove otherwise. Contrary to what most people in recovery so defensively state, I believe people DO care about what others think and say about them. Of course that healthy caring can be taken to an extreme and turn into fear of what people think of us. That’s where lying, dishonesty, faking this and pretending that come into play. Vanity and false pride are character flaws driven by fear of what people will think of us.
It seems like addicts don’t know it’s OK, NOT WEAK to care and it’s normal socially to want to be liked and admired. Seems some have an inability in their minds to distinguish between fear and healthy concern. Caring is not a bad thing and its human nature to want to dress nice and look good to our fellows.
People generally love to be the best at things, be the smartest, the fastest, and be a winner so they can feel good about themselves and look good to others. Certainly if we were repeatedly taught as children that we are bad and wrong and received little if any parental validation of our feelings and ideas we will carry a low self-identity with us until it is reamed out by either therapy or spirituality. Until that self-image is changed we will be hyper-sensitive to any perceived criticisms. And unfortunately once a self-image is burned to our psyche it can’t be removed easily. Just knowing that our self-image is inaccurate won’t change it.
Personally it does concern me when people dislike me or accuse me but I must put it in perspective. Firstly, I ask myself if the accusation is true. Then I delve into trying to understand the motivation behind the accusation. When I understand the accusers reasoning it helps me accept their views. If their opinion sticks in my craw too long and a resentment grows in me I will pray blessings upon them until I forget about it…works great!
Yes I care what people think! I am not ashamed to admit it. My admission of care does not make me a weak person, actually it shows I am self-assured enough to not fear appearing weak by that admission. In other words, if someone is overstating the fact that they don’t care what others think of them you can pretty much bet that they’re healthy social caring has morphed into a fearful self-consciousness of what other people think of them.
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