ACCEPTANCE MONTH: DAY 9: “Many of us crucify ourselves between two thieves – regret for the past and fear of the future.” ― Fulton Oursler
This is the trouble with life; it is the root of all the trouble we have in life. We cannot sit still in the present, and are caught in the dynamic of this crucifixion.
What happens here, in the recovery we get in a 12-step environment, is that we heal the past and sit still in the present and allow the future to unfold in its own time and in its own way. That is, if we are fully embracing the spiritual principles we find in those steps.
This is a great one! It begins and ends the process so perfectly, because we are always at a point of surrender to something greater than ourselves, as long as we are running the show. Drugs and alcohol are not the problem, our thinking and ways of believing what is happening in life are the problem. We can quit drinking, but the thinking that made the drinking appear to be the problem is left untouched. With that belief structure left in place, we are doomed.
This is why I see the social implications of addiction as being the mother from whom all things are created. The social construct we live in, and all of its inherent unfolding, is the root creation of all things that are dysfunctional.
We are so truly blessed to get these steps and to have been beaten by addiction into what the BB calls “a state of reasonableness.” We HAVE to DO something new. This is the beginning. If we are going to the right meetings, we are going to hear a great deal about how these steps will shift our belief structures into a new paradigm.
As we begin to do this work, we will be led to see that the thinking that made us so miserable that drugs and alcohol provided relief are the culprit, not the substances themselves. It is all in how we view the world and the fight we engage in with it that cause our pain and our troubles.
Acceptance in early recovery happens because we are beat to shit. This is the same dynamic that will happen with life, over and over.
As we move through recovery, if we are able to persist in questioning our beliefs and ego-based ideas, we are going to see that our thinking is the same culprit it always was.
I think another disservice that we experience is in the belief that drugs and alcohol are the culprits. They are NOT. It is all in the thinking that allowed them to be necessary for us in the first place. That is why relapse is the powerful monster it is. We have this all upside-down.
Recovery ONLY happens in these steps. We can go to a hundred meetings a day, but there is nothing there, except the reminders that this recovery process does not work unless the steps are applied thoroughly.
With this, we get to come to Acceptance, again and again, that we are powerless over life itself. Over the way our ego thinks about life as well. That thinking is a product of fear and conditioning. Social conditioning and personal experiences create the fear and we attempt to control life for our own sense of personal power and safety. TRUE powerlessness is going to mean that we cannot DO anything to make this happen. We let go of that notion and stop all attempts to run the world for our personal benefit and comfort. This is going to take some time to break through our ego-sense of personal power and importance.
That, I believe, is going to place us in a position to truly “get it” that we are here to heal, to heal this idea of importance, to heal the past, and to live in today with peace and joy.
Dolphin Hug 