open minds

So I started reading "Living Sober" this morning (an AA book), with my new-found commitment to reconnecting with program. I know there are some agnostic meetings in New York that use this book for their meetings, so I purchased it awhile ago but haven't spent much time with it since.

It starts off with a little legalese fine print ... "this booklet does not offer a plan for recovery" and the "Steps that summarize [AA's] program of recovery are set forth in detail in the books 'Alcoholics Anonymous' and 'Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions'" and "Here we tell only some methods we have used for living without drinking." You gotta love the legalese fine print -- it's what makes the world go round, is it not?

Anyway, the first entry goes on to talk about habits and how we need to adopt and practice new, healthier habits in exchange for our former unhealthy, self-destructive habits. It talks about habits being both actions and thoughts -- that we have to learn to act differently and think differently. This, I think, is pretty much the essence of every step. Admitting I'm powerless and my life is unmanageable, believing that "the program way of life" can restore me to sanity, and turning my life over to program -- it's all about adopting and practicing new, healthier habits. Making an inventory of myself, sharing it with someone else, looking at my part in things and having my character defects removed (intentional passive voice, of course) -- it's all about adopting and practicing new, healthier habits. Making amends includes adopting and practicing new, healthier habits, both in righting my past wrongs and in changing my future behavior so I do not continue to cause harm. Studying program and learning how to incorporate its principles in every aspect of my life -- again, all about adopting and practicing new, healthier habits. At the end of the day, it's just about willingness. I have to be willing to learn how to do things differently, because after all, if nothing changes, nothing changes. Seriously. It's that simple. No one ever said program was rocket science!

Another couple of things that the first entry in "Living Sober" talks about is keeping an open mind and using your common sense. Keeping an open mind -- yeah, yeah, I know. Basically there's no "right" or "wrong" way to do things, take what you like and leave the rest, figure out what works for you and go with it, etc. This all has a lot of validity, provided that I am in fact willing to do things differently as discussed in the preceding paragraph. It also talked about having a "balanced diet of ideas", which I liked -- being willing to try different things, even if it means trying something that perhaps was previously dismissed for whatever reason.

But using your common sense ... I'm not sure I've ever heard that before in program! (Of course that doesn't mean it's not there, just that I haven't heard it.) However, in an environment where God does everything for you and all you have to do is ask, turn things over, etc., it doesn't exactly lend itself to telling you to use a little common sense. So "Living Sober" actually says, "We found that we have to use plain everyday intelligence in applying the suggestions that follow," and it talks about using the ideas in moderation and using good judgment. Obviously this is written in the context of using the particular suggestions that are in the book, but what occurred to me in reading it is that "common sense" makes for an interesting concept of a higher power. Common sense can restore me to sanity; living my life in accordance with common sense can lead me to recovery; acting in accordance with common sense will remove my character defects, etc.

It really is not that far from using my conscience as a higher power, actually -- consult my conscience and/or common sense before making decisions or taking certain actions. When someone at a meeting tells me to pray about something, I can interpret that to mean that I should consult my conscience and/or common sense. The obvious caveat would be to make sure I'm not thinking through my disease-mind and that I am in fact consulting my common sense, but for me I find that it is the actual process of thinking before acting that makes all the difference in the world (between taking a healthy action and taking an unhealthy action). So often it is the "reaction" that causes me trouble rather than the well thought out action, and a big part of working with my sponsor is learning how to distinguish from the disease voice and the higher power voice (i.e. conscience and/or common sense).

I've often said that the smarter I am, the smarter my disease is. Unfortunately my disease has access to all the smarts and knowledge in my brain that I do, which can make it tricky to determine which thoughts come from my disease and which ones don't. But I do know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the more I study and stay in connection with program, the easier it is to decipher and better I get at doing so.

That's all I got for today folks.