DISCIPLINE MONTH: DAY 11: “The best measure of a spiritual life is not its ecstasies but its obedience.” ― Oswald Chambers
Addicts like me are impatient brats most of the time. We want everything NOW! There is no sense of deferred rewards. Therefore, we want instant relief from our pain and we want to be spiritually inspired and fit immediately.
I love listening to new folks who have weeks or a couple of months in recovery talk about their relationship with God and how spiritually fit they have become. Some people call this the pink cloud and we all know a big dose of reality is heading their way. I will tell you all that I have been on a pink cloud for over 30 years…truth!
My life is good today because I have developed the discipline to do this stuff for YEARS and YEARS and YEARS! We may get some relief in those early changes, but I have worked with A LOT of addicts who are suicidal and terribly unhappy at 8, 9, 10 and sometimes many years down the road.
There is a line in the book that explained (for me) the phenomena of people with over 25 years of recovery who relapsed. “For if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others, he could not survive the certain trials and low spots ahead.” Bill’s story, page 14.
So, I understand the sense of relief we receive when we do something different for a couple of days or even a week; but the real test is how to maintain that work over years and years and years. It has to be practiced. And addicts do not want to do anything that seems like work…in fact, they will often make it seem so burdensome that pretty soon they are excusing themselves again…too busy, woke up late, not feeling good, it isn’t working for me, blah, blah, blah.
And then they are in a ball of shit and wondering WHY??? I’m recovering, I have X amount of time, I, I, I!
And service is about shutting up and doing the stuff that is icky…just friggin’ DO IT! Go mop a floor and empty trashcans, keep yourself out of yourself. We MUST!
And we trudge this road…I prefer to skip, but I have had my time in the trudging shoes, too. That is why I have stuck with the discipline of doing the work. Not talking about it, just doing it. Over and over and over…year after year. Get on with the doing of recovery and stop talking about it. That is just ego and ego is NEVER going to stop the suffering of addiction…why? Because ego is the creator of the suffering!
When we have a path to follow that guarantees success, why do we think we don’t have to stay on the path? Why do we believe that there is a loophole if we are clever or cute enough or too busy? Why is it that we lie and lie and lie to ourselves? Oh, yeah…addiction! A disease of the human mind…that is fueled and fed, not by drugs or alcohol, but by a distorted EGO!
So we must exercise discipline daily, year after year, because we carry that distorted ego with us all the time, for life…this is a daily reprieve, contingent on the maintenance of a spiritual path…we must always maintain what we have obtained, as my friend says. Maintenance, maintenance, maintenance…every day, all the time. And it really is a beautiful thing!
Dolphin Hug 