Originally Posted by
DayTrader 
Sounds like the plans you've made so far aren't working out the way you hoped. Sounds like it's time to make some changes and maybe do some more of the stuff that isn't "easy." I'm not saying you've been taking the easy way out......IMO, only a fool would try the road less traveled first.
I used to pray a lot for some willingness.......just a bit of willingness.........to try something different then just another one of my bright ideas. Turned out my prayers DID get answered and that answer got me doing a WHOLE lotta stuff I didn't
want to do (go to meetings, take it seriously, try to do what the winners were doing, and try to trust a Higher Power to help me). As most alcoholics are, I'm a control freak and
I don't like any solutions that are originated in my egotistical brain. Even the ones that work.....I want to put my own personal spin on them. My experience has taught me that less of my thinking, more listening, and a lot of action that I don't feel like doing has resulted in me being downright happy a lot of the time - even in the face of a lot of problems that just happen in life whether you're in recovery or not. The cool thing is that now I've got some power to not get dragged down so far again if I don't want to.
Nice post, DT. I think I've probably never had an original thought, so for me it's been about the willingness to listen to different voices....to learn to see things differently. After so many years of believing that I "knew something," willingness to let go of old ideas was a slow and painful process.
Some years ago I met a lovely lady with 41 years sober. She fairly glowed with spiritual energy. Being "pushy" for recovery, I asked her after the meeting if she could share anything that had significantly helped her....and she did. When she was five years sober, she invited a friend to her home after a meeting. Seeing lots of prayers posted on her walls, the friend inquired what that was all about, and Margerie told him that those were her prayers, that she said them all daily.
His response was to advise her to take them all down, and he would give her the only prayer she needed. But....she had to say it at least 100 times a day.
She tried it. And claims that it was largely responsible for her last 36 years of sobriety. I figured I ought to try it as well, and I can't emphasize enough how powerful it's been. Sometimes I repeat it a thousand times a day...whenever I'm not a peace, when I'm angry or confused, when I'm scared or just "out of sorts" I automatically begin repeating this very simple prayer like a mantra. It works.
So...here is Margerie's gift to all of us, through the transmission line of
AA:
"GOD MAKE ME WILLING."
That's all, folks.
blessings
zenbear