The Quotes Have It

We've all heard the quote. "You can't solve a problem with the same mind that created the problem... "

That's why they advise us to avoid thinking in early recovery because we also admit, "my best thinking got me here." Here being to that place where our lives are unmanageable and we can't for the life-of-it figure out how we're going to get out of the mess we've created.

The saying " it'll takes a few (3-5) years to get your head out of hock" ties in to the fact that we not only have to learn the steps to take into our new way of life; we have to unlearn the old destructive addictive ways. We have to change our thinking but "we can't think our way into right living, we have to act our way into right thinking."

In the old way, the addictive way we broke all the rules. Another often heard saying. "Hey man, rules are for losers...I got my own." Of course that is the ego talking, either from a deflated or an inflated position. The ego needs to have the answers, it has to be able to figure it out, no matter how shitty the logic.

Cutting to the chase the new way is the spiritual way which leads me to another quote, this one out of the Big Book. ..."we will intuitively know what to do..." We don't have to figure it out, we just have to pray, meditate, seek counsel if necessary and "do the next thing." We just have to turn our will over to our Higher Power and listen to the guidance from those (sponsors, etc) who are further up the path in recovery.

I''ll end with one last quote from Shadow Dance by David Richo. "Nothing is to be taken literally in the spiritual world. All is a metaphor for the transition from the ego to Self, the personal journey to the transpersonal Source." The transition out of my will to my Higher Power's Will occurs through the practice of the Eleventh Step to my personal "conscious contact with God."

JF