Happy Easter

Easter has a lot to do with rebirth, doesn’t it? Historical and religious significances aside - isn't that something we know quite a lot about - letting our (old) selves die - so that we can live.

That old self that really wasn't us anyway. It was something else. Something sinister and dark operating as if it were us - deceiving us and tricking us into playing God.

We had old attitudes that preceded behaviors which betrayed us horribly. Once we have turned our entire lives and wills over to the care of a loving God, those attitudes and the behaviors they perform like puppeteers melt away like hot wax. And we are no longer enslaved to the suffering that the consequences of those bring. That in itself seem good enough but there is more. We are at once rendered useful. We can set out to perform the task of bringing such good news to others - perhaps others who have suffered as much or even more than we.

We can force “good behaviors” pretending to be naturally well behaved but it is only just another form of conformity to something that seeks to control us. We are still operating on a negative current that comes not from God - seemingly from ourselves - and isn’t ourselves, but we THINK “It” is. And that is why we feel guilty. We judge ourselves like we judge others - playing God of all we survey. This “It” talks to us in like a tape loop, running in our heads - perhaps in our own voice, or in the voices of those we have resented in the past, like mothers - maybe especially mothers - and fathers who have likewise been affected and therefore failed to save us form these things.

Like them, we cannot even save our own children from it and our so called “loved ones” become objects of tensions and stress that is like oxygen to fire sending our lives and all the lives around us burning. Then we resent this fact and it goes on and on and on as we slowly degenerate into this cycle of misery bringing anyone near us down along.

Then come a spiritual awakening. It is not a saving. It is an awakening that allows us to be saved - like the Jews exodus out of Egypt - we are saved from the tyranny of playing the faux-god - which has enslaved us. It hurts to realize it. It feels like waking up with the house on fire - and we dare not go back to sleep. It awakens us to the truth about how we have been living our lives and working counter to loving God who wants nothing but for us to come to Him.

He gives us a second chance. He allows us to start over with new wisdom and understanding and all we have to do is what we should have been doing all along - Let Go and Let Him. Slowing down - being ‘still’ at least long enough to see that He has already caught up to us - is sometimes all that is needed - for when we do we see this we also see that we are not God - He is God.

This the deflation found in the Twelve Steps and of which Bill W often spoke and wrote.

Rebirth in this manner gives new attitudes. It does not let us force them or "Fake it until we make it” - we have been fakes all of our lives presenting an outward appearance that suits our faltering egos so it can become gorged and self-important. God, once again.

The deflation of self through awakening to the truth about ourselves can now be a catalyst for new life. We receive, without effort, a new attitude on life itself - on God - on our flaws - strengths, even prayer and meditation. This certainly is a "psychic change" Dr. Silkworth wrote about - a spiritual awakening necessary to recover from alcoholism about which the Big Book is adamant.

So when someone says "I need a new set of attitudes" what they are really saying is "I need to have a spiritual awakening" and of course without one, we simply do not recover.

If my "old attitudes" and maybe even the behaviors they spawn are creeping back into my life, what is happening to me is that my recovery is unraveling. I am UN-RECOVERING, until finally I take back my will, believe I am once again powerful over alcohol, and then I drink. I MAY even stop going to meetings after all that. But knowing me . . . LONG afterward.

Happy EASTER EVERYONE. ENJOY A NEW LIFE! We have been reborn! Welcome to the land of milk and honey.

"We, in our turn, sought the same escape with all the desperation of drowning men. What seemed at first a flimsy reed, has proved to be the loving and powerful hand of God. A new life has been given us or, if you prefer, "a design for living" that really works." (28:1)

Peace,

Danny S