Emotional Sobriety, by Bill W

"I think that many oldsters who have put our AA "booze cure" to severe but successful tests still find they often lack emotional sobriety. Perhaps they will be the spearhead for the next major development in AA, the development of much more real maturity and balance (which is to say, humility) in our relations with ourselves, with our fellows, and with God. 

Those adolescent urges that so many of us have for top approval, perfect security, and perfect romance, urges quite appropriate to age seventeen, prove to be an impossible way of life when we are at age forty-seven and fifty-seven. 

Since AA began, I've taken immense wallops in all these areas because of my failure to grow up emotionally and spiritually. My God, how painful it is to keep demanding the impossible, and how very painful to discover, finally, that all along we have had the cart before the horse. Then comes the final agony of seeing how awfully wrong we have been, but still finding ourselves unable to get off the emotional merry-go-round. 

How to translate a right mental conviction into a right emotional result, and so into easy, happy and good living. Well, that's not only the neurotic's problem, it's the problem of life itself for all of us who have got to the point of real willingness to hew to right principles in all of our affairs. 

Even then, as we hew away, peace and joy may still elude us. That's the place so many of us AA oldsters have come to. And it's a hell of a spot, literally. How shall our unconscious, from which so many of our fears, compulsions and phony aspirations still stream, be brought into line with what we actually believe, know and want! How to convince our dumb, raging and hidden ‘Mr. Hyde' becomes our main task. 

I've recently come to believe that this can be achieved. I believe so because I begin to see many benighted ones, folks like you and me, commencing to get results. Last autumn, depression, having no really rational cause at all, almost took me to the cleaners. I began to be scared that I was in for another long chronic spell. Considering the grief I've had with depressions, it wasn't a bright prospect. 

I kept asking myself "Why can't the twelve steps work to release depression?" By the hour, I stared at the St. Francis Prayer ... "it's better to comfort than to be comforted". Here was the formula, all right, but why didn't it work? 

Suddenly, I realized what the matter was. My basic flaw had always been dependence, almost absolute dependence, on people or circumstances to supply me with prestige, security, and the like. Failing to get these things according to my perfectionist dreams and specifications, I had fought for them. And when defeat came, so did my depression. 

There wasn't a chance of making the outgoing love of St. Francis a workable and joyous way of life until these fatal and almost absolute dependencies were cut away. 

Because I had over the years undergone a little spiritual development, the absolute quality of these frightful dependencies had never before been so starkly revealed. Reinforced by what grace I could secure in prayer, I found I had to exert every ounce of will and action to cut off these faulty emotional dependencies upon people, upon AA, indeed upon any act of circumstance whatsoever. 

Then only could I be free to love as Francis did. Emotional and instinctual satisfactions, I saw, were really the extra dividends of having love, offering love, and expressing love appropriate to each relation of life. 

Plainly, I could not avail myself to God's love until I was able to offer it back to Him by loving others as He would have me. And I couldn't possibly do that so long as I was victimized by false dependencies. 

For my dependence meant demand, a demand for the possession and control of the people and the conditions surrounding me. 

While those words "absolute dependence" may look like a gimmick, they were the ones that helped to trigger my release into my present degree of stability and quietness of mind, qualities which I am now trying to consolidate by offering love to others regardless of the return to me. 

This seems to be the primary healing circuit: an outgoing love of God's creation and His people, by means of which we avail ourselves of His love for us. It is most clear that the real current can't flow until our paralyzing dependencies are broken, and broken at depth. Only then can we possibly have a glimmer of what adult love really is. 

If we examine every disturbance we have, great or small, we will find at the root of it some unhealthy dependence and its consequent demand. Let us, with God's help, continually surrender these hobbling demands. Then we can be set free to live and love: we may then be able to gain emotional sobriety. 

Of course, I haven't offered you a really new idea --- only a gimmick that has started to unhook several of my own hexes' at depth. Nowadays, my brain no longer races compulsively in either elation, grandiosity or depression. I have been given a quiet place in bright sunshine" 

Bill Wilson

SLAA Step 7 Questions

HUMBLY ASKED GOD TO REMOVE OUR SHORTCOMINGS

9. Read AS BILL SEES IT. 22, 6I, 75. How has working the twelve steps helped me work through fear?

22

The chief activator of our defects has been self-centered fear -- primarily fear that we would lose something we already possessed or would fail to get something we demanded. Living upon a basis of unsatisfied demands, we were in a state of continual disturbance and frustration. Therefore, no peace was to be had unless we could find a means of reducing these demands.

<< << << >> >> >>

For all its usual destructiveness, we have found that fear can be the starting point for better things. Fear can be a steppingstone to prudence and to a decent respect for others. It can point the path to justice, as well as to hate. And the more we have of respect and justice, the more we shall begin to find love which can suffer much, and yet be freely given. So fear need not always be destructive, because the lessons of its consequences can lead us to positive values.

61

Fear somehow touched about every aspect of our lives. It was an evil and corroding thread; the fabric of our existence was shot through with it. It set in motion trains of circumstances which brought us misfortune we felt we didn't deserve. But did not we often set the ball rolling ourselves?

<< << << >> >> >>

The problem of resolving fear has two aspects. We shall have to try for all the freedom from fear that is possible for us to attain. Then we shall need to find both the courage and the grace to deal constructively with whatever fears remain.

75

When a job still looked like a mere means of getting money rather than an opportunity for service, when the acquisition of money for financial independence looked more important than a right dependence upon God, we were the victims of unreasonable fears. And these were fears which would make a serene and useful existence, at any financial level, quite impossible.

But as time passed we found that with the help of A.A.'s Twelve Steps we could lose those fears, no matter what our material prospects were. We could cheerfully perform humble labor without worrying about tomorrow. If our circumstances happened to be good, we no longer dreaded a change for the worse, for we had learned that these troubles could be turned into great values, for ourselves and for others.

Fear and Pain.  Such strong but mistaken and misunderstood motivators in my life.  Anxiety, that is, fear, has been a constant in my life and underlies my alcohol use.

It's really hard to understand and relate the complex warping of my life that avoidance of fear and pain have caused.  So many people I admire I'd call "fearless" - they don't seem to have this crippling self doubt and questioning that I have.  And self-centered fear... how this hits the nail on the head, because it's not just fear, it's a myopic, cross-eyed sense of imminent self-destruction, of penury, of being robbed, of being abandoned and left for dead, and that all this selfishness seems to be constructed to fight back that fear, all these things must be hoarded and consumed and used in order to inflate and construct a hard self to weather the world

10. Do you truly understand humility? Read Step 7 in the AA ‘12 x 12’. Discuss and reflect on how humility has affected your life.

Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.

I love this step. It's the simplest and most direct of the steps.  I wish they were all this simple.  When I read the steps through when I'm lucky enough to get to read How It Works at meetings, this step always causes a slight catch for me.  It's the emotionally loaded of all the steps for me.

Humility has been a key part of understanding the workings of my disfuntional emotional structures: I'm so childish and selfish and prideful.  As I am able to return to humility and simplicity and gratitude, so clarity returns to me.  Humility is acceptance of one's self with proper perspective.

I know that "turning it over" is a key underpinning of our philosophy, and its about surrender - but clearly when you acknowledge the truth of sayings like "God will steer if we row the boat" - and that "faith without works is dead" then clearly there is an act of will involved in sobriety - however, it's not the act of will to control our disease or our lives, I accept that for me, this level of control is impossible, it's simply the act of will to surrender, to keep surrendering, and to take the actions required to maintain a solid spiritual contact.

I'm sorry to bring cosmology into this but there's a whiff of the old patriarchal god in some of this language that not only turns me off, but which I find to be spiritually incorrect.  Also I had a very controlling father.

And I say this because rather than say "hand it over" I want to say "connect with God".  God is not outside of me, God acts through me, if I make myself open to that power in my life.  The removal of shortcomings comes about not by an action of God, but by the constant and applied pressure over years of you keeping yourself in a spiritual condition for God to inform your actions.  

11. Read from AS BILL SEES IT, Page 139 ‘Basis of all Humility’, and page 212, "Faith and Action". Discuss and reflect on the act of:

(a) Humbly asking God to remove defects

(b) Having faith that is vital, accompanied by self-sacrifice and unselfish, constructive

action.

139 Basis of All Humility

For just so long as we were convinced that we could live exclusively by our own individual strength and intelligence, for just that long was a working faith in a Higher Power impossible.

This was true even when we believed that God existed. We could actually have earnest religious beliefs which remained barren because we were still trying to play God ourselves. As long as we placed self-reliance first, a genuine reliance upon a Higher Power was out of the question.

That basic ingredient of all humility, a desire to seek and do God's will, was missing.

212 Faith and Action

Your prospect's religious education and training may be far superior to yours. In that case, he is going to wonder how you can add anything to what he already knows.

But he will be curious to learn why his own convictions have not worked and why yours seem to work so well. He may be an example of the truth that faith alone is insufficient. To be vital, faith must be accompanied by self sacrifice and unselfish, constructive action.

Admit that he probably knows more about religion than you do, but remind him that, however deep his faith and knowledge, these qualities could not have served him well, or he would not be asking your help.

<< << << >> >> >>

Dr. Bob did not need me for his spiritual instruction. He had already had more of that than I. What he did need, when we first met, was the deflation at depth and the understanding that only one drunk can give to another. What I needed was the humility of self-forgetfulness and the kinship with another human being of my own kind.

humbly asking god to remove defects

vital faith, self-sacrifice, unselfish constructive action

Operating from a place of true humility is immensely empowering.  I think that sounds ironic, but only from the bottom can you truly look up.  Once you leave behind selfishness, you've lost the expectations, entitlement, worry and regret that make up a sad set of empty boxes that limit so many people's lives, and clutter their view of life in a way that obscures god.

And this is what I tried to say with my answer to the last question: the acts which keep your spiritual horizon clear for contact with god: a vital faith, humility, self-sacrifice, gratitude, *are* in fact God's will.  The act of reaching for God is all God wants from us.  The journey is the destination.  The process is the deliverable.

Got does not remove your defects, you relinquish them as you grow closer to God.

.

12. The mental hygiene and spiritual housecleaning we have started in our inventories and continued in Step Five reach their climax in Step Seven. Read pages 48, 103, 136, 196, 281, 327 in AS BILL SEES IT. Are you ready to fully subject your will to God? Do you wish to surrender to Him all your moral imperfections?

48 Live Serenely

When a drunk has a terrific hangover because he drank heavily yesterday, he cannot live well today. But there is another kind of hangover which we all experience whether we are drinking or not. That is the emotional hangover, the direct result of yesterday's and sometimes today's excesses of negative emotions -- anger, fear, jealousy, and the like.

If we would live serenely today and tomorrow, we certainly need to eliminate these hangovers. This doesn't mean we need to wander morbidly around in the past. It requires an admission and correction of errors -- now.

103 Principles Before Expediency

Most of us thought good character was desirable. Obviously, good character was something one needed to get on with the business of being self-satisfied. With a proper display of honesty and morality, we'd stand a better chance of getting what we really wanted. But whenever we had to choose between character and comfort, character-building was lost in the dust of our chase after what we thought was happiness.

Seldom did we look at character-building as something desirable in itself. We never thought of making honesty, tolerance, and true love of man and God the daily basis of living.

<< << << >> >> >>

How to translate a right mental conviction into a right emotional result, and so into easy, happy, and good living, is the problem of life itself.

136 Giving Up Defects

Looking at those defects we are unwilling to give up, we ought to erase the hard and fast lines that we have drawn. Perhaps in some cases we shall say, "This I cannot give up yet...." But we should not say to ourselves, "This O will never give up!"

The moment we say, "No, never!" our minds close against the grace of God. Such rebellion my be fatal. Instead, we should abandon limited objectives and begin to move towards God's will for us.

 

196 Antidote for Fear

When our failings generate fear, we then have soul-sickness. This sickness, in turn, generates still more character defects.

Unreasonable fear that our instincts will not be satisfied drives us to covet the possessions of others, to lust for sex and power, to become angry when our instinctive demands are threatened, to be envious when the ambitions of others seem to be realized while ours are not. We eat, drink, and grab for more of everything than we need, fearing we shall never have enough. And, with genuine alarm at the prospect at work, we stay lazy. We loaf and procrastinate, or at best work grudgingly and under half steam.

These fears are the termites that ceaselessly devour the foundations of whatever sort of life we try to build.

<< << << >> >> >>

As faith grows, so does inner security. The vast underlying fear of nothingness commences to subside. We of A.A. find that our basic antidote for fear is a spiritual awakening.

281 Ourselves as Individuals

There is only one sure test of all spiritual experiences: "By their fruits, ye shall know them."

This is why I think we should question no one's transformation -- whether it be sudden or gradual. Nor should we demand anyone's special type for ourselves, because experience suggests that we are apt to receive whatever may be the most useful for our own needs.

<< << << >> >> >>

Human beings are never quite alike, so each of us, when making an inventory, will need to determine what his individual character defects are. Having found the shoes that fit, he ought to step into them and walk with new confidence that he is at last on the right track.

There's a continuum from Step 3 to Step 7 - made a decision to turn our wills and our lives over to God - then asking God to remove the defects of character

Emotional hangovers - maybe i've been on an anxiety bender this last week or so.

I used to think that good character was just an opinion and that morality was a moveable feast.  I now implicitly understand that there is a single way of behaviour that clears the decks for a connection to God.

Choice of giving up defects: if you take your eyes off yourself and lift them to God, there is only the beatitude of drawing close to God

Fear of loss and emptiness - that you can fill the void instead dive into the void, there is God

Subject your will - if that means focus all my energies on moving toward God - then yes.

There is no other answer for me.

This is my path, but I will not tread it perfectly.

13. What has there "never been enough of” for you?

This is a great question, and a deep one.  It goes way back.

Security, love, money, sex.  Food and alcohol actually pretty easy to get... not sure yet about the complexities of my food issues.  Alcohol is only available at certain times of the day and from certain places - and you can be assured that during active alcoholism I went to great lengths to assure my supply was secure.

But strictly, it's the model or mode of "perceived scarcity" that underlies many of my behaviours, even when the supply of these things was not in question.  And as every marketer knows, percieved scarcity plays directly into percieved value and importance.  

Around love and sex, the scarcity was mostly a bolster to my flagging self-esteem.

Around security and money, more a distrust of my ability to make my way in the world, and a distrust of others as well.  Additionally with money, my desires far outpaced my earnings potential, and I continue to make unwise spending and saving decisions to this day.

14. How do you make, or how can you make honesty, tolerance and true love of man and God the daily basis of living?

As we work through these Step 7 questions I keep thinking of Thomas à Kempis and his "Imitation of Christ".  As much as I'm not a Christian, as I pursue my spiritual path and become accustomed to its rise and fall, I do understand the notion of a Buddha or Christ, as someone who was somehow capable of remaining in Grace.  And what a model that is for behaviour and aspiration.

So I'm not buddha, or a buddha, or a bodhisatva.  Go figure.

Part of the way I see spirituality is that there is a continuum, a spectrum, maybe a conduit between selfishness and grace.  Or perhaps journey is a better word - a journey, a path from selfishness to the utter unconditional love and serenity that is God.  As I've said before each step on this path toward God can be the relinquishment of resentment and fear, a bit of self-knowledge, the putting aside of illusions, the recognition and taking up of God's task for you on this planet.  Somebody recently shared that a sponsor had asked him if a (figurative) step he was taking was a step toward or away from his disease, but I choose to ask if it's a step toward or away from God.

I do not choose to believe that God created us in prehistoric time, although perhaps God is implicit in the fabric of the universe that quickens matter to give it love and thought, I prefer to think that God is our Source, every second of every day, and seeks to create us in every moment.

When I made a decision to turn my will and my life over to God - it's the implicit acceptance of this path.  I know that I will stray, that I will backslide, that I will fail myself and God - that's fine, I'm human.  The point is that to the best of my ability, I return again and again to the path, and here Camus' Sysiphus guides me. Camus was working with existentialism with his insight that the meaning of life for poor Sysiphus was not the endless pushing of boulders up hills, but during the walk back down the mountain to get the boulder agin.  So likewise for me, I think that the most growth occurs not on the path, but on those countless journeys BACK to the path when I have strayed.  This captured with the muslim saying "astaghfirallah al azim" - in asking for forgiveness they admit they have strayed from the path and are asking Allah to help them return.

Honesty, tolerance, and true love of man and God are godlike qualities that are steps, wayposts, conditions, or gates along the journey to God.

15. Do you still place self-reliance first and are you still rebellious.

I think this may be a trick question.  The putting aside of self-reliance is a life-long goal.  It's going to kick in again and again, it's how we were raised.

The calling toward god is a path, but we'll fall off the path over and over.

It's not so much rebellion as clinging to old ways.  Expectations and anxiety are still a part of my fabric of existence.

When I can, as much as I can, I try to remember to have God first.

16. How can humility give us serenity?

Humility is being right-sized, it's acceptance, it's the smallest ego one could have.  If Ego is one end of the continuum that leads to God, then the smaller we make it, the more godlike we are, and share in His serenity, peace and love.

17. How does the taking of the 7th Step aid in the reduction of Ego?

This step echoes three and six - in making the decision to turn my will and my life over, in becoming entirely ready to embrace the journey of divestment from ego toward god, and humbly asking god to remove the defects - each of these is a stance and a move away from ego.

God doesn't ACTIVELY remove defects - if we say again and again in every dealing with God that WE are the engine and the actor, God provides the wisdom and direction.  It's the process of feeding energy into the transformation and grooming and creating of something from ourselves toward the nature of God, that's how we lose ego.

18. Make a gratitude list of what God has done for you that you could not do for yourself.

I have to translate all these paternalistic judeo-christian ideas for them to make sense for me.  Like I said, I do not see God as an actor, god is a principle.  Did gravity make the apple fall from the tree?  Possibly.  But really the apple had no support.

I think what really is happening in this question is that we are trying to illustrate the difference between an ego-directed life, one this is not moving along the spectrum toward god (or moving the wrong direction), and one that is.

I am so, so grateful for:

Ability to put aside my addictions

the ability to attract Marhiza

The beginning of an ability to see past a lifetime of fear

The gift of self esteem

19. What unreasonable demands have you made upon others, yourself and God? How did self-centered fear play a part?

OMG what a question.

May I address it backwards? 

In other words, I already know that self-centered fear is the main culprit of a misguided life.

an an elucidation of unreasonable demands is its own delightful exercise in self- awareness.

It lets us know how we are not accepting. things

myself: that I be perfect, that I know all and never mess up

that i will know how to get through life and that everyone will like me

that 

that others recognise my brilliance and honor me - I could itemise but this is essentially narcissism at its core, no real need to go further.

not really any demands on God - God was a nonentity until only fairly recently - and I still do not accord him the power of action - that's me.

SLAA Step 6 Questions

1. Read pages 75-76, Chapter 6 in the ‘BIG BOOK’, Make a list of the character defects that you are ready to have God remove.

Pride - That I am better than anything or anyone. antidote: love others

Self-centeredness - That I think only of myself   think of others

Self-pity - That I didn't get something    accept

Selfishness - that my self-centeredness eclipses the worth of others   give to others

Greed - that i covet things    i shall not want

Jealousy - that I think others have it better than me    accept - what is wealth?

Gluttony - the weakness of avarice   - be full 

Sloth - laziness   be of service

Intolerance - forgive others

Arrogance - accept others

Impatience - live, be present

Lust - sexualised life - be present

Dishonesty - lying blocks you from god

2. Do you truly believe that your own willpower will not work with sex and love addiction?

I know this to be true.  Willpower would be fighting it.  Only god - and the quality of life that enables my spiritual connection with God, can remove the problem so I don't think or worry about it.

3. Has your obsession with sex and love/relationships vanished? If not - what steps can you take? If yes, Why? What can you do for the consistent removal of the obsession?

I no longer masturbate, but I'm still quite obsessive about sex.

I am taking SLAA and these steps seriously.  I need to make more outreach.  More service.

4. Step Six. Read from ‘The 12 x 12’, the first paragraph of page 66 and all of page 67. Pick a defect of character that seems to be troubling you such as a resentment or jealousy of a person, place, or thing, or perhaps pride or procrastination. Ask yourself if you are entirely ready to give it up. If you are, then it is time to take Step Seven. If you are not ready, make a list of the reasons why you would like to give it up. Then make a list of the reasons why you still want to keep that defect. What are the pay-offs for giving the defect up? What are the pay-offs for keeping it? Now, ask God to help you to be willing to give this character defect up.

Lust.  What does it mean to give it up.

It is a crutch, a habit; sexualised anxiety.

I am ready to give up the sexualised apprehension of another human being.  I will look at them with whole, loving eyes.  Acknowledging beauty but not craving it.  Leaving the energy there where I found it.

Help me god to give it up.

5. What does the concept of "patient improvement" page 65 in the AA ‘12 x 12’ mean to you as stated in Step Six?

Here Bill is explicitly talking about those other "problems" that are left even when the "desire to drink" has left us.  The desire to drink WAS lifted from me, but these other problems are deeper, stronger, and require continuous change in ourselves to overcome.  I kind of see these as some kind of strange food pyramid, with substance abuse at the bottom, sex and love in the middle, and food at the top.  My final frontier will be food.

6. Make a list of your "No, I can't give this up yet" items. Refer to the seven deadly sins page 48 in the AA ‘12 x 12’. Why is it necessary to make a beginning and keep trying?

7. Explain the concept as it relates to you: "Delay is dangerous and rebellion may be fatal."

I see this as related to the step that no forward progress is actually backsliding.  You must be experiencing spiritual growth to keep pace with your disease, as it will figure out your last set of spiritual defences before too many days go by.

8. List the character defects you really enjoy that "masquerade" as something other than they are. Now make a list of your positive character assets. Check and see if any "positives" are really "masquerading" negatives. Write on what this question has meant to you.

I might just invert this answer: clearly this question is about self-awareness and denial...

Also I believe that there are no real "defects" - just shadow aspects of our good qualities: the attention-to-detail person has a shadow side of micromanagement - the "big picture" thinker misses the small stuff.  Someone who cherishes beauty might overdue it and become a compulsive collector...

The character defects I enjoy most are sloth gluttony and lust.  Gluttony masquerades as being a "foodie", Sloth can manifest as being indecisive and getting nothing done,  lust can manifest as a loving sex life with my wife when really i just want to get laid.

My positive assets: 

Creativity

Light-heartedness

SLAA Step 10 Questions

38. Reread page 91 in the "Twelve and Twelve".  Write on the concept of progress rather than perfection as it applies to life today.

Enjoyed this reading: really taken by the mention of self-restraint - and by pride and sulking.  Good reminders for this addict.

Progress rather than perfection is written into "How it Works" to acknowledge that we are human, and both to allow that we will stray from the path and forget our connection, but also that the path is the point, and that we need to get back on the path as soon as we understand that we have strayed.  It is the progress along this path, ever-growing, that defines our recovery.  The path has no end.  

Gentle reminders are given in the reading that cultivating self-restraint will help in the interim, to keep our egos from interacting so immediately with the world - to give our deeper, slower selves time to process.

When I think of how my wife and I interact - we are almost transparent to our relationship.  Almost nothing is big enough to trigger our egos into fear, anger, mistrust or paranoia.  The very few times a boundary has been crossed, we talk rationally about that and work it through - it's uncomfortable slightly but neither of us sticks to our position and we arrive at a new place of understanding.

I wish I could have that transparency when it came to expectations at work and my understanding of my talents.  Anxiety still drives behaviour in me, and that's not good.

39. Have we begun to practice justice and courtesy to those we dislike?  Write about how you can start practicing this principle.

I see recovery as a path that with each step brings me closer to my higher power in demeanor and behaviour.  My limited glimpses of my higher power reveal a deep source of serenity and love, of caring and humour.  All of the steps are designed to reduce ego, to correct our attitude toward our fellow travelers and to connect us with a higher power that will guide us in our behaviour.  As I try to emulate those qualities that emanate from my Higher Power, it is revealed that I must treat all fellow beings from that place of love.  Even those we dislike.

I can start practicing this principle by praying for those I dislike, and considering what I can be grateful for about them.

40. Read page 233 in "As Bill Sees It".  Draw up a two column balance sheet for the day.  On one side write the things you've done right - good intentions, good thoughts and good acts.  On the other, write the things you feel you could have improved upon.

Everyday Living, p. 233

The A.A. emphasis on personal inventory is heavy because a great many of us have never really acquired the habit of accurate self-appraisal.

Once this heavy practice has become a habit, it will prove so interesting and profitable that the time it takes won't be missed. For these minutes and often hours spent in self examination are bound to make all the other hours of our day better and happier. At length, our inventories become a necessity of everyday living, rather than something unusual or set apart.

12 & 12, pp. 89-90

Good

Went to AA Meeting

Tried to go to work

Listened to body, came home

Centered, avoided acting out

Came out and affirmed B-day with J

Came out and saw J off

agreed to do H&I

Doing this stepwork

Improve

Slacked off work

Hiding out in room

Played game for hours

Not being of service

Not doing morning routine

41. Read Step Ten in the "Twelve and Twelve".  Discuss and reflect upon the following concept: "Every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with us."

From a letter by Bill W entitled "Emotional Sobriety":

If we examine every disturbance we have, great or small, we will find at the root of it some unhealthy dependence and its consequent demand. Let us, with God's help, continually surrender these hobbling demands. Then we can be set free to live and love: we may then be able to gain emotional sobriety. 

Of course, I haven't offered you a really new idea --- only a gimmick that has started to unhook several of my own hexes' at depth. Nowadays, my brain no longer races compulsively in either elation, grandiosity or depression. I have been given a quiet place in bright sunshine" 

...

For my dependency meant demand—a demand for the possession and control of the people and the conditions surrounding me

...

Many people in 12-step programs call steps 10-12 the "maintenance" steps, but I call them the growth steps.  The first 9 steps have all been about arresting ongoing activity and correcting the past. The first thing that strikes me, and its a new thought, while reading Step 10 in the 12x12, Is that inventory-taking is a reminder to be present, awake, conscious.  If its true that the drumbeat of modern life deafens us, dulls us into a zombie-like stupor, then the inventory is a call to reawaken and examine what we've done while we were unconscious.

Let's face it, the natural state of man, as we have evolved, is to NOT be in accordance with God's will. It's just not natural to us, for whatever reason.  It's through constant practice and awareness that we become aware of our habits and tendencies and gradually train ourselves and recognise the things that cause us to drift off the beam.

When we let people, places or things disturb us we are implicitly trying to control the outcome or behaviour.  We are not in control of these things.  The ego's desires to thwart our connection to God is what this question is about.

42. Read pages 90-92 in the “Twelve and Twelve".  Discuss and reflect on the idea that justified anger ought to be left to those better qualified to handle it.  How have you dissipated some anger in a healthy way today?

I am not sure who is better qualified to handle it - I'm guessing Bill's referring to normal people here.  What he's saying is that the cost to an addict is high - things that take us away from that sole thing that keeps us sober - our spiritual connection.

Today I didn't get angry, but last weekend I had grown utterly resentful of this loud chinese family sitting behind us on the bus.  I knew it was a bit toxic.  At lunchtime I saw them confused about where to sit their large family at the small tables available.  I jumped up and hauled two tables together so they could sit comfortably.   My resentment was dissipated.

43. Read pages 92-95 in the "Twelve and Twelve".   Write about the idea that "pain is the touchstone of spiritual progress."  Write about some pain you have been in lately.  How did it help you grow?

Recently a relative suggested that I lie about a mistake I had made. "Honesty is not always the best policy" she said.  "I've seen careers and lives destroyed by something thinking they just had to be honest about something they could have kept to themselves."

I responded: but without those consequences - without that pain - we don't learn from our mistakes.  We think we can outwit ourselves and our fates.  We think we can control reality to fit our best interests and convenience.

Well there's something in the forefront of my mind that's brought a lot of pain to my relationship.  As I'm in it with M. I'm feeling raw but also thinking "sadder but wiser".  I'm seeing the pain strip away pretense and make us both face reality in a somber but loving way.  I know we'll be stronger and spiritually closer for this.

44. Read pages 84-85, chapter six in the "Big Book".  The purpose of Step Ten is to continue our daily inventory and check our daily progress.  Name some things you need to guard against if you are to continue your progress.

For me the biggest thing is to establish rituals that help me stay on the beam and know when I am falling away.  I've created a step 10 worksheet with questions to this effect - I ask explicitly if I've made contact with Presence and reinitiated that contact throughout the day.

Apathy or getting in a rut are the things that take me off the beam of connectedness.  My step 10 worksheet is meant to tease out encroaching unawareness.

Unaddressed anxiety continues to be the biggest problem for me.  As part of step 10 I begin for the first time a daily practice of considering and addressing anxiety.

45. Have you stopped trying to make unreasonable demands on the ones you love?  Write on the last unreasonable demand and the results of that demand.  How do you tell what is reasonable and what is unreasonable?

My last unreasonable demand was unvoiced and unstated - but it was a wish that my behaviour of 8 May not be considered a shocking outrage, that it wasn't a big deal.  That the reaction be minimal if anything.  The demand was that I be given a free pass for my behaviour.  I didn't make the demand

This selfish voice is the voice that wants no consequences for actions, that wants anything the disease wants to be accepted and normal.  That wants a free pass for any imaginable behaviour. That ignores the feelings of betrayal, rejection, and pain that my action caused.

As I work through doing steps 4 and 8 on this matter, I realise how petty and selfish I can be, and as I build a picture of my partner's feelings after my actions, I realise how deeply this affected her and how it is a violation of a trust she thought inviolate.

It is through being present with my motives and defects, and thinking about how I affect other people, that I keep track of what is reasonable and unreasonable.

46. Most feelings or defects of character will come under one of six categories: fear, jealousy, anger, resentment, pride and sex.  To continue to take personal inventory, fold a sheet of legal sized paper into three sections. In the first section write, WHAT IS IT?; in the second section write, HOW DOES IT AFFECT ME?; and in the third section write, WHAT CAN I DO ABOUT IT?  Identify the problem.  For example - fear of failure.  In the second section write as much as you can about "How does it affect me?”  Go to extremes in your writing if you are able to.  Now ask God, "What can I do about it?”  For extra reading, read from "As Bill Sees It", pages 39, 65 and 89.

Recorded elsewhere

47. Are you able to maintain bottom-line sobriety, "Keeping emotional balance and living to good purpose under all conditions?”  What are some of the ways that you work on keeping emotional balance?

I don't know why its eluded me so far but I've suddenly realised that rather than focusing on my behaviours, I need to go after anxiety with a vengeance.  So this is emotional balance and living to good purpose under all conditions.

So my efforts with bottom line sobriety have been entirely downstream from my emotional equilibrium.  When I'm doing ok - long(ish) stretches of sobriety.  When turbulence hits my bottom lines are crossed.

As emotional balance assumes center stage, I rearrange my activities slightly - now they're more about reconnecting with my higher power - which always reduces the ego footprint in my life. Step 10 plays right into that with my morning and evening routines.  I also pause throughout the day to reconnect.

These are the gifts of working this program.  I'm so grateful.

48. List your assets and liabilities.  How can you convert "The pains of failures into assets?"  Think of a specific example where you have done this.

Assets
Higher Power
Program
Loving Wife
Supportive family
Desire for humility, growth
Health
Intelligence

Liabilities
Addiction
Low Energy
Lack of focus, distractions
Negative self talk
Anxiety

Clearly my recent example - taking the pain of marital turbulence to power a better approach, plan and togetherness in marriage.

49. What can you do to stop having emotional hang-overs?  Write about the last one you had and the state you were in when it was caused.

Mine are usually around anxiety, although I've had a lot of regret and negative self-talk after a slip a few weeks ago.  The mood lingers and colors everything.  It's typically a cloud that follows me around and diminishes my presence and lightness and ability to be me.  The ones around frustration and anger don't usually last long, but there's a long slow-burning anxiety that eats me up.

To stop having them I just have to connect and re-connect. To do the things which make me capable of being on the path to God.

50. How can you acquire the habit of accurate self-appraisal through Step Ten?

This is a slow unfolding, to be able to see the emotion and behaviours as external to ones self and assess them for what they are: constructions that the self-obsessed ego creates to continue its absorbtion in itself.

The practice has, and will take years of self-awareness activities. 

In addition to morning and evening practice I'm working on stopping throughout the day to pray and meditate.

51.How does the axiom, "Every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with us" relate to you?

The axiom is true if we are on a path to God - these things can't penetrate the god nature within us, they can only excite and trouble the ego.

52. Step Ten talks of "dangerous exceptions" for our recovery.  What are your dangerous exceptions?

The passage in the 12x12 is talking about justified anger being ok.  Just as in the previous question which refers to us being the pond in which the ripples occur - the negative emotions of fear, pride, hate, jealousy, etc are all rooted in ego possessiveness and control.  We want the pond to remain still no matter what drops into it, for whatever reason.

And for the same reason - we are attempting to surface God consciousness.

I am happy to consider most emotions of the ego to be unjustified, and not an exception.  Ego emotions are fear, jealousy, greed, lust, anger, etc.

God emotions are love and peace.

That is all.

53. How are you developing tolerance?  The release of rationalisation?

I'm not sure I'm actively developing tolerance, it's developing within me though.  I'm quicker to forgive, to play the end game out in my head and realise its just not worth it to hold on to resentments.  The more humility I have, the easier it is to see that everyone is just like me, and to forgive them being human.

Rationalisation is the mind inventing support for emotional responses.  I'm still quite in my head in many ways - it is still my reality.

54. The Tenth Step says to "spot, admit and correct flaws is the essence of character building and good living”.  In the essence of character building, develop a gratitude list now for your "blessings received".

I'm thankful for gratitude lists.

My blessings are 
recovery
my higher power
my wonderful wife
my family
my challenging job
my health
my financial security
my god-given gifts and the opportunity to pursue them
the beautiful world