Within

From "Inner Voice":

"Long before nagging and pressures from others concerning my excessive use of alcohol made any impression on me, the nagging voice of conscience my own inner voice of truth and right apprised me of the irrevocable fact that I had lost control of alcohol, that I was powerless.
 

 I know now that the inner voice was God, as I understand Him, speaking. For, as I had been taught from earliest memory and as A.A. has emphasized, God or good emanates from within each of us."

Lakewood, Ohio, USA

1973 AAWS, Inc.; 30^th Printing 2004
Came to Believe, pg. 83

Setting Our Own Course

We can control how we respond to other people's expectations.

During the course of any day, people may make demands on our time, talents, energy, money, and emotions. We do not have to say yes to every request. We do not have to feel guilty if we say no. And we do not have to allow the barrage of demands to control the course of our life.

We do not have to spend our life reacting to others and to the course they would prefer we took with our life.

We can set boundaries, firm limits on how far we shall go with others. We can trust and listen to ourselves. We can set goals and direction for our life. We can place value on ourselves.

WOULD A DRINK HELP?

By going back in our own drinking histories, we could show that years before we realized it we were out of control, that our drinking even then was no mere habit, that it was indeed the beginning of a fatal progression.
TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 23

When I was still drinking, I couldn't respond to any of life's situations the way other, more healthy, people could. The smallest incident triggered a state of mind that believed I had to have a drink to numb my feelings. But the numbing did not improve the situation, so I sought further escape in the bottle.

Acting As If

The behavior we call "acting as if" can be a powerful recovery tool. Acting as if is a way to practice the positive. It's a positive form of pretending. It's a tool we use to get ourselves unstuck. It's a tool we make a conscious decision to use.

Acting as if can be helpful when a feeling begins to control us. We make a conscious decision to act as if we feel fine and are going to be fine.

When a problem plagues us, acting as if can help us get unstuck. We act as if the problem will be or already is solved, so we can go on with our life.

Often, acting as if we are detached will set the stage for detachment to come in and take over.

There are many areas where acting as if - combined with our other recovery principles - will set the stage for the reality we desire.

Letting Go of Guilt

Feeling good about ourselves is a choice. So is feeling guilty. When guilt is legitimate, it acts as a warning light, signaling that we're off course. Then its purpose is finished.

Wallowing in guilt allows others to control us. It makes us feel not good enough. It prevents us from setting boundaries and taking other healthy action to care for ourselves.

We may have learned to habitually feel guilty as an instinctive reaction to life. Now we know that we don't have to feel guilty.

Perfectionism

Perfectionism and its control over our lives stands seriously in the way of our growth and well-being, emotionally, spiritually, and even physically. Life's lessons come through failures probably more than successes. Through our failures we learn humility. We learn to look to others for help and guidance. We learn how to let others fail, too. We fail because we are human.
When we no longer fear failure, we are free to attempt greater feats. We dare to learn more, and life is fuller for it—not just our own lives, but the lives that we touch.

UNITED WE STAND

We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery. The delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed. 

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 30 

I came to Alcoholics Anonymous because I was no longer able to control my drinking. It was either my wife's complaining about my drinking, or maybe the sheriff forced me to go to A.A. meetings, or perhaps I knew, deep down inside, that I couldn't drink like others, but I was unwilling to admit it because the alternative terrified me.

Dealing with Painful Feelings

Feelings of hurt or anger can be some of the most difficult to face. We can feel so vulnerable, frightened, and powerless when these feelings appear. And these feelings may trigger memories of other, similar times when we felt powerless.

Sometimes, to gain a sense of control, we may punish the people around us, whether they are people we blame for these feelings or innocent bystanders. We may try to "get even," or we may manipulate behind people's backs to gain a sense of power over the situation.

These actions may give us a temporary feeling of satisfaction, but they only postpone facing our pain.

Feeling hurt does not have to be so frightening. We do not have to work so hard to avoid it. While hurt feelings aren't as much fun as feeling happy, they are, still, just feelings.

Relationships

Our relationships are alive. We don't control them and neither do the other people involved. We certainly influence our relationships - and if we are aware, we see they also have their own yeast. Whether we are talking of a love relationship with our spouse, lover, children, friends, or parents, it is a very fluid and dynamic affair. If we are actively involved with the other person and give time and nourishment to the relationship, it will grow. But if we are passive and only waiting, the relationship will grow stale.

Good Things Coming

Do not worry about how the good that has been planned for you will come.

It will come.

Do not worry, obsess, and think you have to control it, go out hunting for it, or tangle your mind trying to figure out how and when it will find you.

It will find you.

Surrender to your Higher Power each day. Trust your Higher Power. Then, stay peaceful. Trust and listen to yourself. That is how the good you want will come to you.

Your healing. Your joy. Your relationships. Your solutions. That job. That desired change. That opportunity. It will come to you - naturally, with ease, and in a host of ways.

Valuing Our Needs

Maybe others taught us it wasn't polite or appropriate to speak up for ourselves. The truth is, if we don't, our unmet wants and needs may ultimately come back to haunt our relationships. We may end up feeling angry or resentful, or we may begin to punish someone else for not guessing what we need. We may end the relationship because it doesn't meet our needs.

Intimacy and closeness are only possible in a relationship when both people can say what they want and need. Sustained intimacy demands this.

Sometimes, we may even have to demand what we want. That's called setting a boundary. We do this not to control another person, but to gain control of our life.

Belief

"One of the oldtimers used the electricity metaphor, which I later found in the Big Book. 'A person walking into a dark room does not worry about understanding electricity,' he said. 'He just finds the switch and turns on the light.'
 

 He explained that we can turn on the switch of spirituality by simply asking God each morning for another day of sobriety and thanking Him at night for another beautiful sober day.
 
 He said, 'Do it mechanically if you really don't believe in it. But do it every day. There is probably no one who really understands the wonderful ways of the Higher Power, and we don't need to. He understands us.'"

1973 AAWS Inc.
Came to Believe, 30^th printing 2004, pg. 30
from" He Took Control"

Accepting Our Feelings

Why do we struggle so with our feelings? Why do we work so hard to deny our emotions, especially concerning other people? They are only feelings!

In the course of a day, we may deny we feel frustrated in reaction to someone who is selling us a service.

We may deny that we feel frustrated, angry, or hurt in reaction to a friend.

We may deny feelings of fear, or anger, toward our children.

We may deny a whole range of feelings toward our spouse or the person with whom we're in a love relationship.

We may deny feelings provoked by people we work for, or by people who work for us.

Relationships

Sometimes the gift is a behavior we're learning to acquire: detachment, self esteem, becoming confident enough to set a boundary, or owning our power in another way.

Some relationships trigger healing in us - healing from issues of the past or an issue we're facing today.

Sometimes we find ourselves learning the most important lessons from the people we least expect to help us. Relationships may teach us about loving ourselves or someone else. Or maybe we'll learn to let others love us.

Letting go is a decision.

The obsession to pressure other people to see things our way keeps us agitated. In contrast, the wisdom to understand that every person's view has validity, at least for that person, is a gift we receive from working the Twelve Steps. Our daily assignment, then, is to be patient and listen so that we may learn this lesson from women and men who have walked this path already, women and men who have come to understand that letting go of others and their addictions promises relief from the obsession that troubles each of us.

Look around. All of us have tried to force solutions that didn't fit. And we drove ourselves crazy trying to control the behavior of others, certain that "doing it our way" was not only reasonable, but right.

Let tears come..

Letting down our guard, releasing the tension that keeps us taut, often invites our tears, tears that soften us, melt our resistance, and reveal our vulnerability, which reminds us that we are only human. So often we need reminding that we are only human.

Perfectionism may be our bane, as it is for so many of us in this program. We've learned to push, push harder, and even harder yet, not only ourselves but also those around us. We must be better, we think, and we tighten our hold on life. The program can teach us to loosen our grip, if we'll let it. The magic is that when we loosen our grip on this day, this activity, this person, we get carried gently along and find that which we struggled to control happening smoothly and naturally. Life is a series of ironies.

Living or Waiting?

Using time wisely

What is the real secret of living 24 hours at a time? Isn't it really a matter of feeling completely comfortable in the present rather than believing that happiness depends on something in the future?

Whatever our situation today, it's something we must life through and deal with effectively. We may be overlooking many wonderful things in our present life simply because we believe we need some exciting experience that can only come later on.

We also might be overlooking present opportunities because we're spending too much time in the past. The past, whether it was god or bad, is beyond our control.

AN OPEN MIND

True humility and an open mind can lead us to faith . . . TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 33

My alcoholic thinking led me to believe that I could control my drinking, but I couldn't. When I came to A.A., I realized that God was speaking to me through my group. My mind was open just enough to know that I needed His help.
 
 A real, honest acceptance of A.A. took more time, but with it came humility. I know how insane I was, and I am extremely grateful to have my sanity restored to me and to be a sober alcoholic. The new, sober me is a much better person than I ever could have been without A.A.

Feelings and Surrender

Surrender is not something we can do in our heads. It is not something we can force or control by willpower. It is something we experience.

Acceptance, or surrender, is not a tidy package. Often, it is a package full of hard feelings - anger, rage, and sadness, followed by release and relief. As we surrender, we experience our frustration and anger at God, at other people, at ourselves, and at life. Then we come to the core of the pain and sadness, the heavy emotional burden inside that must come out before we can feel good. Often, these emotions are connected to healing and release at a deep level.

Surrender sets the wheels in motion. Our fear and anxiety about the future are released when we surrender.

Recovery

Often, our accusations are justified. We probably are feeling hurt and frustrated. In those moments, we may begin to believe that the solution to our pain and frustration is getting the other person to do what we want, or having the outcome we desire. But these self-defeating illusions put the power and control of our life in other people's hands. We call this codependency.

The solution to our pain and frustration, however valid is to acknowledge our own feelings. We feel the anger, the grief; then we let go of the feelings and find peace - within ourselves. We know our happiness isn't controlled by another person, even though we may have convinced ourselves it is. We call this acceptance.

Then we decide that although we'd like our situation to be different, maybe our life is happening this way for a reason.