Is Your Glass Hope-Full or Hope-Empty?
Step 3: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him."
If there is a God, why would He allow me to drink uncontrollably? When I asked for help to stop, why was there no answer? Why did He watch my life deteriorate to the point of harmful self-medication? Where is God's love? Where is the joy and peace and serenity I supposedly had been promised?
The flip response is, "Don't give up hope." Now you say, "I had hope, but disappointments and time made it all run out. Then I say, "Hope is only a word if you take no action to see A.A.'s promises come true. Don't give up. Don't ever give up." But you turn away and quit looking for God:
"It's hopeless."
If such frustration is your's read the Big Book, from the bottom of page 37 to page 43. I can't do those pages justice by summarizing them here, so read them if you have your doubts about a higher power. Nevertheless, I'll try to provide the Reader's Digest version:
"...One of these men, staff member of a world-renowned hospital, recently made this statement to some of us: 'What you say about the general hopelessness of the average alcoholic's plight is, in my opinion, correct. As to two of you men, whose stories I have heard, there is no doubt in my mind that you were 100% hopeless, apart from devine help. Had you offered yourselves as patents at this hospital, I would not have taken you, if I had been able to avoid it. People like you are too heartbreaking. Though no a religious person, I have profound respect for the spiritual approach in cases as yours. For most cases, there is virtually no other solution....'
"(The alcoholic's) defense must come from a higher power."
If there is a God, why would He allow me to drink uncontrollably? When I asked for help to stop, why was there no answer? Why did He watch my life deteriorate to the point of harmful self-medication? Where is God's love? Where is the joy and peace and serenity I supposedly had been promised?
The flip response is, "Don't give up hope." Now you say, "I had hope, but disappointments and time made it all run out. Then I say, "Hope is only a word if you take no action to see A.A.'s promises come true. Don't give up. Don't ever give up." But you turn away and quit looking for God:
If such frustration is your's read the Big Book, from the bottom of page 37 to page 43. I can't do those pages justice by summarizing them here, so read them if you have your doubts about a higher power. Nevertheless, I'll try to provide the Reader's Digest version:
"...One of these men, staff member of a world-renowned hospital, recently made this statement to some of us: 'What you say about the general hopelessness of the average alcoholic's plight is, in my opinion, correct. As to two of you men, whose stories I have heard, there is no doubt in my mind that you were 100% hopeless, apart from devine help. Had you offered yourselves as patents at this hospital, I would not have taken you, if I had been able to avoid it. People like you are too heartbreaking. Though no a religious person, I have profound respect for the spiritual approach in cases as yours. For most cases, there is virtually no other solution....'
"(The alcoholic's) defense must come from a higher power."
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