very well, and with precision, thank you!
This is one of the questions that I have been asked quite frequently.
“You go to those meetings for how long before you don’t have to go anymore?”
We have learned that the founders and early members of AA were spiritual people and Bill W. and Dr. Bob laced the program with many examples of spirituality.
In Fact, Emmet Fox’s Sermon on the Mount was used as the first Big Book before Bill W. wrote the one that is used to this day. Dr. Fox was an early New Thought Spiritual leader.
Many who were attending AA meetings in New York City would go over to where Dr. Fox would be holding services in large halls after the AA meetings.
As we’ve discussed in the past, Spirituality is the foundation of the AA Program. This may be daunting to the AA newcomer or the AA veteran who is attending the meetings but not really working the Program.
At no place in the 12 Steps, Big Book, or any other approved AA literature is it found that we must be beholden to God or Jesus or Allah or Buddha or any other religious figure.
We keep repeating that this is a very simple program for people who have spent a lifetime complicating everything. The only thing that it asks is for us to believe in a Power greater than ourselves.
If you have a problem with this, then just think of the sun rising and setting at exact times over millennia, or of our pulse that keeps on beating without our even thinking about it, or birth, or the changing seasons.
There is a Power “out there somewhere” that can not be seen, heard, felt, smelled, or tasted directly and, in our human experience, if It can not be identified by one or more of our senses, then It is not real.
Now that we can put some sober thought into it, there is SOME kind of Power “out there somewhere” and it is real and it is not me or you.
Observing a lightning storm leaves me knowing that what I am seeing and feeling is as real as it gets.
Now, the Program asks that, since we can see the results of this Power in action, believe that you can tap into it. It is there for us all to use but must be wanted enough to be humbly asked for.
“God could and would if He were sought.”
One HUGE difference between the God of my upbringing and the Higher Power that I have now is that the God of before was a punishing, judgmental God and It was “Up there somewhere.”
The Higher Power that I know now and choose to call God is not “Out there somewhere” but inside me and you and everyone else. Another name for my Higher Power is God and Love and Love is not punishing or judgmental.
Reverend Stephanie Sorensen of The Life Enrichment Center, Flint, MI said: “If you are judging you are not loving and if you are loving you are not judging.”
So, what does Spirituality have to do with how I work my Program? Only EVERYTHING!!!
Emmet Fox says that the commonest mistake many make when thinking of what their Higher Power is is picturing It as a man-like entity.
Whenever I felt guilty about anything, I pictured a white man with long hair and a beard sitting on a golden throne up there keeping score of whatever I was doing right or wrong and punishing me when I was wrong.
When the God that I now understand does anything, I have noticed the exact precision with which it is carried out. Look at all of the parts of the whole each and every body, either human or not contain.
Now, that is precise.
Wrong is also used loosely here because, many times, I was not even sure if what I was doing was right or wrong.
A little thought should let me know beyond a doubt that a man figure could not do all that I could see around me in the form of miracles such as life, even a small portion of it. So, how do I work my Program?
I first admitted and then accepted that I was powerless over alcohol and that my life had become unmanageable. After watching others in the Program live even better lives, I finally came to believe.
Believe that a Power greater than me could and would help me if only I would humbly ask. Then I did the most powerful thing that I believe I had ever done up to date in my human experience.
I turned my will and my life over to this Power and said “Since I have tried to change for most of my life and failed “Please, God, help me!?” AND HE DID!
To this day, whenever I say that I need help from this Power, I get it, every time that I humbly ask Him. This makes me truly Happy, Joyous, and Free through thick and thin, good and bad, through it ALL.
This does not mean that I selfishly find humor in everything, but I do find Peace and Serenity inside me through it all. And for this, I say “the AA Program works very well, thank you very much.” Thank you, God!
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