Originally Posted by skg

The "How to Live" that I kept searching for was to be found in the Twelve Steps and, as it turns out, they're a design for living. I understand wanting to short-cut the process of learning how to live--I wanted it all, now, and exactly my way (unless it starts to suck). In his book "The Search For Serenity and How to Achieve It)" Lewis F. Presnall said that, "when we try to will what cannot be willed," we become addicted to being addicted. For ME at least, people fall directly into that 'cannot be willed,' category. I know that today after working The Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. I believe we're put here to learn the difference between the simplicity of love and complexity of fear, and then learn to give love and to be loved. Neal Donald Walsch (Conversations With God; an Uncommon Dialog) suggests that fear shuts down, excludes, shames, points blame, insists, and Fear's world narrows into darkness and withers in death; Love is considerate, teaches, learns, accepts, and Love's world broadens to include and envelop in light, growing in the sunlight of the spirit. When we practice love and tolerance rather than fear and selfishness, we grow. The alternative insists on being right and lives in conflict with the world we are in. That's the place I called home for XX years in my alcoholic state of perpetual denial and fear. There is an elderly woman (one of several) who attend a F2F AA meeting that I go to. She's been bitching about her husband for years--he doesn't understand, he's an a-hole, he's this and that. She hasn't worked the steps and says that they're baloney--for weak people. She's at such conflict with herself and love that her insides are starting to rot--to show the decay of years of stress, swallowed contempt, and of course, drinking them all away. Tumors here, disease there. She never has considered that the world she lives in is her creation--her design. It's sad, really, because the rest of the world can see it. She'll would rather die bitter rather than get better. There was a drunk man who'd dropped his keys in the parking lot of a nightclub and a police officer walked up to him and said, "Did you lose something?" The drunk replied, "Yes, I've dropped my keys over there." The police officer replied, "Then why are you looking for them over here in the light?" The drunk replied, "Because I can see. "The Spirituality of Imperfection; Storytelling and the Journey to Wholeness"; Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham. We often look everywhere but where we need to when seeking change. The bottom of a pill bottle, the label of a wine bottle, the flask, the rush of drugs--anything to keep from having to look into the fringes--what we don't want to see. We wouldn't think of asking for help because we KNOW they'd find our "keys," and then we'd have to do something. I get it. You're situation is different, maybe your circumstances are different, perhaps you feel like a victim? I get it. I was incredibly unique when I came into the rooms. I'm incredibly different now, including the fact that (along with many alcoholics) I have a design for living that nobody ever explained to me until The Steps. I sincerely hope and pray you find what it is you're searching for. If you're God can't keep you sober, it may be time to get a better one... Grace to you!