Step 7

[Rusty Zipper]

annie

Sheesh, never know if my thoughts are making sense to anyone else, but this was a good realization for me

you make sence to me...

although, as long as it makes sence to you... for the right reasons...

the twisted thinking of alcoholism can make us try to rationalize a atom-bomb.

self will can only do battle with self will... annie, you are becoming all that you can be...

as far as the neg... think'n... it is stil my work in progress...

this god removes from me, when i'm gratefull that i'm a drunk... when not... the alk'y-ism isms kick in...

hit'n meets, yap'n with sponser (stil have big foot) doing as much of the next right thing and all the A.A. sugestions does me not one bit of good... unless i keep make'n that decission to turn it all over to god... (the powers that be)... belief, faith and trust ...


left to my own devices... i would not be here...

keep growing annie...

Mr BB... think positive... and i believe you do...

xxoo, zip

[Dallas]

Yep.

The negative thinking seems to have a magnetic pull to it. Kind of like the effect that gravity has on objects. I don't have to take any actions for it to go down... it will do that on it's own... when left alone... I have to take actions to keep it up.

Dallas

[Jim W]

Seems to me that the Seventh Step (and its companion, the Sixth Step) are the most glossed over steps in the process. And misunderstood.

In today's AA of psycho-babble, inner child work, etc., the program has been turned into one of self-improvement and self-empowerment, when actually it is one of self-abandonment, or as Meister Eckhart said "empty yourself of self and you automatically fill with God." But often I hear in meetings "I'm working on myself." Where's the humility in that? If you want to embelish your defects, work on them. Self-improvement is about what I am going to get. Self-abandonment is about what I'm willing to get rid of, and change is based on that, as Joe & Charlie say.

I become willing to be changed in Step Six and by starting a simple practice of stop doing what I want to do and starting doing what I don't want to do, change happens.

Effective prayer is action. So I say the Seventh Step prayer, do the work in Steps Eight and Nine, make this a way of living in Steps Ten, Eleven, and Twelve, and the change takes place. Usually slowly and not in the way I had envisioned.

Notice the Seventh Step prayer does not say "remove all the defects that make me feel bad," but rather it says "remove every single defect of character that stands in the way of my usefulness to You and my fellows."
God uses what is at hand and uses me the way I am instead of the way I think I should be.
Jim

[anniemac]

God uses what is at hand and uses me the way I am instead of the way I think I should be.
Jim

Love that, Jim! Thank you.