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02-16-2008, 11:03 AM
(The following was written by Bill W., co-founder of Alcoholics
Anonymous for "The Road Back," a bimonthly publication by the Dublin,
Ireland, group, and is reprinted therefrom.)
By Bill W.
I think we oldsters who have put the A.A. booze cure to such severe
tests, yet still find we lack emotional sobriety, are probably the
spearhead for the next major development in AA the development of
something like real maturity and balance (which is to say, humility)
in our relations with ourselves, with our fellows and with God. Those
adolescent urges for top approval, perfect security and the perfect
romance, urges quite appropriate to age 17, prove to be an impossible
way of life at 47 or 57.
Since AA began, Išve taken immense wallops in all these departments
because of my failure to grow up, emotionally and spiritually. How
painful it is to keep insisting on the impossible, and how painful to
discover that we have the cart before the horse. Then comes the final
agony of seeing how wrong we are, but still finding ourselves unable,
seemingly, to get off the merry-go-round. Problem of Everyone. How to
translate right intellectual conviction into right emotional results
and so into easy, happy, active and good living that's not only the
neurotics problem. Its the problem of life itself for all who have
got to the point of willingness to hew to right principles. Even
then, as we hew away, peace and joy still elude us. That's the place
so many of us AA oldsters have come to. How shall the unconscious
from which our fears, compulsions and phony aspirations still stream
be brought into line with what we actually believe, know and want?
How to convince our dumb, raging and hidden "Mr. Hyde" becomes the
final task. Išve recently become to believe this can be done. I
believe so because I began to see many benighted ones, folks like you
and me, commencing to get results. Last fall, depression, having no
really rational cause at all, took me to the cleaners. I began to be
scared that I was in for another five-year chronic spell. Considering
the grief Išve had with depression, it wasn't a bright prospect. I
kept asking myself, "Why cant the twelve steps work to release
depression?" By the hour I stared at the St. Francis prayers. It's
better to understand than to be understood Its better to love than be
loved. It's better to comfort than to be comforted" Here was the
formula. But why didn't it work?
Suddenly I realized what the matter was. My basic flaw had always
been dependence, absolute dependence, on people or circumstances to
supply me with prestige, security and romance. Failing to get these,
according to my still childish dreams and specifications, I had
fought for these things. And when defeat came, so did depression.
There wasn't a chance of making the outgoing love of Francis a
workable and joyous way of life until these fatal and really absolute
dependencies were cut away. Because I had undergone a little
spiritual development the absolute quality of these frightful
liabilities had never before been so starkly revealed. Therefore,
reinforced by what grace I could secure in prayer, I found I must
exert every ounce of will and action to cut off these emotional
dependencies upon people, upon A.A. indeed upon any set of
circumstances whatever. Then, only then, would I be free to love as
Francis could. Emotional or instinctual satisfactions, I saw, were
really the extra dividends of having love, offering love and
expressing love appropriate to each relation of life. Must Offer Love
To God. Plainly, I could not avail myself of Gods love until I was
able to offer it back to Him by loving others as He would have me.
And I couldn't possibly do that so long as I was victimized by my
dependencies. For dependencies meant demand; demand for possession
and control of people and conditions. While the words "absolute
dependency" may look like a gimmick, they were the ones that
triggered my release into my present stability and quietness of mind
which I am now trying to consolidate by having love and offering
love, regardless of the return. This is the primary healing circuit;
our outgoing love of Gods creation and is people, by which we avail
ourselves of His love for us. But the real current cant flow until
our dependencies are broken at depth. Only then can we have a glimmer
of what adult love really is. Spiritual calculus, you say? Not a bit
of it. Watch any A.A. of six months working on a new 12th step case.
If the case says, "the hell with you," the 12th stepper smiles and
turns to another case. He doesn't feel frustrated or rejected. If his
case responds and starts to give love and attention to other
alcoholics, but returns none to the sponsor, then the sponsor is
happy anyway. He still doesn't feel rejected. And when his case turns
out in later time to be his best friend (or romance), then the
sponsor is joyful. But his happiness and joy were byproducts, and no
more. The real stabilizing thing was having the offering of love to
that strange drunk on the doorstep. That was Francis at work,
powerful and practical, minus dependency and minus demand. In my
first six months of sobriety, I worked hard with many alcoholics. Not
one responded, but they kept me sober. It wasn't a question of their
giving me anything. Stability came out of giving, not of receiving.
Thus I think it will work out with emotional sobriety. If we examine
every disturbance we have, great or small, we can find at the root of
it some sort of unhealthy dependency and consequent demand. Let us
hack away at these chains, begging Gods help. Then we shall be set
free to love. We shall then be able to 12th step ourselves and others
into emotional sobriety.
I haven't offered you a single new idea just a gimmick that has
started to unhook my several "hexes" at depth. My brain no longer
races compulsively in either elation, grandiosity or depression. I
have been given a quiet place in bright sunshine.
Anonymous for "The Road Back," a bimonthly publication by the Dublin,
Ireland, group, and is reprinted therefrom.)
By Bill W.
I think we oldsters who have put the A.A. booze cure to such severe
tests, yet still find we lack emotional sobriety, are probably the
spearhead for the next major development in AA the development of
something like real maturity and balance (which is to say, humility)
in our relations with ourselves, with our fellows and with God. Those
adolescent urges for top approval, perfect security and the perfect
romance, urges quite appropriate to age 17, prove to be an impossible
way of life at 47 or 57.
Since AA began, Išve taken immense wallops in all these departments
because of my failure to grow up, emotionally and spiritually. How
painful it is to keep insisting on the impossible, and how painful to
discover that we have the cart before the horse. Then comes the final
agony of seeing how wrong we are, but still finding ourselves unable,
seemingly, to get off the merry-go-round. Problem of Everyone. How to
translate right intellectual conviction into right emotional results
and so into easy, happy, active and good living that's not only the
neurotics problem. Its the problem of life itself for all who have
got to the point of willingness to hew to right principles. Even
then, as we hew away, peace and joy still elude us. That's the place
so many of us AA oldsters have come to. How shall the unconscious
from which our fears, compulsions and phony aspirations still stream
be brought into line with what we actually believe, know and want?
How to convince our dumb, raging and hidden "Mr. Hyde" becomes the
final task. Išve recently become to believe this can be done. I
believe so because I began to see many benighted ones, folks like you
and me, commencing to get results. Last fall, depression, having no
really rational cause at all, took me to the cleaners. I began to be
scared that I was in for another five-year chronic spell. Considering
the grief Išve had with depression, it wasn't a bright prospect. I
kept asking myself, "Why cant the twelve steps work to release
depression?" By the hour I stared at the St. Francis prayers. It's
better to understand than to be understood Its better to love than be
loved. It's better to comfort than to be comforted" Here was the
formula. But why didn't it work?
Suddenly I realized what the matter was. My basic flaw had always
been dependence, absolute dependence, on people or circumstances to
supply me with prestige, security and romance. Failing to get these,
according to my still childish dreams and specifications, I had
fought for these things. And when defeat came, so did depression.
There wasn't a chance of making the outgoing love of Francis a
workable and joyous way of life until these fatal and really absolute
dependencies were cut away. Because I had undergone a little
spiritual development the absolute quality of these frightful
liabilities had never before been so starkly revealed. Therefore,
reinforced by what grace I could secure in prayer, I found I must
exert every ounce of will and action to cut off these emotional
dependencies upon people, upon A.A. indeed upon any set of
circumstances whatever. Then, only then, would I be free to love as
Francis could. Emotional or instinctual satisfactions, I saw, were
really the extra dividends of having love, offering love and
expressing love appropriate to each relation of life. Must Offer Love
To God. Plainly, I could not avail myself of Gods love until I was
able to offer it back to Him by loving others as He would have me.
And I couldn't possibly do that so long as I was victimized by my
dependencies. For dependencies meant demand; demand for possession
and control of people and conditions. While the words "absolute
dependency" may look like a gimmick, they were the ones that
triggered my release into my present stability and quietness of mind
which I am now trying to consolidate by having love and offering
love, regardless of the return. This is the primary healing circuit;
our outgoing love of Gods creation and is people, by which we avail
ourselves of His love for us. But the real current cant flow until
our dependencies are broken at depth. Only then can we have a glimmer
of what adult love really is. Spiritual calculus, you say? Not a bit
of it. Watch any A.A. of six months working on a new 12th step case.
If the case says, "the hell with you," the 12th stepper smiles and
turns to another case. He doesn't feel frustrated or rejected. If his
case responds and starts to give love and attention to other
alcoholics, but returns none to the sponsor, then the sponsor is
happy anyway. He still doesn't feel rejected. And when his case turns
out in later time to be his best friend (or romance), then the
sponsor is joyful. But his happiness and joy were byproducts, and no
more. The real stabilizing thing was having the offering of love to
that strange drunk on the doorstep. That was Francis at work,
powerful and practical, minus dependency and minus demand. In my
first six months of sobriety, I worked hard with many alcoholics. Not
one responded, but they kept me sober. It wasn't a question of their
giving me anything. Stability came out of giving, not of receiving.
Thus I think it will work out with emotional sobriety. If we examine
every disturbance we have, great or small, we can find at the root of
it some sort of unhealthy dependency and consequent demand. Let us
hack away at these chains, begging Gods help. Then we shall be set
free to love. We shall then be able to 12th step ourselves and others
into emotional sobriety.
I haven't offered you a single new idea just a gimmick that has
started to unhook my several "hexes" at depth. My brain no longer
races compulsively in either elation, grandiosity or depression. I
have been given a quiet place in bright sunshine.