Daily Reflections reading July 17th
Surrender And Self-examinations
My stability came out of trying to give, not out
of demanding that I receive. Thus I think it can work out with emotional
sobriety. If we examine every disturbance we have, great or small, we will find
at the root of it some unhealthy dependency and its consequent unhealthy
demand. Let us, with God’s help, continually surrender these hobbling demands.
Then we can be set free to live and love; we may then be able to Twelfth Step
ourselves and others into emotional sobriety.
THE LANGUAGE OF THE HEART, p. 238
Years of dependency on alcohol as a chemical mood-changer deprived me of the capability to interact emotionally with my fellows. I thought I had to be self-sufficient, self-reliant, and self-motivated in a world of unreliable people. Finally I lost my self-respect and was left with dependency, lacking any ability to trust myself or to believe in anything. Surrender and self-examination while sharing with newcomers helped me to ask humbly for help.
© Alcoholics Anonymous World Services
My thoughts on July 17th Reading
Emotional Sobriety began with the first three steps where I
found a resting point at witch I could begin to restore all my emotional needs
a balance to find my higher power and myself just a mere beginning
When I walked thru
the door of step three and entered into step four I started to look at what went
wrong in my past looking at all I had squandered away in me drinking days
learning how to feel real feelings for the first time
This started me on a constructive path making me aware of my
character defects and shortcomings helping me to look at my fears and
resentment showed my ego and low self-esteem helping me to find that person I
was before I picked up the drink
This inventory was to look at myself and not at what others
did to me step five helped me to share what I had found with another human
being for me this was my sponsor this serve two purposes this sharing my
thought with another
First it relieves me of the burden of going it alone it got
me out of myself and into an emotional state to help me grow and second if
gives me feed back from my sponsor to see where I may have been telling myself
lies that I used to live in
When I move on to step six with the help of my sponsor I
need to examine all my character defects and shortcomings if I was to change
this helped me not to reacting situations in life but to learn how to act upon
any given circumstances that come my way
In step seven I have
learn humility and responsible I started to assume my own responsibility for
all my actions and I started to develop an attitude of gratitude toward others
freeing me of the wreckage of my pasts
Then real emotional sobriety started to show in step eight
making that list of harms done by me and becoming willing to make all those
amends my emotions begin to show me how to walk the path of peace in sobriety
Step nine separated me from my petty ways and freed me by my
making amends and asking for forgiveness for all my mistakes including
forgiving myself freeing me from the guilt and remorse I had suffered so often
When I make spot check inventories in step ten emotional
growths freed me from making the bad decisions that were so common in the past
by making the check I can make better decisions about my life and start feeling
the emotional growth God has given me
Having found the power greater than myself who I chose to
call God step eleven prayer and most important meditation gave my the freedom
to truly grow in God’s light freeing me from bondage of myself
Step twelve is where I try to practice my new emotional
sobriety by reaching out of myself to help the still sick and suffering
alcoholic find the strength to start on their journey to achieving emotional
sobriety as I have
Thanks to my God and my sponsor I now have emotional
sobriety and am able to look anyone in the eye and tell them I unconditionally
love them for what they are about to become in recovery
God bless you Al M
Please feel free to mail
suggestions or comments
