Latest / Sober Readings / Came To Believe - Chapter 5 stories
Transcript
- Scott Hayes: Came to Believe, the spiritual adventure of AA as experienced by individual members. Welcome back to Sober Readings, everyone. My name is Scott. Today is Sunday, September twentieth, and since it's Sunday, we're going to be reading out of Came to Believe. So this week we are picking up on Chapter 5. Chapter 5 is on page 39. It's titled A Spiritual Awakening. And here's the intro. Is sobriety all that we are to expect of a spiritual awakening? No. Sobriety is only a bare beginning. It is only the first gift of the first awakening. If more gifts are to be received, our awakening has to go on. As it does go on, we find that bit by bit we can discard the old life, the one that did not work, for a new life that can and does work under any conditions whatever. That was written by Bill W. In a grapevine article in December of nineteen fifty seven. So let's get right into the stories. I'm gonna read the first four stories in chapter five this week. The first one is Letting Go. For a long time I had the idea that I must succeed, I must be right, I must be important. If I let go, I thought, then I wouldn't be anybody. Well, who was I anyway? Just a willful alcoholic woman. Now I'm beginning to see that letting go doesn't mean giving up. It means opening myself to new vistas. There have been moments of what I would call ecstasy. I'm thrilled and I'm scared at the same time. I feel like I'd better not enjoy this because it's going to go away. It's so hard for me to say, okay, you've had a little insight, just let it happen. The AA program says, Look, we've got some things to give you that are really going to help. If you'll slow down enough and if you'll relax. These are not things that are going to make me special or get me a better job or make me important. They are just going to offer me a way of life that is beautiful. When I say I want to know something about the spirit in me. You say go ahead, there isn't anything to be afraid of. The darkness you may encounter isn't going to last, because there will always be someone there to help. That was written in San Francisco, California. The next story is action and patience. In common with many AAs, I never enjoyed the luxury of a large and conscious spiritual experience, and I felt a little deprived. But we have a better program than we know, as Bill, our co-founder, said. I came to believe by way of that program, though I have recognized the process only in retrospect. I had started with an optimistic, idealized view of life, supported by a strong religious commitment and faith. Somewhere along the way, I became a victim of the sickness unto death, alienated, anxious, alone. I found myself in the midst of a journey into darkness, separated from God, from other people, from my own being. I regret many things that happened on this journey, but I no longer regret that it took place. Some of us are more blinded by our pride and willfulness than others, and have to be broken in order to see. I had to realize that of myself I had no power to help myself. The day came, by the grace of God, when I had that moment of truth, though at the time I experienced it more as a plunge into deeper darkness than as the leap of faith, which it ultimately proved to be, more as a humiliating defeat than as the transforming experience of my life. In shame and despair, I went to my first AA meeting. By some minor miracle, I was able to suspend opinion, analysis, judgment, and criticism, and instead to listen and hear. I heard someone say that AA works for those who work for it, those who put action into the program. For me, at that time, action consisted of simply showing up at an AA meeting and following the suggestions I heard. I heard that I should forget about yesterday and tomorrow and instead concentrate on today and And staying away from the first drink today, now. I tried it and it worked. The first step in the process of coming to believe had been taken. I heard this action had to be backed up with patience, that in time, for instance, I would sleep without the sedation of alcohol. Each night after the AA meeting, I surrounded myself with books and magazines and ginger ale and sat down before the television set, prepared to stay awake all night. This was action for me at the time, following instructions. I was prepared to wait for sleep. I didn't have to wait long. For the first time in memory, I fell asleep in a chair before the television set, and I came to believe a little more. I heard that we can't keep what we have unless we give it away. And so I found a woman, someone a little newer than I was, and I shared with her what you had shared with me. Looking back on it, I doubt that I helped this woman very much, but I helped myself beyond measure. I stayed sober day by day, through sharing my experience, strength, and hope with her, through putting action into the AA program, while at the same time waiting for her, not forcing my action on her. This was patience supporting the action, though I didn't call it patience at the time. The word was not a part of my emotional vocabulary. As time went on, my life became totally involved in AA action. I had experienced the power of God's forgiveness, and through grace, I was able to make this response of gratitude that is beyond verbal expression. God's grace had overcome the death that was in me, and instead had made me a member of the Society of the Second Chance. If this grace had been contingent on my righteousness or obedience or goodness or sacrifice, as acts of the will. It would never have come to me because I had none of these things going. It was an unearned favor to an unlikely prospect. This grace that overcomes death by forgiveness is the truth that has set me free to regard myself and you as acceptable, because God accepts us for what we are, imperfect creatures. And if, as I pray, I should continue to grow in grace, it will be through love and service to this fellowship. And to the power greater than myself that I call God. New York, New York. An unknown plan. I did believe until about the age of thirteen when my mother passed away, leaving me an orphan. I had lost my father when I was four. I had attended Sunday school. I had gone to church regularly with my mother, I had joined the church at age twelve. I can remember the stories my mother and Sunday school teachers told about God, Jesus, and heaven, also those about the devil and his house of hell. After mother died, two older brothers and I made our home with an uncle and aunt. For a while I went on attending church services regularly, but I could not understand why my mother had been taken away, and the feeling of doubt started in. Church and Sunday school were neglected. I had my first drink in my teens, and from that day until the day I joined AA, alcohol was in and God and church began to go out. My doubt and disbelief increased until there was no God or heaven, devil or hell so far as I was concerned. With the bottle, this kind of thinking seemed easy and right. I could have committed murder in a blackout and felt no guilt, no sense of wrongdoing whatever. There is no way for me to put in words the size of my resentment. At last, sure that no one cared for me, knowing that I cared for no one, I decided to do something permanent about this thing called life. Exterminate it. I placed a shotgun against my chest and pulled the trigger. When I was taken to the hospital, the doctors stated, I was told later, this man should have been dead hours ago. Can you imagine what they had being called a man? For days I was in a coma with no hope for survival, according to the doctors and nurses. At times I would come to for a fleeting second, and then I believed once more in hell and its owner, the devil. I could not believe that I was alive. I do not know how many times this coming to and relapsing into a coma occurred. But eventually there was a moment when I recognized people in the room. Sometime later I realized that I actually was alive. Still later, I began to believe that something greater than I was had taken over. At that time I could not associate this something with God. It was just something greater. But I could have told my doctors and nurses that I was going to get well because a power greater than they were or I was had a plan. We were only tools in that plan, I felt. I had no idea what it was. I asked only that it be revealed. AA came to me in the person of a member while I was in the hospital. After I was released, several AAs took me to a rehabilitation center. When I had completed the program there, I returned to my hometown and was welcomed into the local AA group. I found a part-time job, from one hour up to a full day as my physical condition would permit, according to the doctor's advice. This behavior was not like people I had known, and it was completely out of line with me. Work. For years all I had known was drink, gamble, and drink, plus all that goes with that kind of living. One day, after an hour at work, I had to leave. My boss took me home to the AA clubhouse where I lived and had been appointed houseman, and this is what happened. I was sitting in the most comfortable chair available. Looking at the twelve steps and traditions hanging on the wall, reading them over with a little better understanding each time. The coffee was beginning to smell like it needed tasting, and that's what I did. Now the payoff. Something drew me back to the chair and my eyes to the twelve steps. I got the message, the meaning, like a flash of lightning. I recognized the power whose presence I had felt in the hospital. God is I understand him. And the plan was revealed to me. To carry this message to alcoholics, to practice these principles in all our affairs. There's quite a difference between the person who did not believe, had no God, and wanted to die, and the person of today who came to believe, is not afraid of dying, but wants to live. I've got a lot of message carrying to do. Stuttgart, Arkansas. And today's final reading from chapter five, New Selves Unfolding. In my own experience, a spiritual awakening was not found by seeking it. Others claim spiritual belief came with sobriety, and I wanted that belief so desperately that I almost missed it altogether. Then a series of adversities set in. It seemed everything I had was swept away. My emotional stability was so tested that a couple of times I considered suicide. But at no time was a drink considered. Even though craving for the taste of liquor hit me momentarily at times. However, the first step and I have always been great friends. I repeated it every five seconds and thanked God every day for my sobriety. The only grace, maybe, for that day. Gradually I began to see another part of me emerging, a grateful me, expecting nothing but sure that another person was beginning to guide me, counsel me, and direct my ways, and I was not afraid. Then as this power began to unfold new selves within me, a greater understanding of my fellow men began. With a new awakening each day, new strengths, new truths, new acceptance of AA people and people not in AA, a new world opened up, and every day it still does. The adversities, loneliness, sickness, losses, and disappointments mean nothing now. I'm happy, because I came to believe. Not only in God, but in the goodness in everyone. Barberton, Ohio. And so we'll stop there for today. Next Sunday we will finish with chapter five, and there is five stories remaining. So thank you so much for listening to this Came to Believe Sunday edition of Sober Readings. And if you enjoy Sober Readings and would like to help support the podcast, you can drop a dollar in the virtual donation basket using the link in the show notes. Every little bit helps and keeps the show going and allows me to continue sharing these readings. So again, thank you so much for listening today. As always, just for today, don't drink, go to a meeting, and keep coming back. Have a great day, everyone, and as my friend Larry says, best day ever.