Made A Decision:
Hope for the future creates a life of joyful expectancy. The best is yet to be!!!
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 A.A. newcomer soon learns that "working the program" requires
commitment and discipline. Working the program means attending
meetings, daily reading some A.A. literature, and to apply what we
learn therein to our daily lives.
It's called "work" for a reason.
That's the "stick" used by the program (and Higher Power) to keep us
sober and improve us in
the process.
But let us not forget it says right there in the reading that the promises
will always materialize if we work for them. That’s the big "carrot"
and it’s true.
The Promises are read at the beginning or the end of most A.A. meetings.
Listen to them next time. 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 might stick with us:
If we are painstaking about this phase of our development we
will beamazed before we are halfway through.
Halfway through what? That would be the steps of recovery.
Some say the promises start to come true by the time we work the
sixth step, others say
it’s around the ninth. There are good arguments for either, although those
old- timers around in the 1990s generally called them “the 9th step promises.”
(My friend Mark S. still does.)
Once we roll up our sleeves and start working the steps to the best of our ability,
the promised amazement can actually begin then and there. 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, and for many of us (even without
a pandemic), 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 of mine 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 A.A. newcomers just
barely into A.A.'s lifeboat, can't believe the people in A.A. 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 about their years of drinking.
But once an alcoholic is exposed to those gritty stories we also hear in meetings
and in private talks with our sponsors and new A.A. friends, we 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 A.A. saying goes about the dangers of self-pity:
"Poor me. Poor me. Pour me a drink." But we no longer need to pity
ourselves once we are members of A.A.. Our recovery story can - and will -
inspire others to stay sober. All we have to do is share it. We certainly
need A.A., but A.A. also needs us!
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 will get a rush unmatched by any high we’ve
ever had before.
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 A.A. 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 of 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 A.A. 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."
With his share I heard what I needed at last and recognized my HP, too, had not
brought me this far to drop me on my head, either. I 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.
I’m typing this in 2025 when my only source of income, my Social Security check,
is under threat. So I’ve just poked around in all the dark corners of my brain
to be sure what I typed in the paragraph above is still true. To my relief, it is.
My needs are always met and in many different ways, but my Higher Power
is the source behind them all.
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 A.A. 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 quickly return to my default
setting of restless, irritable, angry and anxious. The kind of person whose
aura alone moves people out of their way fast.
(2) But when I finish my morning prayers and say, "Over to you, Boss"
(as Tim C. taught me) I become the kind of person people want to help.
I'll take option two 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 A.A. can have the same. After all …
It's promised!
