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 Made a Decision:

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                     The Promises

A Donkey is a stubborn beast, sometimes refusing to move an inch forward even under pressure.

People will sometimes use a stick on them. Others offer a carrot held just out of reach, because a donkey will usually take one reluctant step after another trying for a bite.

Some say sticks and carrots, used in combination, work best. I wouldn't know. I've never owned a donkey.

But I do know alcoholics can be a lot like donkeys, and my Higher Power knows I can HeeHaw with the best. Tough love is a technique God doesn't hesitate to apply in my case, often using the combination described above.

Every AA newcomer soon learns that "working the program" requires commitment and discipline. It's called "work" for a reason. That's the "stick" used by the program (and Higher Power) to keep us sober, and to improve us in the process.

The big "carrot" is there for us in recovery, too. We hear about it when The Promises are read.

The Promises are read at the beginning or the end of most AA meetings. And I know how very easy it is to tune them out when they're read. Especially when we've heard them read dozens, or hundreds, of times. 

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," say our busy monkey minds, already planning our activities for when the meeting is over. But hold on a minute. The Promises are read for a reason. If we break them down, one by one, their message will stick with us:

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development we will be amazed before we are halfway through.

Halfway through what? 

That would be the steps of recovery. Once we roll up our sleeves and start working the steps to the best of our ability, the promised amazement can begin.

 The good news is, as long as we continue to "work the program," the amazing life we're building will never stop offering more opportunities for amazement. 

We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.

Work, family, jobs, pandemics - all are often annoying to the determined drinker. Finding the time to drink was a challenge for me (even without a pandemic) and for many of us, but despite the time and stress involved in laying in a daily supply, I managed it.

 

So the freedom - and happiness - that came when I no longer had to maintain my drinking lifestyle was new indeed, and it was huge.

 

Addictions enslave us. Recovery sets us free!

We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.

Hiding our behaviors from others - and from ourselves - was a full time job in and of itself during our drinking years. The thought of anyone knowing about any of those escapades appalled us.

 

It was hard for me to believe I would come to not regret the past, but that day arrived the first time I revealed a dark secret in an effort to set another free from alcoholism.

We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace.

Anxiety had lived in my gut seemingly all my life, so the first time I had a serene moment in recovery it scared the hell out of me. I felt detached from reality - and I was, from my old reality. I felt lighter, peaceful, scared and hopeful - all at the same time! 

Serenity took a bit of getting used to, but once I had a few more tastes of it - addict that I am - I wanted more. Enough to do the work necessary to have it on a regular basis.

Serenity eventually arrives for us all as the promised result of doing-the-doing of recovery.

No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.

People still caught in the hell of alcoholic drinking, and those AA newcomers just barely into AA's lifeboat, can't believe the people in AA could ever have experienced what they're going through.

Newcomers especially find it hard when they enter a meeting and see well-dressed confident people exchanging good natured banter with one another about their years of drinking.

But once an alcoholic is exposed to the gritty stories we also hear in meetings, and in private talks with our sponsors and new AA friends, they feel a lot more at home. 

 

Low-bottom experiences resonate powerfully, even with those who "got off the elevator" at an earlier stage in their drinking. They learn from them that they, too, can live those kinds of horror stories if they return to drinking. 

That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.

"It's too hard."

"What's the use?"

"I wasted decades drinking, I'll never have ..." a loving relationship, a decent job, a home of my own - fill in your own blanks here.

 

As the AA saying goes about the dangers of self-pity: "Poor me. Poor me. Pour me a drink." Because once we are inside AA we are never useless. We need AA and AA needs us! Our story can - and will - inspire others to stay sober. All we have to do is share it.

We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.

Once we've had the experience of seeing another suffering alcoholic have their light-bulb moment - where they suddenly realize they won't have to die of our deadly soul-destroying disease - we can get a high unmatched by anything ever found in a bottle, pill, smoke, or needle. 

Self-seeking will slip away.

And once we've experienced the kind of high described above we'll find ourselves becoming far less concerned with our own wants and more and more fired up for helping others. 

Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.

Doubt it? Velcro yourself to the program and stick around awhile. Don't leave before YOUR miracles happen!

Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.  

I was a single mother with four small children and no income beyond what I could earn when I arrived in AA. Money worries plagued me then, and for a long, long, long time after I got sober. 

("Sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly.")

It took a newcomer with three months sobriety to set me free. He talked about having no job, no money, no place to live, and then said, "But I knew God hadn't brought me into the safety of AA to then drop me on my head. I prayed and surrendered it. By nightfall I had been offered a place to stay and a job that even gave me an advance on my first paycheck." 

 I heard what I needed to hear from him, took his advice, surrendered my money fears to my Higher Power, and from that moment to this have never had to worry about my needs being met.

God will meet our needs when we ask. Maybe not all our wants, but whatever we really need will absolutely be provided. My own finances are like the tide. The money sometimes goes way, way out, but then - when a genuine need arrives - it floods back in to meet the moment.

I'm good with that.

We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.

Before I started asking my Higher Power to run my life, I never knew how to handle the most basic life situations without risking turning everything to shit. 

Nowadays a "prompt" will come to mind when a right word or gesture is needed to fix my own situation or to help another person.

How great is that?

Driving ourselves through life is damned hard. Once we're aboard the AA bus we can kick back and enjoy the scenery. 

We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

(1) Without my Higher Power running my life I become a restless, irritable, angry and anxious person. The kind of person people see coming and get out of the way. 

(2) But when I finish my morning prayers and say, "Over to you, Boss," I become the kind of person people want to help. 

I'll take option two above any day, thanks.

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.

One day at a time, one step at a time, a sober life has brought me experiences beyond my wildest dreams. Anyone in AA can have the same. It's promised!