Corking the Bottle

Many enter A.A. afraid of the steps that relate to God, a Higher Power. As I think back, it seems to me I always had a Higher Power. That Higher Power was me. I had control of my life and most of the things that happened to me. At least I told myself I did. I tried to exercise power over my family and others and came to feel that if they didn't recognize my power, it must be proof of their own weakness. Thankfully, that's an exaggeration. Yeah, I had a superiority complex, but I knew I wasn't God. I use this hyperbole (I hope it's hyperbole!) to make a point.  Alcoholics working the steps have to believe in a power greater than themselves. With no power above them, it means they must have been responsible for creating the earth, breathing life into the lungs of all creatures, and giving birth to Jesus, who needed paddling and time-outs often while growing up. Hyperbole again. But here's the thing: Did God, the creator, die and leave the universe on autopilot...

Today's A.A. Daily Reflection is about prayer. I never pray on my knees. I no longer pray with eyes closed, head bowed, or hands folded. I learned those acts of devotion in church as a wee lad. Now I'm not a wee lad and I don't go to church, for several reasons I won't go into now. Instead, my higher power is part of my unconscious, just as he is in you and in everyone through Jung's theory of collective unconscious. That's how God knows our thoughts and hears our silent prayers. I pray throughout the day, sometimes silently and, when it  won't embarrass me, out loud. God is like the invisible friend I had when I was little. Heck, maybe I was in touch with God then and Loodie was in reality God. It's not preposterous. If you can believe there was no such thing as women until God took Adam's rib and added meat and skin to it, then grant me the privilege to believe God's home is in all of our minds. I'll close by pasting below the quota...

We've all done it. I'm not senile. I couldn't find my keys the other day. I looked throughout the house. I looked in the car. I was convinced someone must have taken them. Then I heard a jingling in my pocket. The keys were with me all along. We tend to look for God the same way. We think He is in church. We think He is in nature. We think he is in heaven or up in the clouds someplace. He is in all those places, for sure. But to find God, look no further than your own pocket. Discovering The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck ( http://www.mscottpeck.com/ ) was like discovering gold in the ditch behind my house. In this book is a wealth of knowledge about myself, my alcoholism, and God. For the God part of this wisdom, Dr. Peck tells us to turn inward to find God: "He is part of us. If you want to know the closest place to look for grace, it is within yourself.... What this suggests is that the interface between God and man is at least part of the interface ...

"Life is difficult. This is a great truth.... "Most do not fully see this truth that life is difficult. Instead they moan more or less incessantly, noisily or subtly, about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy." -- M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled ,  http://www.mscottpeck.com/ But life "is a series of problems." We each deal with life in our own way. Some of us turn to alcohol and drugs, which is what this blog is all about. Pain, I heard recently at an A.A. meeting, is necessary; suffering is optional. I chose to suffer after a series of unanticipated "tragedies" left me depressed. I had never had so much turn so rotten so quickly in my life and so had never experienced depression. The only fix that seemed to work was alcohol. Ironically, alcohol itself is a depressant. But if I drank enough, the earth stopped turning for a little while until I re...