After spending years sober I hit a new bottom,a bottom in recovery that no human power could relieve me from. That meant meetings, fellowship, sponsees, all of it stopped working. I had forgotten the most important aspect of the program and was surr...
One of the things I found hard to overcome was this feeling....this feeling deep within my innermost self every time I had to identify as an alcoholic. You know how people do positive incantations and speak into the positive what they want...positive energy right? At meetings you have to say several times that you are an alcoholic, you have to identify your being as the disease you are powerless over and for those of us that have been gifted sobriety- we are told to ignore our recovery and what God has done for us and identify as the disease that is in remission.
I did not know how much it was effecting me until I was brought on my knees in sobriety to my sponsor looking for any relief from my suffering. One of the first eye openers was my sponsor telling me that Bill W. (one of the founders of this spiritual program) wrote a letter to central office of Alcoholics Anymous asking why people were starting to identify as alcoholics. He went on to state that this disease we are afflicted with does not define who we are and we are to accept the gift of recovery for those of us who had been granted such a gift as a result of the spiritual experience the 12 steps brings about.
This is a picture of the Foreward to the first edition...which in many ways is the same as the current Forewards being printed.
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It was refreshing, I was not the disease that I suffered from more than I was the recovered mind and body that one day at a time I am gifted. It is okay to accept the recovery that is promised in these pages and to speak the truth when talking about your disease and this was so freeing for me.
I urge those who have had the spiritual experience brought on as a result of the 12 steps and that live the life of recovery as promised in the Alcoholics Anonymous book, identify in their recovery at meetings or at least as it states in the book with regards to identifying as "...a member of alcoholics anonymous". Everywhere you go speak the truth of what God as done for you in your life rather than the disease you suffered from.
I often asked why I had to identify as an alcoholic and was told things like " so you don't forget" along with some other fears I accepted for a while. No matter how many times I reminded myself of my physical allergy to alcohol and the spiritual malady that plagued my human emotions-it would not help me to separate myself from this deadly disease and all of the stigmas surrounding it. You will not forget what God has done for you in your life if you have accepted step 3, turning your life and your will over to the care (original steps said "...care and direction...") of God. Once we follow our spiritual intuition and have been restored to the sanity (as we come to believe in Step 2) to be required to make the decision asked of us in Step 3 we no longer have to try to manage and control our sobriety we were powerless in giving ourselves anyway.
Thus, Bill W. was speaking from the same spiritual place that created this spiritual program when he wrote the letter requesting we stop identifying as alcoholics, we do not have to remind ourselves of our disease every time we open our mouths to speak in a room of Alcoholics Anonymous. If that is your group conscience I hope you speak the truth of what God has done in your life more than you remind others of the disease that is or can be arrested as a result of a spiritual experience.
Alcoholics are not the only people who take life one day at a time as that is all any of us have-we live in the Eternal Now.
I hope if you find your spirit suffering you seek a spiritual remedy. I have personally experienced this spiritual program remove the suffering of suicidal adolescents, what some have considered outright mental defects, and more. You do not have to find a spiritual solution....just seek. You may find yourself on the journey the 12 steps will guide you on, a journey to a new freedom and self actualization most will never know.
