Hp
Huh?
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Hp
Should I just suspend disbelief and believe in some sort of version of a higher power, just to get myself thru this??? Gotta admit that praying always felt great to me, even though I know it's just endorphins.
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Join Date: Apr 2012
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Originally Posted by mfanch 
That is what I did. That plus ceasing arguing semantics/analysis paralysis. There is nothing to figure out.
With willingness we are on our way.
With willingness we are on our way.
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Originally Posted by HereIAm321
Should I just suspend disbelief and believe in some sort of version of a higher power, just to get myself thru this??? Gotta admit that praying always felt great to me, even though I know it's just endorphins.
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Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: pa
Posts: 297
I'm not in AA so I don't totally get the thing about a need for a higher power, but in general, couldn't you just say the higher power is the possibility of a better you? According to Sartre, when we make choices, we are thereby deciding what we feel the best possible course of human action should be. With this comes responsibility to make choices that will shape the world we want to live in. Given that, can't you just envision a better, sober you as your own higher power? I really don't see why not.
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Join Date: Dec 2011
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You should read chapter four from the Big Book...We Agnostics...Here is an excerpt from it.
Yet we had been seeing another kind of flight, a spiritual liberation from this world, people who rose above their problems. They said God made these things possible, and we only smiled. We had seen spiritual release, but liked to tell ourselves it wasn't true.
Actually we were fooling ourselves, for deep down in every man, woman, and child, is the fundamental idea of God. It may be obscured by calamity, by pomp, by worship of other things, but in some form or other it is there. For faith in a Power greater than ourselves, and miraculous demonstrations of that power in human lives, are facts as old as man himself.
We finally saw that faith in some kind of God was a part of our make-up, just as much as the feeling we have for a friend. Sometimes we had to search fearlessly, but He was there. He was as much a fact as we were. We found the Great Reality deep down within us. In the last analysis it is only there that He may be found. It was so with us.
The text of Alcoholics Anonymous
Yet we had been seeing another kind of flight, a spiritual liberation from this world, people who rose above their problems. They said God made these things possible, and we only smiled. We had seen spiritual release, but liked to tell ourselves it wasn't true.
Actually we were fooling ourselves, for deep down in every man, woman, and child, is the fundamental idea of God. It may be obscured by calamity, by pomp, by worship of other things, but in some form or other it is there. For faith in a Power greater than ourselves, and miraculous demonstrations of that power in human lives, are facts as old as man himself.
We finally saw that faith in some kind of God was a part of our make-up, just as much as the feeling we have for a friend. Sometimes we had to search fearlessly, but He was there. He was as much a fact as we were. We found the Great Reality deep down within us. In the last analysis it is only there that He may be found. It was so with us.
The text of Alcoholics Anonymous
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Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: northern michigan. not the U.P.
Posts: 15,281
Originally Posted by avocado
I'm not in AA so I don't totally get the thing about a need for a higher power, but in general, couldn't you just say the higher power is the possibility of a better you? According to , when we make choices, we are thereby deciding what we feel the best possible course of human action should be. With this comes responsibility to make choices that will shape the world we want to live in. Given that, can't you just envision a better, sober you as your own higher power? I really don't see why not.
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Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Ct.
Posts: 173
When I was desperate enough I surrendered to what ever "It" is (I believe it's God). It's hard to surrender your life and you're will, you ego, your entire being to a Higher Power unless you're desperate. It's very scary at first, until you see things get better, then you surrender more and more. I think everyone has a bottom(or do they?), sometimes I wonder.
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Join Date: Jan 2011
Posts: 1,126
I've been sober and in AA for a tad over two years and still struggle with the entire Higher Power concept. I think troubling for some, certainly for me, is the suspicion that most in the rooms have a firm foundation in Christianity, and that is always a stumbling block for me.
So I just grab onto the fact that there it's impossible for me to understand. I quit debating myself. I quit trying to figure out if I am agnostic or an atheist or a lapsed Christian or whatever.
My ego is huge. My negativity is even larger. I just accept that what I don't understand is far bigger than me, that I will never believe in personalized deity. I even quit trying to figure out the biochemical or psychological aspects of prayer.
I just pray.
So I just grab onto the fact that there it's impossible for me to understand. I quit debating myself. I quit trying to figure out if I am agnostic or an atheist or a lapsed Christian or whatever.
My ego is huge. My negativity is even larger. I just accept that what I don't understand is far bigger than me, that I will never believe in personalized deity. I even quit trying to figure out the biochemical or psychological aspects of prayer.
I just pray.
~sb
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: MD
Posts: 15,964
Step 1-acknowledge, admit and totally accept I can't drink.
Step 2 was willingness to believe, step 3 was a decision to move on with the steps.
At the completion of step 7, everything was different.
I came to believe in a power greater than I, still not defined, but felt and experienced.
Those steps saved my life.
Step 2 was willingness to believe, step 3 was a decision to move on with the steps.
At the completion of step 7, everything was different.
I came to believe in a power greater than I, still not defined, but felt and experienced.
Those steps saved my life.
Keeping it simple!
Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: Surrey, BC
Posts: 3,282
Originally Posted by HereIAm321
Should I just suspend disbelief and believe in some sort of version of a higher power, just to get myself thru this??? Gotta admit that praying always felt great to me, even though I know it's just endorphins.
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