January 6

ACCEPTANCE MONTH: DAY 6: “There’s release in knowing the truth no matter how anguishing it is. You come finally to the irreducible thing, and there’s nothing left to do but pick it up and hold it. Then, at last, you can enter the severe mercy of acceptance.” ― Sue Monk Kidd

I think that I fall more in love with the way this quote is written every time I read it. The word “irreducible” makes me happy. Not one you read or hear frequently. So, it works for me.

Then the line “there’s nothing left to do but pick it up and hold it” is so evocative that I just love that sentence.

Then, the last sentence with “severe mercy of acceptance” just jumps out for me, because I know what she is talking about so well and so very intimately.

Everything about this quote is perfect cadence and emotional content (to me). Few authors write the way I think, so this quote is one of my very favorites.

I love unusual word usage and cadence and the flow of words. I read for those moments when I find the perfect phrase or combination of words and emotions. Isn’t that amazing to read? I believe so.

My goal in writing these blog posts is to bring concepts of spiritual growth and the steps to life in new and different ways. They have shaped and shifted my life in so many powerful ways that I want to use them as incentives for others to see the ongoing, never-ending benefit of recovery.

So many people are content with not drinking or using drugs that I am saddened by the limitations of what they receive in recovery. There is so much more!

Bill W. wrote some good letters late in his life that expressed this desire as well. Sadly, he did not develop the books he might have written to support those ideas. He had over 36 years of sobriety when he died, which many have surpassed since that time; but his prolific writing is scattered over articles in the Grapevine and As Bill Sees It, along with various letters and pamphlets.

The principle behind Step 1 goes much deeper than just accepting our powerlessness and unmanageability around substances. We must visit this idea over and over as we progress through life and attempt to control other things that may come into our lives.

People, food, money, jobs, health, fear, anger, resentment, pain, loss, grief, politics, religion, ideas, ethics, great events, small events, dying, living, aging, family, friends, relationships; every aspect of life must be accepted as it exists.

I know I have certainly tried to control these things at one time or another; some for many years. It never worked, and I had to reach the point of acceptance with all of them. Some of my surrenders (actually, most of them) were brutal to live through and observe.

Today I am at peace with the world and all its people and what is going on around me, because I have learned to let it be. (Great line for a song, don’t you think?) However, without a great deal of working through the steps again and again, my unhappiness would be palpable.

When the sentence “We have stopped fighting anybody or anything” is repeated (a bit differently worded), in both Chapter 6 and Chapter 7, there is no mistake that we cannot fight the Universe and its Power any longer and survive, either with or without drugs and booze.

This goes so much deeper than what we believe when we need to stop active addiction. Thank God it is a process, a slow one, but a process.

We even have a prayer that is directly linked to the premise that we must accept all that is, outside of me and my behavior. I call it the courage prayer, because I really need the courage to focus only on me and what I must change about my beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. So important.

I can only accept life when I see the truth behind the idea that I am only looking around at life or whatever I believe is being a problem, when I realize that it is my way of avoiding looking at me and doing what I need to do to change my attitudes, beliefs and behaviors. Ugh!

So, the focus must shift on to me…what I need to work on in myself. If I have only worked through this in a very limited way in those first days and months of this journey, I did not get to the real heart of the trouble. I must do this for many years to receive the benefits of deep healing and deep recovery.