What are we supposed to believe? Wasn’t exactly what the subject was today, but it related to coming to believe in a Power greater than ourselves. Something close to the Second Step. Anyway that’s the way I saw it. Not all that clear from a fairly new person. Or someone questioning what it is we do and believe in.
I’m not sure that it’s a great subject, since the BB tells us that we’re not here to teach others what it is we believe. It’s up to them. It says whatever make sense to them.
What is it we should tell them? That this program works if we work it. That we never have to drink again, unless we want to. How do they know what to believe? Simple. If we have been living this way of life then we are the examples that it works.
A friend of mine and I talked about this after the meeting today. Like myself, he commented on the fact that, when people are talking about this they’re actually trying to teach others what they believe in. He agreed that we can tell others we believe in a Power greater than ourselves, but what that is is an individual matter. I doubt very much I’m ever going to teach an atheist what I believe in. And I shouldn’t. That’s the individuals choice. If the group is someones Higher Power then that’s what it is. To them.
The whole concept of the spiritual way of life is for me what keeps me sober. How do I find that way of life? Simple. It’s in the Twelve Steps and the principles behind this program. It’s in actually living this way of life. It’s my intentions. What is it I intend to do each and every day? How do I start my day? What am I thinking about? And what is it that I call that way of thinking? How about the Eleventh Step? Do my intentions include being open to helping another alcoholic to try to get sober and stay sober?
I thought about my old sponsor. Except for directing me to read and study the BB, especially the fourth chapter near the beginning of my coming here, he never talked to me about God or anything other than working this program and working with others. Yet he was an example to me and many others of how we should live and work this program. He was, as many pointed out a deeply spiritual man. He helped me to change my whole life, from a helpless and hopeless drunk into a person, who hasn’t taken a drink since the day he came into this program, and is trying to live a sober life each and everyday since. A spiritual way of life.
Often, when I think about this subject, I remember what Bill W. related. How, when he was newly sober and trying to help others get sober, he often tried to get them to believe what he believed. The result was that he drove many an alcoholic back to alcohol. He said he later regretted what he did and what happened to those men. He said it was his spiritual pride, which drove him to do this. He stopped and never went there again.
I think of how these Steps and much of the BB was written and edited by those early members, who had just stepped out of the religious atmosphere of the Oxford Group. Not that there was an argument with religion as such. But they believed that there should be no restriction on who believed what. They opened the program up to any alcoholic, who wanted to get sober, regardless of what they did or didn’t believe. They agreed, after many a heated argument to use the words “a Power greater than ourselves”, “Higher Power”, and “the God of our understanding” in the Steps. The whole concept was sobriety through a spiritual way of life. Freedom from the bondage of alcohol. A restoration to sanity, the spiritual awakening, for each and everyone of us.
And it’s worked for me and so many others I know. How grateful can I get? As several people pointed out to me today, beyond my wildest dreams. Yes.