Strength Office 674
By 1951, 16 years after AA’s start, a woman, who had been to every AA meeting from the very beginning, began to question AA’s doctrine.
She began to wonder if taking care of herself was really “Selfishness…self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles”.
She began to wonder “Am I selfish and egotistical if I notice how I feel?
She began to wonder “Am I being ‘obsessed with self’ if I set boundaries with other people who are doing harmful things…like smoking around children”.
She began to wonder “Am I not being a good Christian wife when I announce my limits and say “No, I won’t tolerate infidelity”?
She began to question is it “Selfishness…self-centeredness” to meet my need for safety: physical, emotional and financial?
She understood the Golden Rule and loved God with all her heart and her neighbor…but she was deathly afraid of those last two words Jesus spoke “as yourself “.
But, she acted with courage, and believing in God’s will that to love herself was equally as important as loving others, just as the Master had said,…she started Al-anon.
With that, a new spiritual era started.
One in which it was recognized that AA’s message was completely true…but only half the picture.
She completed God’s mission, just like Eve did.
It’s always a woman…
Strength Office 675
I am so grateful for God’s grace.
I was wrestling with a financial issue and, at 1:00 in the morning, a woman from England texted to thank me for helping her…and the spell of fear was broken.
Thanks God for using people to do your work.
Strength Office 676
For the first eight years of my recovery there was only one model of morality.
“Selfishness…self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles”
And then came the 90’s with a bold new paradigm…Addiction was about “not feeling your feelings”.
I have believed that both were equally valid and equally useful…but I have changed my mind.
If you do a random search on the internet and ask “What are the problems with AA? “
You get two often repeated answers:
- 13th stepping…that means taking sexual advantage of vulnerable newcomers
- Bullying of newcomers by “old timers“
It is always a recovering alcoholic raging at a newcomer about their “selfishness and their obsession with self.”
You can’t do that with the feelings model.
Instead you say “I feel neglected, hurt, angry, disrespected, unheard, not valued, unappreciated”.
We can all hear that…and we are lovingly glad to hear that.
I will continue to use the “selfishness” model, as a tool, when I sponsor…but I will continue to keep my boundaries up with people who abuse it.
Strength Office 677
Why don’t you choose your own conception of God?
I need a simple, clear answer.
It is easy to rant about atheism.
It is equally easy to rant about the Son of God.
But, I like Bill’s way of finding God through service and balancing it with Lois, his wife’s way of “Enlightened self-interest”.
Strength Office 678
It would be easy for me to obsess about global warming, political polarization or the rise of China to world dominance.
But, the Big Book, page 132, says:
“We do not carry the world’s troubles on our shoulders”.
I prefer Gandhi’s, “As with the body, so with the Universe.”
That takes me back to minding my own business…as Al-anon teaches me.
Strength Office 679
Gandhi made some terrible mistakes later on in life, as Solomon did.
I, too, have made terrible mistakes in recovery.
But, it is impossible for me not the recognize the general superiority of Gandhi’s spiritual toolkit:
fasting
chastity
disciplined daily prayer
veganism
renouncing overt wealth
That’ll certainly bring on the “Absolute Purity” that the Oxford Group talked about and that AAA still talks about.
Strength Office 680
One of the cool things about having multiple recoveries is it if I start to slip, there is a margin, before I get to the serious stuff.
I get to the coffee before I get to the food.
I get to the food before I get to the sex.
I get to the sex before I get to the alcohol.
As the Book of Psalms says “The boundaries have fallen for me in pleasant places”.