Went to a meeting at noon today and the subject was going to any lengths. There were a lot of good things said. But one of them hit home the minute the person said it. They said that one of the things they had to strive for was freedom from the bondage of self. It was like a clap of thunder.
I know that we’ve heard this over and over again. It’s in the BB, but there are times, when it’s like we heard it for the first time. Today I heard it again. Really heard it.
I remember Sandy B. a long time ago, when he was at College Park, he said that if you really didn’t like someone, pray that they become self centered. He said that it was so painful to be self centered that it would cause them great pain. A joke, of course, but one that got the point home to people like us.
My friend George D. up here puts it another way;! “I ain’t much, but I’m all I think about.”
Today, coming home, the man who was driving and I talked about this stuff. I told him about all the twelfth step calls I went on. Each and everyone of those was a pain in the butt to me. I resisted each one. I didn’t want to go, because I didn’t feel like it. I felt like I had nothing to say. But I realize now that it was me thinking about me and what I wanted. Anyway, Tom and Herb wouldn’t let me get away with it and ordered me out the door.
I was just on the phone with my friend Joe. He and I talked about this stuff and I recalled what it was that happened to me, when I had that hemmorage and didn’t think about myself. I know what happened. Did you ever go through a period at the beginning of your program, when you were on a “pink cloud”? I know that I did. It was a period, when if an! yone asked you to do something, you did it without question. It was no problem. You were willing to do anything.
Much later, when the “pink cloud” had dissapeared and we were back slogging along, complaining, and whining again, I learned what had happened. It seems that the pink cloud period was a time when our wills were arrested. It was described to me that it was a period, when God had taken over and pretty much doing for us, what we could not do for ourselves. Then, after a period of time, our egos take over and we hit the ground with a thump. We’re back in charge and we resist any and all suggestions, but end up doing them, because of the inevitable consequences if we don’t. But we really don’t want to do God’s will. We want to do what we want to do.
I think during that hemmorage, when chances were fifty-fifty, whether I was going to live or die, it didn’t matter. I was prepared to do whatever. It was God’s will. That’s all I needed to know. I wasn’t hanging on to anything. I had surrendered and accepted.
But with the ego back in charge, surrender and acceptance is a heruclean task. It takes effort. I have to pray for the willingness to be willing. And, even then, I am only willing to do enough of what I have to do to get by. Complete surrender seems impossible. The BB says, abandon yourselves to God…I’ve never abandoned myself to anything except to booze. Just maybe, when I went through that early period of the pink cloud. Now, I have to think about it.
Forget me? I don’t think so. Wait a minute. Isn’t that part of my job? Maybe the answer is in the eleventh step. I’ll think about it. Ned