Let's Get Started!

Whenever you visit this online journal, you are taking a positive step towards emotional and spiritual recovery. You are making an effort to progress towards your ultimate goal of freedom from addiction and other consuming issues. Bravo! The "Big Book" of Alcoholics Anonymous tells us to work towards "...spiritual progress, not spiritual perfection." What that means to me is that it is important to keep striving for recovery while accepting that we will never be finished. We will always be in the process of recovery. As you yourself recover, you will come to realize how wonderful it is to make progress towards reaching your emotional and spiritual goals. It is not necessary, nor desirable, to achieve perfect recovery. There is a famous A.A. slogan: "The best part of everything is getting better." How true! It is my hope that this journal will help you to get a bit better, one day at a time, with the help of the "Big Book." Let's get started on the path to find the courage to change the things we can and trust that the "Big Book" will guide us in attaining the wisdom to accept the things we can't. God bless you!

In service,

Barbara J.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Chapter 5 - How it Works

Chapter 5 of the Big Book outlines the basic tenants of the recovery program with a focus on steps 1, 2, 3, and 4. The first few paragraphs of the chapter, however, are devoted solely to describing what it takes to recover from alcoholism: Honesty. It states that even people with "...grave emotional and mental disorders..." can recover if they have the "...capacity to be honest." The chapter then calls us to be "...fearless from the very start" of the recovery process. The first thing discussed is the need for honesty. Then the Big Book acknowledges our common fear of that very thing. The thing we fear most, even more than giving up our addiction, is being honest with ourselves. And of course, without being honest, we cannot recover. What is it that keeps us from being honest with ourselves? Obviously, fear is what holds us back from getting spiritually and emotionally fit. Chapter 5 claims that we are driven by "....a hundred forms of fear..." What are your fears? Pick one and face it today. Remember, "courage" is that thing that allows us to do the very things we fear the most. Pray that your Higher Power will reveal to you one thing that is in your power to change today. He will grant you the courage you need to do that one thing - if you ask.
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