I don't want to run the show no more!!
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Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: Gulf Coast, Florida USA
Posts: 5,731
I don't want to run the show no more!!
Hiya everybody!
Reprinted From Big Book With Permission from AA World Services, inc
Being convinced, we were at Step Three, which is that we decided to turn our will and our life over to God as we understood Him. Just what do we mean by that, and just what do we do?
The first requirement is that we be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success. On that basis we are almost always in collision with something or somebody, even though our motives are good. Most people try to live by self-propulsion.
Each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show; is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the scenery and the rest of the players in his own way.
If his arrangements would only stay put, if only people would do as he wished, the show would be great. Everybody, including himself, would be pleased. Life would be wonderful.
In trying to make these arrangements our actor may sometimes be quite virtuous. He may be kind, considerate, patient, generous; even modest and self- sacrificing.
On the other hand, he may be mean, egotistical, selfish and dishonest. But, as with most humans, he is more likely to have varied traits.
What usually happens? The show doesn't come off very well. He begins to think life doesn't treat him right. He decides to exert himself more. He becomes, on the next occasion, still more demanding or gracious, as the case may be. Still the play does not suit him.
Admitting he may be somewhat at fault, he is sure that other people are more to blame. He becomes angry, indignant, self-pitying. What is his basic trouble? Is he not really a self-seeker even when trying to be kind?
Is he not a victim of the delusion that he can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if he only manages well? Is it not evident to all the rest of the players that these are the things he wants? And do not his actions make each of them wish to retaliate, snatching all they can get out of the show?
Is he not, even in his best moments, a producer of confusion rather than harmony?
Our actor is self-centered — ego-centric, as people like to call it nowadays. He is like the retired business man who lolls in the Florida sunshine in the winter complaining of the sad state of the nation; the minister who sighs over the sins of the twentieth century; politicians and reformers who are sure all would be Utopia if the rest of the world would only behave; the outlaw safe cracker who thinks society has wronged him; and the alcoholic who has lost all and is locked up.
Whatever our protestations, are not most of us concerned with ourselves, our resentments, or our self-pity?
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 past 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.
This is the how and the why of it. First of all, we had to quit playing God. It didn't work.
Next, we decided that hereafter in this drama of life, God was going to be our Director. He is the Principal; we are His agents. He is the Father, and we are His children. Most Good ideas are simple, and this concept was the keystone of the new and triumphant arch through which we passed to freedom. end
Yep that was me, unfortuanately still is sometimes. Oh by The way (God of your own Understanding of course!)
Reprinted From Big Book With Permission from AA World Services, inc
Being convinced, we were at Step Three, which is that we decided to turn our will and our life over to God as we understood Him. Just what do we mean by that, and just what do we do?
The first requirement is that we be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success. On that basis we are almost always in collision with something or somebody, even though our motives are good. Most people try to live by self-propulsion.
Each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show; is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the scenery and the rest of the players in his own way.
If his arrangements would only stay put, if only people would do as he wished, the show would be great. Everybody, including himself, would be pleased. Life would be wonderful.
In trying to make these arrangements our actor may sometimes be quite virtuous. He may be kind, considerate, patient, generous; even modest and self- sacrificing.
On the other hand, he may be mean, egotistical, selfish and dishonest. But, as with most humans, he is more likely to have varied traits.
What usually happens? The show doesn't come off very well. He begins to think life doesn't treat him right. He decides to exert himself more. He becomes, on the next occasion, still more demanding or gracious, as the case may be. Still the play does not suit him.
Admitting he may be somewhat at fault, he is sure that other people are more to blame. He becomes angry, indignant, self-pitying. What is his basic trouble? Is he not really a self-seeker even when trying to be kind?
Is he not a victim of the delusion that he can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if he only manages well? Is it not evident to all the rest of the players that these are the things he wants? And do not his actions make each of them wish to retaliate, snatching all they can get out of the show?
Is he not, even in his best moments, a producer of confusion rather than harmony?
Our actor is self-centered — ego-centric, as people like to call it nowadays. He is like the retired business man who lolls in the Florida sunshine in the winter complaining of the sad state of the nation; the minister who sighs over the sins of the twentieth century; politicians and reformers who are sure all would be Utopia if the rest of the world would only behave; the outlaw safe cracker who thinks society has wronged him; and the alcoholic who has lost all and is locked up.
Whatever our protestations, are not most of us concerned with ourselves, our resentments, or our self-pity?
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 past 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.
This is the how and the why of it. First of all, we had to quit playing God. It didn't work.
Next, we decided that hereafter in this drama of life, God was going to be our Director. He is the Principal; we are His agents. He is the Father, and we are His children. Most Good ideas are simple, and this concept was the keystone of the new and triumphant arch through which we passed to freedom. end
Yep that was me, unfortuanately still is sometimes. Oh by The way (God of your own Understanding of course!)
All is Change
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Australia
Posts: 1,284
Yep that was me, unfortuanately still is sometimes....
Yep that is me, though sometimes I think I am not. A text worth reading many times. Some of the stuff there stings. It often seems to me that many issues has these thoughts at core.
There was a time that I recognised a higher power. Sometimes I think a seed was planted then and whatever grew is still there. Through this a kind of faith has become a part of me that seems to carry me through the worst of times. Some of the things that I go through today are much more fundamentally difficult to deal with as when I was drinking, but with the urge to drink seeming to day after day be gone today, This faith in the process that I cannot name, it's greater than me, grows.
It's a mystery to me. I think perhaps it must be. ?
Yep that is me, though sometimes I think I am not. A text worth reading many times. Some of the stuff there stings. It often seems to me that many issues has these thoughts at core.
There was a time that I recognised a higher power. Sometimes I think a seed was planted then and whatever grew is still there. Through this a kind of faith has become a part of me that seems to carry me through the worst of times. Some of the things that I go through today are much more fundamentally difficult to deal with as when I was drinking, but with the urge to drink seeming to day after day be gone today, This faith in the process that I cannot name, it's greater than me, grows.
It's a mystery to me. I think perhaps it must be. ?
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