I am still willing to learn

For most of us the struggle was long, painful and lonely to the place where we are now. But survive we have, and survive we will. The times we thought we could go no further are only dimly recalled. The experiences we were certain would destroy us fit ever so neatly into our book of memories.

We have survived, and the program is offering us the means for continued survival. Step-by-Step we are learning to handle our problems, build relationships based on honesty, and choose responsible behavior. We are promised serenity if we follow the Steps.

Gratitude for our survival is best expressed by working the program, setting an example for others, helping those women who haven't yet attained victory. We must give away what we have learned to make way for our own new growth.

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.

Impending change

The specter of change builds dread in most of us. We fear the effects on our personal lives. We lack faith that the impending change will benefit us. Only time can assure us of that. And it will, just as every change we've survived up to now has done.

Changes are gifts, really. They come as hallmarks to our present attainments. They signify successful growth. And they announce our readiness for more growth. How we struggle to understand this, and how quickly we forget it once we have adapted to the change. The struggle is then repeated the next time change visits us.

We long for permanence, believing it guarantees security, not realizing the only real security available to us come with our trust in God, from whom all change comes as a blessing on the growth we've attained.

God's guidance

Some of us have an insatiable desire to do something about every situation that occurs in our lives. We fret about this, we rush into that, and we push our confused minds to the edge of despair. Weary from our relentless struggling, we become short-tempered, highly critical, and completely irrational. Little things become big things. Everything in our lives becomes too much for us.

When this happens, we need to "Let Go" of our false pride and admit that we alone cannot understand or solve our present difficulties. Only when we have the humility to admit our limitations can we receive the help we need.

Letting go of our false pride, however, is merely the first step. We also need to "Let God" take a hand in our affairs.

Anvils of Experience

So at the outset, how best to live and work together as groups became the prime question. In the world about us we saw personalities destroying whole peoples.

The struggle for wealth, power, and prestige was tearing humanity apart as never before. If strong people were stalemated in the search for peace and harmony, what was to become of our erratic band of alcoholics?
 

 As we had once struggled and prayed for individual recovery, just so earnestly did we commence to quest for the principles through which A.A. itself might survive. On anvils of experience, the structure of our Society was hammered out. 

1981 AAWS Inc.
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, pages 130-131

Making Life Easier

Yes, there are times we need to endure, struggle through, and rely on our survival skills. But we don't have to make life, growth, recovery, change, or our day-to-day affairs that hard all the time.

Having life be that hard is a remnant of our martyrdom, a leftover from old ways of thinking, feeling, and believing. We are worthy, even when life isn't that hard. Our value and worth are not determined by how hard we struggle.