(The following is a personal post from one of our group members.)
Someone asked me if it gets any easier as time passes. I have to think about what that question really means to me. I have to think about what it is I'm actually measuring and comparing between my past and my present.
If the question is, "Does it get easier to fight against lust and temptations?", then the answer I must give is, "I really don't know, but I don't think so." Honestly I'm not trying to be a smart aleck. I don't try to fight against lust today like I used to. I surrender lust instead, because I sincerely believe that if I start fighting against lust again, if I start to try to control it myself again using my own strength, I will be back to acting out again. I am powerless over lust. It's that plain and simple for me. I believe I can honestly say that I have entirely accepted Step One as true for me. So for these sober years I've been in SA recovery, I really don't know how hard it is to fight lust. I just don't fight it, but I don't give into it either.
If the question I ask myself is, "Does it get easier to surrender lust to God and as a result be set free from the obsessions and compulsions?", then the answer is an unequivocal, "Yes!" That's what Steps Two through Twelve have opened the door to. That is what God has done because He "could and would if He were sought."
Has it been hard work on my part? Certainly! They don't say "play around with the Steps." No, as the saying goes, it only "works if you work it." But the positive results of working the Steps of the program and increasingly being connected rightly with God and others have extended well beyond the problem of lust. And it certainly has been worth it!
Friday, September 16, 2016
Thursday, September 1, 2016
Taking the Steps
(The following is a post from one of our members.)
I heard someone at a meeting share an analogy about taking a flight of steps in order to get through a door at the top. That image got me thinking.
Looking back at my history with SA, I can see that I spent years with the "crowd" that was milling around at the bottom of the steps. We went to meetings and participated in the sharing, but we didn't take the steps. We stayed below the doors just looking up the steps at the people who actually were walking up the steps. We saw people going through those doors, doors that opened to a new way of life, doors that led to serenity, peace, and freedom. But we weren't even sitting on the steps yet; we hadn't even started to trudge up those steps.
I felt good going to meetings in those early years. There was a sense of companionship being part of the crowd not yet taking the "Steps". It felt good to be with others who understood me and my obsessions and compulsions. People would listen to me as I shared about my latest failure to stay sober. In that crowd, failing to stay sober was the norm, so I felt right at home.
But it did me no good whatsoever to remain in the crowd at the bottom of the Steps and to not listen to the voice of someone who had reached the top and was offering to tell me how to take those Steps like he had. And until the pain of being me became a great enough motivator, I wasn't ready to leave the crowd. I wouldn't listen, and I wouldn't start taking those simple but hard Steps that led to freedom.
But thank God, the pain become enough, and I finally did take those Steps!
I heard someone at a meeting share an analogy about taking a flight of steps in order to get through a door at the top. That image got me thinking.
Looking back at my history with SA, I can see that I spent years with the "crowd" that was milling around at the bottom of the steps. We went to meetings and participated in the sharing, but we didn't take the steps. We stayed below the doors just looking up the steps at the people who actually were walking up the steps. We saw people going through those doors, doors that opened to a new way of life, doors that led to serenity, peace, and freedom. But we weren't even sitting on the steps yet; we hadn't even started to trudge up those steps.
I felt good going to meetings in those early years. There was a sense of companionship being part of the crowd not yet taking the "Steps". It felt good to be with others who understood me and my obsessions and compulsions. People would listen to me as I shared about my latest failure to stay sober. In that crowd, failing to stay sober was the norm, so I felt right at home.
But it did me no good whatsoever to remain in the crowd at the bottom of the Steps and to not listen to the voice of someone who had reached the top and was offering to tell me how to take those Steps like he had. And until the pain of being me became a great enough motivator, I wasn't ready to leave the crowd. I wouldn't listen, and I wouldn't start taking those simple but hard Steps that led to freedom.
But thank God, the pain become enough, and I finally did take those Steps!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)