Recording For March 6, 2014

(week 114) 6th March 2014  12-step Study Big Book Workshop
 
AA 12 x 12 Step 2  page 32 paragraph starting: ‘To clergymen, doctors, friends, and families, the alcoholic who means well and tries hard is a heartbreaking riddle…’ until end of the paragraph: ‘…and so incapable of receiving enough grace to restore us to sanity.’
 
Soul work
look up: emotionalism.
 
To clergymen, doctors, friends, and families, the alcoholic who means well and tries hard is a heartbreaking riddle. To most AA’s, he is not. There are too many of us who have been just like him, and have found the riddle’s answer. This answer has to do with the quality of faith than its quantity. This has been our blind spot. We supposed we had humility when really we hadn’t. 
 
Q1.  Underline this and then write on it. Really go into meditation with this.
If Stephanie followed you around would she see a person who has integrity around your addiction? Your relationships: do you lie? Are you doing something you know is not right and covering it up?  Are you saying you do Quiet Time when you don’t? Do you want to do Quiet Time yet don’t make time for it? Do you want to have God in your life but fight it?

Q2.  Go into meditation with the 3rd Step prayer and write on this: What does quality of faith mean to you rather than quantity?
 
Q3. Do you truly know what humility is? 
Knowing about humility is important, but to what degree are you living it? 
Write out (as long as you want) on your own definition of humility. 
 
Q4. Do you feel uncomfortable when you are not living in humility?
 
Q5. Do you know how to ‘act as if’?   
We supposed we had been serious about religious practices when, upon honest appraisal, we found we had been only superficial.  Or, going to the other extreme, we had wallowed in emotionalism and had mistaken it for true religious feeling. In both cases, we had been asking something for nothing.  
 
Q6. Write down the above. It is OK to imperfectly/superficially do religious or spiritual practices. Stephanie is Living Proof. So don’t give up!
  It is so important to have Quiet Time every day. Bring the body and the mind will follow and then eventually the heart.  
 
Q7. Where are you today in your walk in being humble? 
Is there anybody in your life that you feel deserves your un-forgiveness? ​