I have worked for years and finally have a beautiful lawn, home, garden, education, love life, loving spouse, great children and now feel that it is time for me to stop watering, remodeling, learning, putting love into a relationship and just taking and enjoying it, or being a living example for my now adult children. Do you see anything amiss here? What is it?
In my opinion, it is going to demonstrate the Spiritual Law of Attraction – you get out of life just what you put into it like looking into life’s mirror. The Spiritual Laws are as real as a heart attack and physical laws like gravity and physics. If I stop watering and fertilizing my lawn or garden, they grow weedy and eventually die. If I stop learning, my mind grows stagnant and even my physical health suffers. If I stop loving, others around me disappear, emotionally if not physically. If I stop trying to be a good example for my children, they will look elsewhere for inspiration and get it from far beyond my control, maybe even the police or courts.
If I keep watering and feeding all around me they stay healthy and loving. MY SOBRIETY AND SPIRITUAL JOURNEY ARE NO DIFFERENT AT ALL. If I stop feeding my sobriety, it too will regress into as bad or worse than it was when I first sobered up. After a while in the AA Program, we find a meeting or meetings where we are comfortable with the other attendees. When we travel, we find meetings in other cities, states, nations that share common interests and we are never alone wherever we are. This, in turn, leads us to a new feeling of happiness, joy, and freedom that we may have never had before.
Now, as an old elementary school teacher used to say to us (and I use the term old because it was over 70 years ago) “Put your thinking cap on!” What do you really want – the old life of misery, guilt, remorse, hangovers, illnesses, injuries, sleepless nights, waking up in a cold sweat and not even knowing why or the way of life that has been not only told to you but also demonstrated to you by so many in the AA Program? Admit it, you were even starting to feel better about yourself and this was making your surroundings even better. Less cringing when a police car with a blue light happened to be behind you, getting hugs from family members who avoided you for maybe years before.
The only way that I know of to keep my feelings of Happiness, Joy, and Freedom is to continue working my AA Program to the best of my ability 24/7/365. When I am doing this, I am a happy, joyous, and free person and choose to keep it. Just like taking care of my lawn or garden, I must figuratively water and fertilize my life and for this I am grateful that I have AA and you to help me do just that.