[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
tion of instincts cannot be the sole end and aim of our lives.
If we place instincts first, we have got the cart before the
horse; we shall be pulled backward into disillusionment.
S T E P T WE L V E 115
But when we are willing to place spiritual growth first
then and only then do we have a real chance.
After we come into A.A., if we go on growing, our atti-
tudes and actions toward security emotional security and
financial security commence to change profoundly. Our
demand for emotional security, for our own way, had con-
stantly thrown us into unworkable relations with other
people. Though we were sometimes quite unconscious of
this, the result always had been the same. Either we had
tried to play God and dominate those about us, or we had
insisted on being overdependent upon them. Where people
had temporarily let us run their lives as though they were
still children, we had felt very happy and secure ourselves.
But when they finally resisted or ran away, we were bitterly
hurt and disappointed. We blamed them, being quite unable
to see that our unreasonable demands had been the cause.
When we had taken the opposite tack and had insisted,
like infants ourselves, that people protect and take care of
us or that the world owed us a living, then the result had
been equally unfortunate. This often caused the people we
had loved most to push us aside or perhaps desert us entire-
ly. Our disillusionment had been hard to bear. We couldn't
imagine people acting that way toward us. We had failed to
see that though adult in years we were still behaving child-
ishly, trying to turn everybody friends, wives, husbands,
even the world itself into protective parents. We had re-
fused to learn the very hard lesson that overdependence
upon people is unsuccessful because all people are fallible,
and even the best of them will sometimes let us down, es-
pecially when our demands for attention become
116 S T E P T WE L V E
unreasonable.
As we made spiritual progress, we saw through these
fallacies. It became clear that if we ever were to feel emo-
tionally secure among grown-up people, we would have to
put our lives on a give-and-take basis; we would have to
develop the sense of being in partnership or brotherhood
with all those around us. We saw that we would need to
give constantly of ourselves without demands for repay-
ment. When we persistently did this we gradually found
that people were attracted to us as never before. And even if
they failed us, we could be understanding and not too seri-
ously affected.
When we developed still more, we discovered the best
possible source of emotional stability to be God Himself.
We found that dependence upon His perfect justice, for-
giveness, and love was healthy, and that it would work
where nothing else would. If we really depended upon
God, we couldn't very well play God to our fellows nor
would we feel the urge wholly to rely on human protection
and care. These were the new attitudes that finally brought
many of us an inner strength and peace that could not be
deeply shaken by the shortcomings of others or by any
calamity not of our own making.
This new outlook was, we learned, something especial-
ly necessary to us alcoholics. For alcoholism had been a
lonely business, even though we had been surrounded by
people who loved us. But when self-will had driven every-
body away and our isolation had become complete, it
caused us to play the big shot in cheap barrooms and then
fare forth alone on the street to depend upon the charity of
S T E P T WE L V E 117
passersby. We were still trying to find emotional security by
being dominating or dependent upon others. Even when
our fortunes had not ebbed that much and we nevertheless
found ourselves alone in the world, we still vainly tried to
be secure by some unhealthy kind of domination or depen-
dence. For those of us who were like that, A.A. had a very
special meaning. Through it we begin to learn right rela-
tions with people who understand us; we don't have to be
alone any more.
Most married folks in A.A. have very happy homes. To
a surprising extent, A.A. has offset the damage to family
life brought about by years of alcoholism. But just like all
other societies, we do have sex and marital problems, and
sometimes they are distressingly acute. Permanent mar-
riage breakups and separations, however, are unusual in
A.A. Our main problem is not how we are to stay married;
it is how to be more happily married by eliminating the se-
vere emotional twists that have so often stemmed from
alcoholism.
Nearly every sound human being experiences, at some
time in life, a compelling desire to find a mate of the oppo-
site sex with whom the fullest possible union can be made
spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical. This mighty
urge is the root of great human accomplishments, a creative
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]