Step 3 (Continued)
 
C: If I don't want to drink anymore, I've got to find a way to live,
whIre I not only can be sober, but I can have happiness, peace, and serenity. That I can be free of shame, fear, guilt, and remorse. If I can do that, I can be sober and be happy at the same time.
In a life run on self-will, (there) can simply be no happiness for me. How many times have you and I tried to overcome self-will by self-will? How many times have we tried to make ourselves better? How many times have we said I'm not going to do that anymore, and then turned right around the next day and did it all over again?
Self-will can not overcome self-will. Self-will is a God given thing, and only God has the power to overcome what he's made. So if we want our life to get better, apparently we're going to have to let something else direct our thinking. If something else directs our thinking, then perhaps our decisions will become better, and we won't take the actions that throw us in conflict with people places and things.
And just maybe we can live peacefully, happy and serene and sober at the same time. For the first time in my life I under stand why I need to make this decision. Left on my self-will., life will never be a success for me. With God's will, there's a good chance that it might be. Joe.
J: Okay, let's start on page sixty-two. He uses the illustration on page sixty-one to describe self-will. He goes on to say that all human problem s, not Just our problems--I think we can look at this simple chart. I learned a lot from this, by laying this out. This is why I say, it's so profound. I think it's one of the greatest things on human nature that I have ever... read, that Bill wrote. Really, it's amazing. He was able to describe the three parts that make up self. Self-will is God given.
It is these three basic instincts. Now, it is the foundation of life. It's sort of like this building. Today I look at this beautiful building. There are some basic, real components that make this building livable. This building has heat in it. It has, probably, some gas, and it has electricity, and it has water. These things have to be in this building (they are) essential. If they weren't here, we couldn't occupy the building. The building really wouldn't be a livable building without the utilities in it.
Really, life is the same way. Self is the utilities, the foundation of the real power of life. These are the things. Without these we wouldn't be complete human beings. But still yet, just like these utilities, if these utilities make the building livable, but still yet, most of the time it's the lack of control of these things that destroy the building. It will be the electricity, or the heat or the water that will end up destroying the building. And the same way in human life, self is the root of human life. But once it gets out of control, then it becomes a destructive force in that life.
All human problems are based in self. Everybody that's in trouble today--not only alcoholics, there are many, many different types of trouble in our world today--every man that's in trouble, man or woman, or child, is in trouble today as a result (of this). One of these basic instincts is the root problem of it. We have people in prison. We have a guy that's in prison for stealing. That's why they put him (away). But why Aid he steal? Did he steal for security, or did he steal to build his self-esteem?
One of these things, one part of self was what caused him to steal . All human problems... the root cause of all human problems is one part of self that has gotten out control.
(p. 62, par. 2-3) 'Selfishness -- self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity,
we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the peat we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt.'
'So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self -will run riot, though he usually doesn't
think so. Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must, or it kills us! God makes that possible. And there often seems no way of entirely getting rid
of self without His aid. Many of us had moral and philosophical convictions galore, but we could not live up to them even though we would have liked to. Neither could we
reduce our self-centeredness much by wishing or trying on our own power. We had to have God's help.'
|
Quick Links
|
