Lady Blue,your post reminds me of this:
This all meant, of course, that we had
substituted negative for positive thinking. After we came to
A.A., we had to recognize that this trait had been an ego feeding
proposition. In belaboring the sins of some religious
people, we could feel superior to all of them.
Moreover, we could avoid looking at some of our own
shortcomings. Self-righteousness, the very thing that we
had contemptuously condemned in others, was our own besetting
evil. This phony form of respectability was our
undoing, so far as faith was concerned. But finally, driven
to A.A., we learned better.
“As psychiatrists have often observed, defiance is the
outstanding characteristic of many an alcoholic. So it's not
strange that lots of us have had our day at defying God
Himself.
Sometimes it's because God has not delivered us
the good things of life which we specified, as a greedy child
m makes an impossible list for Santa Claus. More often,
though, we had met up with some major calamity, and to
our way of thinking lost out because God deserted us. The
girl we wanted to marry had other notions; we prayed God
that she'd change her mind, but she didn't.
We prayed for
healthy children, and were presented with sick ones, or
none at all. We prayed for promotions at business, and none
came. Loved ones, upon whom we heartily depended, were
taken from us by so-called acts of God. Then we became
drunkards, and asked God to stop that. But nothing happened.
This was the unkindest cut of all. 'Damn this faith
business!' we said.
“When we encountered A.A,, the fallacy of our defiance
was revealed. At no time had we asked what God's
will was for us; instead we had been telling Him what it
ought to be. No man, we saw, could believe in God and
defy Him, too. Belief meant reliance, not; defiance.
Bill W
step 2 12x12