If the Road Is Rough You're Going the Right Way
Thank God for the power to stop drinking. No, really, literally: Thank God!
I pulled together some passages today from two books that mean a lot to me: The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck (http://www.mscottpeck.com/), and the Big Book by the pioneers of Alcoholics Anonymous (https://www.aa.org/pages/en_US/alcoholics-anonymous). These quotes refer to the utmost ingredient essential to our growth and maturity, whether we are alcoholics or not. I refer to the deity many of us call God.
I want to start with Dr. Peck: "In debating the wisdom of a proposed course of action [like quitting drinking], human beings routinely fail to obtain God's side of the issue. They fail to consult or listen to the God within them, the knowledge of rightness which inherently resides within the minds of all mankind.... If we seriously listen to this 'God within us' -- we usually find ourselves being urged to take the more difficult path, the path of more effort rather than less."
That sounds very much the the battle inside myself to stop drinking. It was easier to continue than to quit. You know that game: I'm only hurting myself...I'll quit next week after I finish the report I'm working on...If my wife weren't so awful to me I wouldn't have to keep drinking...This is the last day I ever will drink; never again, starting tomorrow....
And so on. You have your own easy highway and your own lazy excuses. I like this from the Big Book, the chapter called "We Agnostics:"
"We had to ask ourselves why we shouldn't apply to our human problems this same readiness to change our point of view.... When we saw others solve their problems by a simple reliance upon the Spirit of the Universe, we had to stop doubting the power of God. Our ideas did not work. But the God idea did....
"When we became alcoholics, crushed by a self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or evade, we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing. God either is, or He isn't. What was our choice to be?"
It took me a while to look for God's side of the drinking dilemma. God's will was the hard road. Yeah, but I'll just take a little detour and eventually reach the same destination, I told myself. That didn't work. "But the God idea did."
You don't have to trek to the ends of the earth to find God. He is in you now. He is in all of us. Look inside yourself. That's where you'll find the sweet candy nougat.
I pulled together some passages today from two books that mean a lot to me: The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck (http://www.mscottpeck.com/), and the Big Book by the pioneers of Alcoholics Anonymous (https://www.aa.org/pages/en_US/alcoholics-anonymous). These quotes refer to the utmost ingredient essential to our growth and maturity, whether we are alcoholics or not. I refer to the deity many of us call God.
That sounds very much the the battle inside myself to stop drinking. It was easier to continue than to quit. You know that game: I'm only hurting myself...I'll quit next week after I finish the report I'm working on...If my wife weren't so awful to me I wouldn't have to keep drinking...This is the last day I ever will drink; never again, starting tomorrow....
And so on. You have your own easy highway and your own lazy excuses. I like this from the Big Book, the chapter called "We Agnostics:"
"We had to ask ourselves why we shouldn't apply to our human problems this same readiness to change our point of view.... When we saw others solve their problems by a simple reliance upon the Spirit of the Universe, we had to stop doubting the power of God. Our ideas did not work. But the God idea did....
"When we became alcoholics, crushed by a self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or evade, we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing. God either is, or He isn't. What was our choice to be?"
It took me a while to look for God's side of the drinking dilemma. God's will was the hard road. Yeah, but I'll just take a little detour and eventually reach the same destination, I told myself. That didn't work. "But the God idea did."
You don't have to trek to the ends of the earth to find God. He is in you now. He is in all of us. Look inside yourself. That's where you'll find the sweet candy nougat.
Comments
Post a Comment