'For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority – a loving God as he may express himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants, they do not govern.'
- The first idea in the reading is about authority. All my life I feared authority. I had a very strange idea about it. I didn’t like anybody else’s authority. I only liked my own authority.
- My first successful experience in not being fearful of authority was in AA. I did not fear my sponsor but relied on him. I saw my sponsor as the expression of a loving God.
- I also trusted Alcoholics Anonymous. My experience of being loved in AA was the very first experience I had in my life where I trusted a group and took their advice rather than my own. I heard the voice of a loving God in AA. The more I followed what I heard in AA through the group conscience, the better my life became. Gradually I have extended this trust towards the AA group to trusting the world.
- I now hear a loving God in the world and see God in each person I meet.
- The second idea in the reading that has helped my growth is the realisation that I am here to be a servant and not to govern.
- I wish to become more of a servant because of the closeness to a loving God it brings me as I serve you.
- Life forces me to become a trusted servant or a bleeding deacon. The group conscience will correct me if I am out of line, and I have a choice to complain like a bleeding deacon or lead by humble example.
- Bill Wilson has described a trusted servant as a special person chosen to serve for special abilities, but not chosen to govern. I am happy that a loving God has given me special abilities. But now I know that I do not have them for self-edification but only to serve the group. The group needs me for these special abilities.
- I have been entrusted with sobriety and God has sent me to share my experience, strength, and hope. If he wanted to send someone else he would have. But he sent me. In my own way, I am his mouth, his hands, and his feet in carrying the message. He relies on me. This is the source of my self-esteem today!
- The third idea: sometimes the good is the enemy of the best.
- As a sober alcoholic I have a high calling. Being good is not a high enough goal. I am called to be a saint. The reading in the fifth chapter of the Big Book says that we are not saints. We make mistakes. The implication is we are indeed called to be saints, however. We are called to be the best we can be so that we can lay claim to some spiritual progress. Bill points out in this reading that good might not be good enough to stay sober.
- To work a rigorous program, to be willing to go to any lengths to grow spiritually, and to do all to the best of my willingness (not just the best of my ability), is what is demanded of me in order to stay sober. We are called to a life of excellence. If I don’t grow spiritually, I won’t stay sober, as the story of Fred proves in the third chapter of the Big Book. It’s not enough just to be good. 'We shall need to raise our eyes toward perfection, and be ready to walk in that direction ('12 x 12').
- In AA what does 'good being the enemy of the best' mean for me? It means choosing to be a listening ear in the evening when somebody wants to talk to me rather than using the time for some other worthy endeavour such as work. Doing the work is good, but serving the needs of another alcoholic is better. To me that’s a real comparison about the 'good being the enemy of the best'.
- Another example in my life regards my marriage. I might have an idea about what we ought to do and my other half might have a different idea. We both might have good ideas, but for me it’s a better thing to surrender to what he wants to do. There’s nothing wrong with what I want to do, but it’s simply better for me to surrender. Whenever I surrender, I live at a higher spiritual level of existence. This is another example of the 'good being the enemy of the best.'
- I came to believe by trusting the group conscience in AA, and then I began to trust God and eventually the world. The experience of trusting AA to keep me sober is the experience that gave me confidence in God and in you. This is how the second tradition helped me to come to believe.
- The second tradition contains three ideas of sanity I need to follow to have good relationships in my life.
- First, my view of God needs to be a view of God as a loving God, not my old insane drinking view of God as a cold, punishing, harsh God who was out to get me. If God were small enough for my understanding, He wouldn’t be big enough for my needs.
- The second sane view I need to adopt from the second tradition in order to have good relationships with you is to trust you as part of the group conscience. I can stay sober and give up being a loner by trusting you as a child of the same loving God. Now, the idea of the group conscience no longer threatens me, but has advantages. When I have a problem I can ask for your experience and I begin to hear a pattern of response that suggests to me the direction a loving God would have me follow.
- When I don’t seek the advice of the group conscience, it sometimes seeks me. When several people independently tell me the same thing and I never asked them what they thought on the subject, I have the reaction that God wants me to listen and follow a different answer than the one I was thinking of. More conscious contact helps me to be more receptive to the group conscience.
- As I recover and begin to live the second tradition in my life I am sent from AA into the world carrying a message of love about the miracle of my sobriety. I can now interact with other people in a truthful and loving manner. I have become one with the group known as humanity.
- The third sane view I must adopt for myself if I am to have a successful relationship with myself is to see myself as a trusted servant. I give up my insane views of myself alternately (and sometimes simultaneously) as incompetent or a dictator. Three levels of talents:
- AA
- I believe that God saved each of us from an alcoholic death in order to carry the message of our sobriety to each other and to those who are not yet here. This is our unique talent. There is no greater love than to share your life with a person who is dying. When we share our experience, strength, and hope we are literally laying down our life for others.
- Human relationships
- Work and other activities
- These three ideas in the second tradition teach me how I can start today to have improved relationships in my life: I see God as a loving God. I trust you as a voice of the group conscience. And I feel self-esteem as a trusted servant.
- I define sanity as oneness of purpose with a loving God. I define insanity as living in a state of attempting to satisfy my ego's desires for security, the fulfilment of personal ambitions, money and property, prestige, and power over others.
- It is not that many are called and few are chosen: all are called but few choose. But we have the right to choose, and God will give us the power.
Inventory:
Looking at the above ideas:
Where am I currently falling down?
What can I do differently?