Now I was told the root of my problems was my own moral failingsīut crystal meth was to prove my nemesis. I had started drinking, then taking recreational drugs with friends to numb the pain I felt as my parents went through a divorce, and the confusion I experienced around being gay. Signed off work, with my hand in a cast, and tending to a set of difficult emotions, I turned to a coping mechanism I had discovered when I was 15. There was a painful breakup, a redundancy. The events that led me to rehab are hazy. My life had fallen apart so dramatically over the course of the previous year that I was in desperate need of any solution. The suffering that lies in another’s eyes.On check-in, I was told I have a disease that’s progressive, fatal and incurable, and that I have a one in three chance of dying from it. So spare me no heartache or sorrow, dear Lord,įor the heart that is hurt reaps the richest reward,Īnd God enters the heart that is broken with sorrowĪs he opens the door to a Brighter Tomorrow, We dance through a life that is frothy and fair,Īnd “chasing the rainbow” we have no desireįor “roads that are rough” and “realms that are higher”. We are no longer following The Father’s Wayįor, without “crosses to carry” and “burdens to bear,” Maybe it will speak to you as well.įrom the things that draw me close to Thee-įor when ears are deaf to the beggar’s pleaĪnd we steel our hearts and harden our mind,Īnd we count it a weakness whenever we’re kind, I suspect he loved this poem because it helped him understand what he was to do with the ‘as is’ that life presented to him. It offers a perspective on the value of life’s struggles that I’m not sure I’ve heard more elegantly described. I had never heard it before and found its message piercing, moving, powerful. His family found many copies of this poem in his home. I attended the funeral of an AA friend who lived a life filled with giving unconditionally to those in need, often in desperate situations. This reading brought me back to this poem you may have heard me recite before. How does this unconditional practice of these principles encourage me deepen and develop my relationship with God? How crucial is this unconditional practice in experiencing what it the Big Book mentions in How It Works and about abandoning myself to find God? How essential are my difficulties, in whatever form, to discovering what self-deception I may now have my practice of these principles in all my affairs. What beyond my sobriety do I wish to practice without condition today right now?ĥ. How does my encounter with pride and despair rob me of an experience of more authentic version of success?ģ.Ěre courage and serenity possible or even desirable in all circumstances?Ĥ. This article raises a number of important questions for me worth further considering:Ģ. In working all the Steps thoroughly, I not only stay sober and help someone else to achieve sobriety, but also I transform my difficulty with living into a joy of living. Eventually I learned that it was necessary for me to “practice these principles” in all areas of my life. I was forgetting that there were a total of Twelve Steps and that the Twelfth Step also had more than one part. In the same way, I believed for a long time that, in order to be in tune with the Twelve Steps, it was enough for me “to carry this message to alcoholics.” That was rushing things. and stopped drinking, it took a while before I understood why the First Step contained two parts: my powerlessness over alcohol, and my life’s unmanageability. Furthermore, how shall we come to terms with seeming failure or success? Can we now accept and adjust to either without despair or pride? Can we accept poverty, sickness, loneliness, and bereavement with courage and serenity? Can we steadfastly content ourselves with the humbler, yet sometimes more durable, satisfactions when the brighter, more glittering achievements are denied us?
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