Lately I have heard a couple of people, who have been around a while, kind of talking spirituality down. There seems to be a tendency to do that today. One man said that what we call spiritual is just plain common sense.
That’s not what I learned in here and that’s not what I think keeps us sober. Common sense? If that were the case, then what need do we have of this program? Common sense would mean that by using common sense I could have gotten sober on my own. Ask the “common sense” people, if they found that they could stop drinking by themselves.
Common sense becomes uncommon sense. I didn’t think that up. It’s in the BB. Where? Now’s a good time to look it up. As is often said, if you want to hide something in AA, put it in the BB.
Common sense becomes uncommon sense. If I have common sense, it must mean that I’m rational. One has to be rational to understand what common sense is. And what’s rational mean? If one is rational, that means one is sane.
Wait a minute. When I came in, I was insane. I had to be restored to sanity. How did that happen? Oh, that’s right, I came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. Did it? Yes. How did that come about? By applying these 12 Steps to my life. And what did they do? They led me into a spiritual way of life, as I progressed through them. And what did that do?
For one thing it led me to a spiritual awakening. For another it placed me in a position of neutrality, as far as alcohol is concerned. I no longer wanted to drink. In fact, just as the BB said, at the thought of a drink, I recoiled from it as I would a hot stove. How did that happen? From common sense? No. it’s because, as a result of working these Steps, I was restored to sanity.
For the first time I could act sanely. For the alcoholic it’s common sense not to drink. It’s rational. It’s sane. But it’s not because I did it on my own thinking. It was my own thinking, which got me into all of this mess to begin with. And, it still can.
Common sense becomes uncommon sense, when I raise it to another level. A level above the merely rational, the sane, to place my life and and my will into the care of the God of my understanding. But it came from there to begin with. In other words, the most spiritual thing I can do on any given day is not to take a drink. To remain sober, in spite of what goes on in the world around me. To take the action of living a spiritual way of life.
My sobriety is contingent on the maintenance of my spiritual condition. The spiritual life is not a theory, it has to be lived. How? By practicing these principles in all of my affairs. The principles? They’re spiritual in nature.
I’m not arguing. Just thinking. It’s not worth an argument. Like I was told, AA is not a debating society. People are free to think what they think. But so am I.