Daily
Reflections reading January 16th
Hitting Bottom
Why
all this insistence that every A.A. must hit bottom first? The answer is that
few people will sincerely try to practice the A.A. program unless they have hit
bottom. For practicing A.A. 's remaining eleven Steps means the adoption of attitudes
and actions that almost no alcoholic who is still drinking can dream of taking.
TWELVE
STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 24
Hitting bottom opened my mind and I became willing to try
something different. What I tried was A.A. My new life in the Fellowship was a
little like learning how to ride a bike for the first time: A.A. became my
training wheels and my supporting hand. It's not that I wanted the help
so much at the time; I simply did not want to hurt like that again. My desire
to avoid hitting bottom again was more powerful than my desire to drink. In the
beginning that was what kept me sober. But after a while I found myself working
the Steps to the best of my ability. I soon realized that my attitudes and actions
were changing if ever so slightly. One Day at a Time, I became comfortable with
myself, and others, and my hurting started to heal. Thank God for the training
wheels and supporting hand that I choose to call Alcoholics Anonymous. Page 24
Daily Reflections
© Alcoholics Anonymous World Services
My thoughts on January 16th Reading
Hitting
Bottom is one of those things we all do at different stages of our active
alcoholism, I know for me it meant losing everything and everyone dear to me,
to admit complete defeat was the only way I could surrender completely to my
disease fought like hell not to admit I was completely powerless
alcohol
robbed me of that power bankrupt Void of any real feelings except for
hopelessness, despair, anger, and fear, absolutely humiliated, totally
defeated, I had no other choice but to accept
and to surrender to this all powerful disease
Until I
could get up enough strength to become humble enough to ask for help, I could
not surrender on my will alone, when first challenged to admit hitting bottom I
revolted, my sponsor said I am the victim of a mental obsession so subtly
powerful no amount of willpower could break it
with out
hitting bottom and totally surrendering to the disease, there is no personal
will power the can help you do this the compulsion by the unaided will is just
to much to overcome this malady alone if you think freewill is going to help
try in on diarrhea first
In
A.A.'s beginning none but the most desperate cases could swallow and digest
this unpalatable truth. Even these "last-gaspers" often had
difficulty in realizing how hopeless they actually were ,the first edition of
the Big Book dealt with low-bottom cases only
less
desperate alcoholics tried A.A. but did not succeed because they could not make
the admission of hopelessness, it is a tremendous in the following years this
changed. Alcoholics, who still had
their health, their families, their jobs, and even two cars in the garage
began to
recognize their alcoholism, as this new truth grew, young people who were
scarcely more than potential alcoholics joined, they were spared that last ten
or fifteen years of literal hell, the rest of us had gone through
Step One
is an admission that our lives have become unmanageable, how could people these
high bottom people take this Step, well It was obviously necessary to raise the
bottom the rest of us had hit, to the point where it would hit them
After a
few more drunks they would return to us convinced they now have had hit a
bottom as truly as any of us. John Barleycorn himself had become our best advocate,
the average alcoholic, self-centered in the extreme, doesn't care for this
prospect unless he has to do these things
in order
to stay alive himself, under the lash of alcoholism, we are driven to A.A., and
there we discover the fatal nature of our disease, only then do we become as
open-minded and willing to listen as the dying can be, we stand ready to do
anything, to lift the obsession from us
God
bless you Al M
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