“You fuss about yourself too much.” Those words were written by a spiritual director a couple of centuries ago to a nun, who apparently needed to hear them. I need to hear them.
How can I be fussing about me, when it’s all about them? You know, those people who hurt my feelings. Ticked me off. Billed me too much money. Made me angry. It’s about the people I resent. Next week I have all these things I have to get done.
How can it be about me? It’s all about me. After all, I’m the center of my world. My attention. What’s the answer to all of this?
How about alcohol? If I will stop and go back and ask myself, why did I come here? My sponsor would often ask me that. “Why did you come here?” That, after all my moaning and groaning to him. “I came here to get sober,” I would say. “Are you?” my sponsor would ask me. “Yes, I’m sober.” “Then you got what you wanted. Why are you complaining?”
The truth is that I came here to stop drinking and I did. I didn’t come here to make money, find a romance, a new place to live, none of that. Only one thing. I desperately needed to stop drinking and get sober. AA gave me that and a whole lot more.
This other stuff I get into, my “problems”, are just my way of complaining about how I’m not getting my way or I’m unhappy with the way my life’s going.
Sandy B. used to say that behind every problem there’s a spiritual answer. Just because the problem appears financial, doesn’t mean it’s not spiritual. It just doesn’t look that way.
The proof is in the pudding, as they say. The answer to my problem with alcohol was just that; spiritual. Sure didn’t look that way, when I was out there or coming in. But that’s what restored me to sanity. A spiritual solution, a spiritual awakening as a result of the Twelve Steps. None of my other problems ever appear spiritual. But how often I have found the solution through one or all of these Twelve Steps.
That’s the point isn’t it? Stop fussing about me and rely on what I have learned in this program that works. Learn to have faith and trust in those, whom I know are working this program and my higher power, the God of my understanding. It works. I know it does from my experience and the experience of others.