or you don’t get no spendin’ cash!
Yakety Yak! Don’t come back!
We found the trash that cluttered our minds when taking AA Step 4, our inventory. OK, now all of this pain and agony that was brought out has to be disposed of. I tried drowning it before by drinking it away but discovered that it only floated and stuck around.
So, is there any way to get rid of it? Yes, there is. The inventory Step 4 only brought it all up in one place, the front of your mind. Now we must “Take out the papers and the trash.” Get rid of it.
This is where AA Step 5 comes in. Step 5 says “Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.” We have said before that we are only as sick as our secrets.
This step is the first in the process of bringing daylight onto our deepest, darkest secrets. “Ya, but, if I told someone my darkest secret, they wouldn’t like me anymore.” (Hint: Not usually)
Another “Ya, but” that we hope to rid ourselves of in this step. “Ya, but” only compounds problems. Why? Because it turns us into explainers and people who want to keep hiding these diseased memories.
Many of them maybe didn’t come from our subconscious to our conscious mind until we did our 4th Step. We had even tried to hide them from ourselves.
What a relief and joy to finally unearth them and bring them from our deepest regrets out into the sunshine of openness that finally gives us peace.
Peace is called Serenity in the AA Program. Whatever you wish to call it, once you start really feeling it, you will probably want more, much more. I did and still do, so much that I try to have zero secrets such as these again.
Notice that I do not put in the disclaimer of saying something similar to “I know that I am only one drink away from all of this misery, but….” No. I choose to think in the positive because, as we have discussed before, I get out of life exactly what I put into the mirror of my life.
If I put in negativity, I see and feel negativity. If I put in positivity, I get positive results in all my affairs. Shining a light on our secrets means that they are no longer secrets.
Then the burden is able to be shared and dealt with in positive ways, leaving us so much freer than we were before taking this step. With every secret that comes up to be shared, we are less bound to the misery and despair that we have lived with for so long.
Just try not to pick and choose what parts of your old life you want to take back, not even for a minute! Don’t be afraid of living. Be happy with the fact that you can now truly live and enjoy life.
If you didn’t drink or drug today, you now have choices. Wouldn’t it be nicer if you chose to suck on a straw in an ice cream soda rather than the barrel of a pistol?
Doyou choose to be miserable or do you choose to be Happy, Joyous, and Free? The choice is yours and nobody else’s. Choose wisely! Thank you, God!
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