One of the best things to happen to me in my life was getting sober. One of the worst things to happen in this sober life is my stumbling over the number one offender; Pride.
Sandy B. once said if you wanted to get back at someone, pray that they become self centered. He said there is nothing that will cause so much pain to someone as being self centered. Bill W. tells us that a lifetime of selfishness and self centeredness is not turned around over night. Amen to that.
This problem we all have with pride comes to us in so many forms. If not harnessed it will eventually take us back out to a drink. How easily offended we can become. Someone ignores us or rejects us and we’re off and running with self pity and resentment. How easy to anger we become. Just think about how angry we became, when we first came in and someone, maybe a sponsor, made a suggestion we didn’t like.
In his book A Genessee Diary, Henri Nouwens wrote about this very thing. He told how he was on a speaking circuit and how everything was beginning to get to him. He said that the telephone was always ringing and people making requests. He said that he was inundated with mail demanding his time. The doorbell was always ringing and irritating him. But, when the phone didn’t ring, when he got no mail, when the doorbell didn’t ring, he became angry and beside himself. He decided he needed to do something about this and he felt that he needed to go away on some kind of retreat and get himself together.
The place he chose was the Trappist Monastary in Rochester, NY. The monks there gave him persmission to live there for a period of nine months. The Abbott of the monastary was also a medical doctor and a psychiatrist, so he got the man to agree to treat him while he was there. So, one day, when one of the monks ignored his silent greeting, he found himself getting angry. That and a couple of other irritants had the same effect on him. He went to the Abbott and talked to him about this. The man told him that he lacked nuance in his anger. He said that there was no gradation in how he reacted. That he would react the same way to a snub as he would if his car was stolen or his house broken into.
Bill tells us that we cannot afford justifiable anger. That it’s the dubious luxury of normal men. The reason is obvious. We lack nuance. The slightest affront to our pride and we’re off and running. There is something wrong with us. As Bill, also, said the idea that we’re like other men has to be smashed. It’s not just in the drinking, but it’s in what is basically wrong with us. We take ourselves too seriously. A normal person might stumble and fall and get up laughing at his clumsiness. We’d probably burn with humiliation. Carol R. once suggested that we’re wired wrong.
The solution to all of this is, of course, to be found in the steps. The spiritual principles embedded in these simple courses of action can allay whatever problem I might run into. They can literally lift me out of this state of self centered concern for myself and place me in a state of serenity and peace of mind. They can place sentries around my mind and protect me from emotions, which can rush the gates and overwhelm me. They can raise me to a level of emotional and spiritual sobriety I could never have dreamed of, when I first came through the doors.
God could and would if He was sought.
Just thinking. Ned