Let This Cat Out!

I’m letting you in on a little secret. It shouldn’t be a secret – but it is. To let this out of the bag means that we would have expose ourselves and whether or not we are dead weights in this Fellowship or not.

How would you like to have those haunting character defects removed? You know you would! Well, I have an answer to that. Go work with another alcoholic – not just ANY work – but THE work.

I am not taking about buying a newcomer a chicken sandwich and a cup of coffee – or driving him to a meeting – or picking him up from the courthouse. That’s not what the co-founder tell us to do – you lazy AA dead-weight! I mean perform your work well – the REAL work – the work described in the Chapter “Working With Others” - and do what we are supposed to be trained and have experienced ourselves in order to do – as passed on to us.

Take him through the Twelve Steps!

Look, I have my share of defects – that much I guarantee – but I know serenity. I know courage. I know what it is to have that elusive happiness, joyousness and freedom. But I have never had to tell a protogee, “Excuse me for a moment – we will get back to this step after I call my sponsor before I drink.” It just never happens.

Do you know why? Because character defects have NEVER cropped up when I was taking another man through the steps. NEVER EVER! The more I am working with others in this way – the further I get away from these. It is the ONLY way I know of to be free. And it also happens to be the only real purpose of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I know – you thought it was to stop drinking. Well, “Sooprize Sooprize Sooprize Sargent Carter!”

Being a good Samaritan never has never removed my defects – only to the extent that I can be useful – never to the extent that I can claim any virtue for myself – have they ever gone away.

We even have the seventh Step Prayer that qualifies WHICH defects of character I can expect to be removed: “defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows.” Get it?

The rest I can sit an suffer with – until the next sick, puking alcoholic is in front of me and we go to work. You I and both know people who can’t understand why it is that they STILL have all these character defects haunting them around the clock.

The answer to them is simple: They haven’t got a sick and suffering alcoholic to take through the twelve steps. Some folks NEVER do that!

They want to “do service” - they want to “not hurt anybody” – they want to “be a powerful example” – they want to “just show up” and fantasize that THAT’S how they help others – and whatever else they can do EXCEPT take another alkie through the steps. They are missing a great deal.

They still suffer with their defects too. No one told them.

Our character defects aren’t removed so we can feel good – so we can get spiritual – so we can “not drink”. PUHLEEZE! Our defects are removed to the extent that we use our new selves and free states of being for the benefit of God’s work and helping others. Get anything else out of your self-centered greedy little mind.

It’s very simple – the more we work with others – the less our character defects “Crop up” If I want less “Cropping” – then I do more working.

Are you already doing this? Beautiful! You know what it’s like to have your character defects removed – how to remain humble enough to live with the ones that crop up and you are NOT a dead weight in a Fellowship of dead-weights.

You are my AA Hero and I thank you for being on the Broad Highway with us.

Peace,

Danny S

Glaring Back At Defects

Armed with my three (3) 4^th Step inventories, I had in my hands what was in essence is a dossier of “Evidence” with which I could clearly view each of my defects – making each defect all the more objectionable to me. In this way the truth and reality of the defect would be so unquestioningly proven – given sheer weight and quantity.

One event, or maybe even two or three events in the past, pointing toward the character defect of selfishness could be argued against in my mind. “Oh well, that was just a couple of times. . . and besides I am more a mature adult these days. . . . I read spiritual literature . . . I pray . . . I even give to charities and go to church these days. I am not that selfish anymore.”

BUT a written dossier of “Evidence” becomes very compelling – containing twenty or thirty events in my life which point to the same character defect can hardly be argued in this manner – even to me — in my delusional state of yet being un-recovererd.

I get to say, “Holy crap! I have a REAL big problems here!” My problem is NOT “This big“ as some folks like to say to make it all seem so small.

By having so much evidence on hand, at step Five I was exceedingly willing get to Steps Six and Seven which meant I had to first get through Five. Then in step seven, when I asked God to remove them, I did so from a position of REALLY wanting these defects of character removed, “root and branch” – because I had no doubt that they were mine.

And they were so objectionable. I didn’t like them. I didn’t want them around anymore.

If a single or few flimsy look at past behaviors points toward a defect, it may not appear so glaring. If they do not glare, then they may not be so objectionable.

But when I performed a complete (And long) fourth step containing the preponderance of evidence necessary to create an “Objectionable” attitude toward my defects, my prayer in Step Seven has deep meaning. I craved God’s removal of the flaws as much as I craved alcohol on a spree. It was a deep yearning and not an exercise in internal spiritual rhetoric like so much of my past “praying” had been.

Once these character defects have been removed, and I can expect that they WILL BE – I am that much closer to being able to experience conscious contact with God. I am no longer so busy – inside my own self – that I cannot even hear the Spirit calling. I can answer. And we can communicate – back and forth.

You thin you have a good relationship with God now? -HA! Wait till you go through THIS process. You ain’t seen nothing yet. All these steps tie together – dovetail, really – that it’s hard to discuss one without relating it to another. But that’s what I mean by a “Preponderance of evidence”.

“Preponderance of evidence” is a legal term which approximates well enough the context I am using.

Peace,

Danny S

Defect Removal-Hurry Up and Wait?

I have in the past gotten into a little impatience with the way God has been removing my defects. At times it has seemed to me that, “OK God, I’ve made my amends, I am doing my inventories, I am praying everyday, what is Your problem, GOD?”

I am asking God to do things like “take away my difficultiesand to “remove my defects- so how come I still have difficulties? How come I still have character defects? People would say, “in His time” - but His time seems to take forever.

I would hear people conjecture that God must have “other plans”. So he makes me wait? He’s too busy? Where is THAT in my Big Book? Hurry up and wait? Another cruelty from a so-called “Loving God”.

My problem was not so much patience as it was motive.

The very prayers I had been using right out of the Big Book are CONDITIONAL. I forgot that – or else simply refused to see it. The condition being that the God’s answering of these prayers would have a bearing on MY being helpful to OTHERS, not to me and my conveniences, wants or desires. If I go back and re-read the 3rd step and the 7th step prayers I can see that this is true.

When I am working with another alcoholic, or when my difficulties might prevent me from being effective, those character defects and difficulties are non-existent. When I am being of service to God and my fellows I am not plagued by fears, character defects and resentments. They are just not an issue during those times.

I came to see that I it was not God who had delayed the process, it was ME. To the extent that I am on the firing line of life and serving my fellows and God, working intensely with other alcoholics, sponsoring and carrying the message is the same extent that God removes my character defects and I am living a happy, useful life. It was not GOD who I instigated delay, it was I, by waiting to be served by God, instead of serving God.

Peace,

Danny S