A friend and I were talking about the word discipline. He reminded me of Dr. Harry Tiebout “discipline of surrender”.
The word discipline, as I have often thought, gets a bad definition with us alcoholics. It had nothing to do with punishment. It really means to learn. And in this program I have learned a lot about discipline from my sponsor and other sober alcoholics. I learned to change. To surrender and accept those things which my sobriety depends upon.
Part of that discipline is to talk to others and listen to their experiences. Not always easy to do, but I have learned to do this over time. By doing this, I have learned a lot about how to handle many things, which used to bother me. To me it’s a form of surrender and acceptance. Teaching me to admit my being powerless over so many things. Before I came to this program, and even in my early time in the program, I never thought I would ever really do this.
Anyway, after our talk, I had to think about this word discipline.