Step 3
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Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: SE Michigan
Posts: 1,066
Originally Posted by LillieB 
You want my proof that god has nothing to do with folks getting sober? First you have to prove that god..any god exists.
***crickets****
Why argue people's faith in a higher power? It works for many people. It doesn't work for many others. To each their own. So...why argue about it, Lillie? It's not like you're going to change anyone's mind.
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Join Date: Feb 2011
Posts: 102
Stevie you misunderstand I am not arguing anything. Have faith, enjoy it but remember that faith is simply that, a belief in something that can't be proven.
Last edited by LillieB; 02-15-2011 at 02:54 PM. Reason: comma
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Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: SE Michigan
Posts: 1,066
I misunderstood nothing.
We all have faith...that the sun will come up tomorrow, that gravity won't suddenly stop working making us all float into the sky, we make plans for the future because we have faith that we'll be alive in a day or a week. You have no proof you'll be alive tomorrow, yet I assume you make plans for the next day, right?
I really don't think it's useful to be pointing this out, is all I'm saying. It is also against the TOS, I believe.
I've been a lifelong agnostic (not an aetheist because I am neither all-knowing nor arrogant enough to state unequivocally that there is no god) and that will never change but I am quite willing to believe in a higher power - one outside of us all - for AA because it appears to work for many people. Since nothing else; certainly not will power, has worked to stop my drinking in over 20 years, I am putting my FAITH in that on the line and hoping it works for me too.
Good enough for me. Slam me for it if you want, I don't care.
We all have faith...that the sun will come up tomorrow, that gravity won't suddenly stop working making us all float into the sky, we make plans for the future because we have faith that we'll be alive in a day or a week. You have no proof you'll be alive tomorrow, yet I assume you make plans for the next day, right?
I really don't think it's useful to be pointing this out, is all I'm saying. It is also against the TOS, I believe.
I've been a lifelong agnostic (not an aetheist because I am neither all-knowing nor arrogant enough to state unequivocally that there is no god) and that will never change but I am quite willing to believe in a higher power - one outside of us all - for AA because it appears to work for many people. Since nothing else; certainly not will power, has worked to stop my drinking in over 20 years, I am putting my FAITH in that on the line and hoping it works for me too.
Good enough for me. Slam me for it if you want, I don't care.
To thine own self be true.
Thread Starter
Join Date: May 2009
Location: U.S.A.
Posts: 5,924
I appreciate the dialogue and the back and forth even though normally that kind of thing might stress me out. Thanks everybody for sharing. I do tend to believe that a HP plays a role in sobriety as my observations so far jive with the claim that alcoholism/addiction are a spiritual disease. I've also known too many people in the program who got clean and sober not to believe there is something there.
For me, making a decision to turn my life and my will over to the care of anyone but myself is a pretty serious decision. Maybe I'm not "doing it right" but that's OK because I know that thinking this all the way through is revealing my issues to me.
Being and staying sober is not a problem for me right now. I know after many relapses that I will never pick up another drink. My life just becomes too chaotic and unmanageable. I avoid the people, places and things that cause me to want to drink. But I still need to work this step in order to expose and put to bed once and for all those things that caused me to drink in the first place. I need to reconcile myself, and everything that happened to me, with God. It is time for me to work through what I have finally discovered; that I do not love myself, and I am no one and nothing to my self, because I have never believed God loves me, and I have never believed God thought I was any thing or any one. I have made myself invisible for long enough.
This is very painful stuff. Thanks everybody for being there and for listening.
For me, making a decision to turn my life and my will over to the care of anyone but myself is a pretty serious decision. Maybe I'm not "doing it right" but that's OK because I know that thinking this all the way through is revealing my issues to me.
Being and staying sober is not a problem for me right now. I know after many relapses that I will never pick up another drink. My life just becomes too chaotic and unmanageable. I avoid the people, places and things that cause me to want to drink. But I still need to work this step in order to expose and put to bed once and for all those things that caused me to drink in the first place. I need to reconcile myself, and everything that happened to me, with God. It is time for me to work through what I have finally discovered; that I do not love myself, and I am no one and nothing to my self, because I have never believed God loves me, and I have never believed God thought I was any thing or any one. I have made myself invisible for long enough.
This is very painful stuff. Thanks everybody for being there and for listening.
To thine own self be true.
Thread Starter
Join Date: May 2009
Location: U.S.A.
Posts: 5,924
For the alcoholic they end serving their master alcohol until they are destroyed.
To thine own self be true.
Thread Starter
Join Date: May 2009
Location: U.S.A.
Posts: 5,924
Hopeworks, I very much appreciate your entire post but this in particular:
is VERY helpful perspective. Thank you so much. I am going to do just that. I am going to approach my HP in complete honesty and tell my HP how I feel.
It's weird, when I think about it, how could a person who believes they have no worth, a person who is empty, who believes they are no one and nothing, put forth effort to care for themselves, take care of themselves? I tell people on F&F all the time that they must take the best possible care of themselves as they can. And I have really been putting forth effort to take care of me since I chose sobriety again about two years ago. And I realize I have been faking it this whole time!!!! Faking it. I've been taking things from here and there, like tips from health articles and newsletters from my health insurance and self-help books, piecing together these ideas about what self-care means and trying to follow these tips the best I can. But really not doing all I know I need to do, not making major changes I need to make for my health and well-being. It just jives with my belief you gotta Fake It Till You Make It. I hope I can learn to do it for real this time.
Thank you thank you thank you everybody who has been kind enough to share on this thread.
I honestly believe that God is thrilled when those of us who have been grievously wounded approach him in complete honesty and ask Him to help us find our way to Him.
It's weird, when I think about it, how could a person who believes they have no worth, a person who is empty, who believes they are no one and nothing, put forth effort to care for themselves, take care of themselves? I tell people on F&F all the time that they must take the best possible care of themselves as they can. And I have really been putting forth effort to take care of me since I chose sobriety again about two years ago. And I realize I have been faking it this whole time!!!! Faking it. I've been taking things from here and there, like tips from health articles and newsletters from my health insurance and self-help books, piecing together these ideas about what self-care means and trying to follow these tips the best I can. But really not doing all I know I need to do, not making major changes I need to make for my health and well-being. It just jives with my belief you gotta Fake It Till You Make It. I hope I can learn to do it for real this time.
Thank you thank you thank you everybody who has been kind enough to share on this thread.
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Join Date: Jan 2011
Posts: 1,243
Originally Posted by Learn2Live
Hopeworks, I very much appreciate your entire post but this in particular:
is VERY helpful perspective. Thank you so much. I am going to do just that. I am going to approach my HP in complete honesty and tell my HP how I feel.
It's weird, when I think about it, how could a person who believes they have no worth, a person who is empty, who believes they are no one and nothing, put forth effort to care for themselves, take care of themselves? I tell people on F&F all the time that they must take the best possible care of themselves as they can. And I have really been putting forth effort to take care of me since I chose sobriety again about two years ago. And I realize I have been faking it this whole time!!!! Faking it. I've been taking things from here and there, like tips from health articles and newsletters from my health insurance and self-help books, piecing together these ideas about what self-care means and trying to follow these tips the best I can. But really not doing all I know I need to do, not making major changes I need to make for my health and well-being. It just jives with my belief you gotta Fake It Till You Make It. I hope I can learn to do it for real this time.
Thank you thank you thank you everybody who has been kind enough to share on this thread.
is VERY helpful perspective. Thank you so much. I am going to do just that. I am going to approach my HP in complete honesty and tell my HP how I feel.
It's weird, when I think about it, how could a person who believes they have no worth, a person who is empty, who believes they are no one and nothing, put forth effort to care for themselves, take care of themselves? I tell people on F&F all the time that they must take the best possible care of themselves as they can. And I have really been putting forth effort to take care of me since I chose sobriety again about two years ago. And I realize I have been faking it this whole time!!!! Faking it. I've been taking things from here and there, like tips from health articles and newsletters from my health insurance and self-help books, piecing together these ideas about what self-care means and trying to follow these tips the best I can. But really not doing all I know I need to do, not making major changes I need to make for my health and well-being. It just jives with my belief you gotta Fake It Till You Make It. I hope I can learn to do it for real this time.
Thank you thank you thank you everybody who has been kind enough to share on this thread.
View the struggles you have had to overcome in perspective ... they were very bad but your survived and that bad time is now in the past and that experience is part of the reason that you are now on this deep journey for honest self discovery and meeting and developing a relationship with your HP. Because I relate to your pain and honest skepticism from my own jouney I am sharing my own experience with you and someday you in turn will share with others your own experiences that you are now walking day by day.
More will be revealed ... but the things of greatest value are only found if we take the time and put forth the sincere effort needed to look hard for them. You are NOW doing what you were created to do... seeking out and sincerely trying to determine what God's will for you is as an everyday practice.
Back in the earliest days of AA (when the Oxford Group was the main influence) it was taught that you could and should be hearing directly from God during your quiet times on an everyday basis. They practiced two way jounaling ... there are lots of journals from AA's during this era including Dr. Bob's wife's. The movement was all about a return to authentic Christianity of the 1st century that was all about relationship with God and with others and was based in home groups and not organized churches.
Those that followed this deeply spiritual path and the instructions of the early pioneers had a recovery rate of 75% to 92% documented.
As my Dad was a severe alcoholic who never was emotionally available I view my HP as the Dad I never had and that is how I talk to Him... when I journal it is like writing Him a letter full of my own questions, thoughts and emotions. I ask Him to help me with the answers and then I meditate (listen for the answers I am seeking) and if I get them I write them in my journal in a difference color ink. I have a girlfriend who is incredilbe journaler and she has hundreds of journals going back over 20 years. She can pull a journal down from her bookshelf and tell you what was happening in her life and what God said about it!
Once you connect with God in this way you are never the same... because if you the God of the Universe thinks you are so speical He wants to hang out with you and be a part of your life as Daddy's favorite little girl or boy ... well, life no longer is meaningless and we have hope for our future, for eternity in fact and we KNOW we have value because He created and formed us and LOVES us!
Can I explain why there is pain and suffering in the universe? I can give you the Christian worldview and it makes sense out of a lot of senselessness and the horrors of what man does to man. I view the things that are so hard to understand with the serenity prayer and stick with what I know. I have met God and believe He is real and trust Him to work out His plans in my life and eventually wipe away all of tears and remove evil forever.
So... the journey of a 1000 miles begins with the first step! You are already there... be honest... talk to Him like He is a loving father and listen quietly for His answers. Work the steps.. they are God breathed and your life will change and you will change how you feel about YOU... as the little kid used to say "God don't make no junk"!!!!!
Trudging that road.
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Seattle Wa
Posts: 6,840
Some of these posts are exactly what I needed to read so thank you to the ones who poured your hearts out. I also love the two links on youtube man if you haven't watched them i suggest you do. Have a great day 
all. Keep the Faith
all. Keep the Faith
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