TWELVE STEPS
AND
TWELVE TRADITIONS
STEP FOUR
(pp. 44-45)
This perverse
soul-sickness is not pleasant to look upon. Instincts on rampage balk at
investigation. The minute we make a serious attempt to probe them, we are
liable to suffer severe reactions.
If temperamentally, we are on the
depressive side, we are apt to be swamped with guilt and self-loathing. We
wallow in this messy bog, often getting a misshapen and painful pleasure out of
it. As we morbidly pursue this melancholy activity, we may sink to such a point
of despair that nothing but oblivion looks possible as a solution. Here, of
course, we have lost all perspective, and therefore all genuine humility. For
this is pride in reverse. This is not a moral inventory at all; it is the very
process by which the depressive has so often been led to the bottle and
extinction.
~
I
had this notion that when I came to AA I would be given weapons and armor protecting
me from the temptation to drink. Once there, and getting there was the hardest part, I found that
I had instead been given a kit of tools to not only raze the old structure of
my life but to assist in raising a completely new one. Furthermore, I had a
whole crew of volunteers to give me a hand wherever I needed one if I stayed
connected to the community. As a member of that community, who has acquired the
skills of recovery, wherever possible I too can assist those who need it. It
is as simple as that… I don’t do this alone. As cunning and baffling as drugs
and alcohol can be, I need all the help I can get. The spirituality that works
for addiction directs my path towards connection to others. It is the
spirituality union and not separatism… of God and me against the world.
geo 4,787
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