Ouch!!!!!!!!

I have chronic leg pain. Old age? The 29 marathons and one 50-miler I ran in my days as a running addict? I'm sore these days if I stand or walk for a while. That's Pain with a capital P.

Today I want to write about a different kind of pain. A regular at my noon A.A. meeting yesterday vaguely described some psychological pain she is going through, and it's becoming harder and harder to avoid relief in a bottle.

I spoke up that the A.A. promises we read at every meeting are real, but they don't promise that a sober life is a painless life:

1. If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through.
2. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.
3. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
4. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace.
5. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.
6. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.
7. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.
8. Self-seeking will slip away.
9. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.
10. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.
11. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.
12. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us -- sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them. (Big Book, pages 83-84)

Rick Warren in The Purpose-Driven Life (https://pastorrick.com/) explains pain this way: "We rarely see God's good purpose in pain or failure or embarrassment while it's happening.... Only in hindsight do we understand how God intended a problem for good."

God meant my drinking problem for good. If I hadn't become an alcoholic, I never would have known God and myself so intimately.