I was watching a TV show last night and they had a woman on, who was a child actress back when TV was in its infancy. They showed clips of her on that show and I was struck by the simplicity and candor of that show. It was not like today’s so called sit coms. She had the role of the youngest daughter on the Danny Thomas Show, which was originally titled “Father Knows Best”.
But, that wasn’t what I was thinking about this morning. I was thinking about the title of that show, though. Father Knows Best. I’ll get back to this.
What I was thinking about specifically was something my sponsor told me a long time ago. That all the answers to my life problems were to be found in the BB. Really? What about financial problems? Nope, it’s not in there. What about problems with relationships? Not in there. What about physical problems? Not in there either. Then what is in there?
We’re told that if we have specific problems, there are other people to address them. There are doctors, ministers, psychologists, and a host of other experts, who can help us deal with specific problems. Problems other than alcohol, but problems, which could certainly lead us back to a drink.
What is in that book addresses what underlies all our problems. It tells us how to deal with these problems on a level above the “problems” themselves. How to deal with me. After all, the common denominator in all my problems is me. I’ve already been told what’s wrong with me in the first step. My life and the life of every alcoholic, beyond alcohol, is that it’s unmanageable. My problem I am told, is that I have the mind of a chronic alcoholic. Yet I have “recovered”, as long as I practice these principles put forth in that book on a daily basis. Experience has proved the truth of this.
Prior to entrance into this program, my life was a complete mess. I lived in a state of complete panic and overwhelming fear of what was going to happen to me. For a while, after I came in, nothing seemed to have changed, except I wasn’t drinking. But, gradually things began to change for me. I began to hear what my sponsor and all those old timers were telling me. As I began to put into practice these steps and pay attention to what was in the BB, everything began to change. I started to realize that when all else fails, follow the directions. The directions were in the BB, even though I was hearing what was written there from my sponsor and others.
One day my sponsor said to me, “Things may not get better, but you will.” What I found out was that as I got better, things got better. I found that I had never had a grasp on how to live this life. I was still immature, insecure, and oversensitive. What was happening to me was that I was beginning to grow up for the first time. I began to see life in a new light. All because I was undergoing a complete change in personality. I developed a new atttitude toward life and all that life presented to me. Things hadn’t changed, but I had.
The key to all of this was the solution we’re all presented with. It began with that second step. The concept of a higher power, something outside of me, began to slowly infilitrate my conciousness and the hope that things were going to get better. And they did as I worked my way through each step.
What about Father Knows Best? Bill tells us that most good ideas are simple and the idea he presents in the 5th Chapter is so simple and so freeing to most of us. As he said, it’s the keystone. I began to grasp the concept of a power greater than myselfr. A God of my understanding began to grow. Bill makes a profound statement to get us through that door to frreedom. We are to be the agents of this new Director in our lives. And, no matter how I may have struggled at this point, I could begin to grasp that He is the Father and we are his children.
Like I said, none of this came suddenly to me. I found myself getting a metaphysical hernia from all this internal wrestling. Eventually I was to surrender with each succeeding step. I found that the fears I had began to melt, as my false pride and ego began to fade. I was beginning to find the answers I was looking for. And this all happened because alcohol had driven me down to my knees. I never wanted to drink again and the God of my understanding and the groups I met showed me the solution to my problem with booze and the answers I was seeking in how to live this life without taking a drink.