Can I Grow Spiritually Through Work and Self-Sacrifice? - Kelly Kettle

“For if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self sacrifice for others, he could not survive the certain trials and low spots ahead. If he did not work he will surely drink again, and if he drank,he will surely die. Then faith will be dead indeed. With us it is just like that.”

The above paragraph was taken out of Bill's Story in the Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book. It is on the bottom of page 14 and top of page 15.  This paragraph helped to change my life. It let me know that even though I did not have a relationship with a higher power, I could develop one through work and self-sacrifice.

There are 2 kinds of spiritual experiences that are like a million dollar experiences. The most common one is "a nickel at a time" through the steps and changing perceptions (the other is much rarer described as a "God conscious one-" a miraculous psychic change).

If you are new to the program of recovery, then statements like "all the answers to life’s problems are answered in the big book" might be hard to understand.

This is how it was for me.  Other parts of the Big Book like "Came to believe a power greater then myself could restore me to sanity" (step 2) I did not get it immediately.  It took quite a while for me to really believe and understand that step - and also step 3. I finally did understand after seeing that I could do life successfully finally through a series of actions.

“What used to be the hunch or the occasional inspiration will gradually become a working part of the mind.” page 87.

Many of us have thought of how we would like our lives to be, we saw others with stable lives. Though being alcoholic or addict – we were frustratingly unable to maintain balance.

What I learned through finally obtaining years of sobriety is that the answers were indeed  in the book. I also learned that my relationship with a higher power could be obtained and could actually develop through staying sober and learning to take some direction. Doing work and staying teachable in day to day activities have often helped me on my spiritual journey. My perception towards so many things has changed, as my perceptions changed my relationship with my higher power have become stronger and changed.

There are different paragraphs in the big book that I learned to refer to as I became more secure on my journey through life to help me understand and trust the path that so many seem to have recovered on. Often times strong sponsorships comes into play when people need to take contrary action to produce contrary results, many of us were unable to produce no matter how hard we tried.

One of my favorite paragraphs in the Alcoholics Anonymous book is on page 63 –

‘’As we felt new POWER flow in, as we ENJOYED PEACE OF MIND, as we DISCOVERED WE COULD FACE LIFE SUCCESSFULLY, as we BECAME CONSCIOUS OF HIS PRESENCE, we began to loose FEAR OF TODAY, TOMORROW and the HEREAFTER, WE WERE REBORN.

Reborn has a hundred different meanings today. One of those meanings is that I was finally able to grow - and get to visit the 4th dimension!