Usually, we need more self-esteem-a belief that we deserve satisfactory relationships. When we recognize that we are holding on to unsatisfactory relationships for such reasons, we need to apply the program more diligently in our own lives. We may even put up with friends who are manipulative or treacherous because we can’t visualize having happier, healthier friendships. We endure such relationships because we fear we’ll be alone and defenseless without them. Some of us become enablers for loved ones who are still drinking quite often this can involve putting up with abuse we shouldn’t have to endure. It may cause us to cling to arrangements and relationships that are unsatisfactory or destructive. The fear of being alone brings strange results. “Under very trying conditions I have had, again and again, to forgive others-also myself. If there is none, I try to remember that I too have had my periods of speaking bitterly of others that hurtful gossip is but a symptom of our remaining emotional illness and consequently that I must never be angry at the unreasonableness of sick people. “So, nowadays, if anyone talks of me so as to hurt, I first ask myself if there is any truth at all in what they say. My own resentment, my self-pity would often render me well-nigh useless to anybody. Yet every time I confessed the sins of such people, especially those whose sins did not correspond exactly with my own, I found that I only increased the total damage. “Just like you, I have often thought myself the victim of what other people say and do. I pray that I may live as though my mind were a reflection of the Divine Mind. I pray that I may not worry over the limitations of the human mind. We must try to get the guidance from the Divine Mind as to what His intention is for the world and what part we can have in carrying out that intention. We must try to think God’s thoughts after Him. The universe may be the thought of the Great Thinker. The nearer the astronomers and the physicists get to the ultimate composition of all things, the nearer the universe approaches a mathematical formula, which is thought. This vast universe around us, including this wonderful earth on which we live, was once perhaps only a thought in the mind of God. Without faith, our lives are a meaningless succession of unrelated happenings, without rhyme or reason. Our souls are restless until they find rest in God. For we cannot live victoriously without faith we are at sea without a rudder or an anchor, drifting on the sea of life. We do not choose faith because it is one way for us, but because it is the only way. Unless we have the key of faith to unlock the meaning of life, we are lost. I am sober only through the grace of my Higher Power, and that makes it possible for me to share with others. The newcomer should not be given a false impression of sobriety. If I fail to stress the spiritual feature of A.A.’s program, I am being dishonest. All I have to do is show what has brought me sobriety and what has changed my life. I don’t waste time offering advice to potential newcomers, for if advice worked, nobody would get to A.A.
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