Hey Zip and Spiritman,
Thanks for your post. Geez!!! I was just laying on the bed, sleeping deeply... and in the middle of the sleep, I must have started dreaming about drinking. The vivid Technicolor type dreams. I could tase the Crown on the ice with a splash of water... in a glass, and then I was looking for the Big Bottle. In the dream I couldn't stop. The craving kicked in. Then, in the dream, in Technicolor again, I was on the back of a parked bus, in a run-down part of the city... with other street alkies, drinking with them and wanting more.
Fortunately, my dog came in the bedroom, started licking my head and pushing up against me to wake me up.
The dream was so real... that had I not had a house quest here, I could have swore that I had started drinking again.
Last night, before the dream, I had been reading about God, thinking about God, and about practicing the presence of God in my life. A couple hours before that... I was trying to help someone that had gone out recently, with some pre-inventory writing. Been to meetings every day this week and I've made about three or four 12 Step calls... outside the meetings.
The dream sure has scared the heck out of me. I woke up shaking it was so real.
Really drives home the idea to me, this morning... that "my help must come from a Power Greater than myself" and the part of the sentence, I believe, on page 59, "may you find Him now." (In the First Edition manuscript, it read "you MUST find Him now."
from the ms: "Remember that you are dealing with alcohol - cunning, baffling, powerful! Without help it is too much for you. But there is One who has all power - That One is God. You must find Him now!
Half measures will avail you nothing. You stand at the turning point. Throw yourself under His protection and care with complete abandon.
Now we think you can take it! Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as your Program of Recovery:
1.Admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable. 2.Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 3.Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care and direction of God as we understood Him. 4.Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. 5.Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 6.Were entirely willing that God remove all these defects of character. 7.Humbly, on our knees, asked Him to remove our shortcomings - holding nothing back. 8.Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make complete amends to them all. 9.Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. 10.Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. 11.Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our contact with God, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. 12.Having had a spiritual experience as the result of this course of action, we tried to carry this message to others, especially alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
You may exclaim, "What an order! I can't go through with it." Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is, that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.
Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after, have been designed to sell you three pertinent ideas:
(a) That you are alcoholic and cannot manage your own life.
(b) That probably no human power can relieve your alcoholism.
(c) That God can and will.
If you are not convinced on these vital issues, you ought to re-read the book to this point or else throw it away! "
Spiritman... I took what you wrote....
Spiritman wrote: What comes first in your spirituality:
a) Action?
b) Sacrifice?
c) Prayer?
d) Talk?
And, re-arranged it, as to what I did when I got out of the bed... and it was
What comes first in your spirituality:
c) Prayer?
a) Action?
b) Sacrifice?
d) Talk?
And, hopefully, this will equate to "This too is PAST"
Thank you... to you guys for being around right now, and for your sharing. Seems like your sharing was meant just for me.
Your sharing, mixed with my experience today, will help me to start this day, with the 3rd Step Prayer, 7th Step Prayer, my morning Step 10 & 11, following the instructions on pages 83-88, and then I read the last couple of paragraphs on page 164, "A vision for you".... and hopefully, this will be enough to start my day with the realization that "Of myself I am nothing", that I need God, and the Fellowship's help, in addition to Taking the Steps... that I need to maintain an attitude of gratitude... and stumble into at least one person that I can offer to help today.
Sorry my message got so long... but, under the circumstances... I sure woke up in a tizzy and needed to "talk" and get it out of me!!!
The dream really got my attention... with how easy "just one quick fast easy drink" could blow 19 1/2 years of one-day-at-a-times!
Thank you guys... and thank you AA.
Dallas
