When I was in the madness, and even before that, Peace did not ever seem to be anywhere around me. As chaotic as my life was when young, it went flying out the window when I started drinking because I drank alcoholically from the very first Strohs. From having a blackout after my very first drinking experience to sitting on my bed with my .357 Magnum in my mouth trying to get up the courage to pull the trigger, my life just seemed to spiral downward. My vortex of life was not pleasant by any stretch of the imagination.
I was introduced to the AA Program when I sat at the kitchen table with my 1st wife while she was being 12th Stepped because she, also, was an alcoholic. I was half in the bag because I had “loosened up” by downing a large amount of Dago Red before the AAs arrived. Something that they said must have caught my attention while they talked with her because I stopped drinking and told her that I would accompany her to the AA meeting that night that had been suggested to her. I was going to do this so she “wouldn’t be alone.” After the AAs left, I did not drink anymore that day and since that day in 1976 have not had another taste of a mind-altering substance.
I heard at the first AA meetings that we attended during the reading of How It Works, 2nd paragraph, that “If you want what we have and are willing to go to any lengths to get it,” and thought that I would do anything at all to have what I was seeing that they had. Just tell or show me and I will do it! As soon as I started thinking this way, I started getting snatches of peace in my life. Contentment, for no matter how much or little it appeared. I didn’t remember ever having this feeling before.
When I explained that I had had problems with organized religion they quickly told me that this was a Spiritual Program, not a Religious Program. They then advised me that the difference is that Spiritual is from within and Religious is from outside to the inside. All I should do is believe that there is a Power bigger than me and I can call it anything that I choose. I chose the AA group at first. Others called It God, Allah, Buddha, many other things but all agreed that there is a Higher Power that created us all and everything around us. Today I choose to call my Higher Power God.
One of Webster’s definitions of God is the supreme or ultimate reality and another is one controlling a particular aspect or part of reality. I have heard people who profess to be atheists admit that “something” created the universe, they just refused to call this Power God. I soon was introduced to the teachings of Emmet Fox, who was the Spiritual Advisor to Bill W. and an early advisor to the Spiritual aspect of the AA Program. His book, The Sermon On The Mount, was used as the 1st Big Book until Bill W. published the book Alcoholics Anonymous, our present-day Big Book.
When I was in the madness, and even before that, Peace did not ever seem to be anywhere around me. As chaotic as my life was when young, it went flying out the window when I started drinking because I drank alcoholically from the very first beer. From having a blackout after my very first drinking experience to sitting on my bed with my .357 Magnum in my mouth trying to get up the courage to pull the trigger, my life just seemed to spiral downward. My vortex of life was not pleasant by any stretch of the imagination.