Put my own oxygen mask on first
For my survival, let alone for anything worthwhile to be done, I need to be physically fit. Being physically fit is not the most important objective in my life, but it is the prerequisite for all of the others.
This means: having a fixed daily routine of waking and sleeping; sleeping enough hours; taking extra naps where necessary; eating high-quality food; not snacking on crap; staying physically active every day.
So many psychological, mental, emotional, practical, social, and spiritual problems evaporate when I'm looking after myself physically.
Getting the stones in place
The tombstone
My attention was caught by a doggerel on an old tombstone:
“Here lies a Hampshire GrenadierWho caught his deathDrinking cold small beer.A good soldier is ne’er forgotWhether he dieth by musketOr by pot.” (Big Book)
The first stone is the tombstone referred to in Bill's Story:
Recognising that alcoholism is a fatal, progressive, incurable disease, and that, once the disease is arrested, to keep it arrested, the programme of recovery must provide the basic, overarching structure for my life.
My weekly schedule contains a bunch of meetings I go to; my daily schedule contains Step Eleven actions; I am committed to sponsoring my sponsees on a daily basis. Whatever other demands there are in my life, these obligations must be fulfilled.
What the other stones?
The cornerstone
“Do I now believe, or am I even willing to believe, that there is a Power greater than myself?’’ As soon as a man can say that he does believe, or is willing to believe, we emphatically assure him that he is on his way. It has been repeatedly proven among us that upon this simple cornerstone a wonderfully effective spiritual structure can be built. (Big Book)
I am not the centre of the universe. I am not the centre of my life. I am a spoke, not the wheel, and not the centre of the wheel.
This man recounts that he tumbled out of bed to his knees. In a few seconds he was overwhelmed by a conviction of the Presence of God. It poured over and through him with the certainty and majesty of a great tide at flood. The barriers he had built through the years were swept away. He stood in the Presence of Infinite Power and Love. He had stepped from bridge to shore. For the first time, he lived in conscious companionship with his Creator. Thus was our friend’s cornerstone fixed in place. No later vicissitude has shaken it. His alcoholic problem was taken away. (Big Book)
The keystone
Next, we decided that hereafter in this drama of life, God was going to be our Director. He is the Principal; we are His agents. He is the Father, and we are His children. Most good ideas are simple, and this concept was the keystone of the new and triumphant arch through which we passed to freedom. (Big Book)
This means that God is the one true power, and I get myself out of the way for God to work through me in the way He sees fit. I can have no worries, because God is looking after me. But I must place myself at the disposal of God. My response to any situation is this: What would God have me do? Not: How can I protect myself?
Checking the stones
Carefully reading the first five proposals we ask if we have omitted anything, for we are building an arch through which we shall walk a free man at last. Is our work solid so far? Are the stones properly in place? Have we skimped on the cement put into the foundation? Have we tried to make mortar without sand? (Big Book)
What are the stones that are being checked? The cornerstone (Step Two) and the keystone (Step Three).
The foundation stone (I)
Helping others is the foundation stone of your recovery. A kindly act once in a while isn’t enough. You have to act the Good Samaritan every day, if need be. It may mean the loss of many nights’ sleep, great interference with your pleasures, interruptions to your business. It may mean sharing your money and your home, counseling frantic wives and relatives, innumerable trips to police courts, sanitariums, hospitals, jails and asylums. Your telephone may jangle at any time of the day or night. Your wife may sometimes say she is neglected. A drunk may smash the furniture in your home, or burn a mattress. You may have to fight with him if he is violent. Sometimes you will have to call a doctor and administer sedatives under his direction. Another time you may have to send for the police or an ambulance. Occasionally you will have to meet such conditions. (Big Book)
Step Twelve is the core of my life. Yes, I have an occupation (actually, a couple), a marriage, a home, an extended family, interests. The most important demonstration of these principles lies in these affairs (page 19), but my centre of gravity is aligned above Step Twelve. If Step Twelve vanished, so would all the rest; if the rest vanished, Step Twelve would remain. This is keeping the main thing the main thing. Tradition Five: primary purpose.
The foundation stone (II)
There is a second foundation stone:
I cannot see the cause of this temptation now. But I am to learn later that it began with my desire for material success becoming greater than my interest in the welfare of my fellow man. I learn more of that foundation stone of character, which is honesty. (Big Book)
I need to be honest with myself about the resurgence of my ego, and then I need to be honest with others, open to their take (so, no JEDI mind tricks: justification, explanation, defence, intricacy), and willingness to take the suggested action.
The temptation and the test
Once the oxygen mask is on, and the stones are in place, I go into the world.
Temptations will arise. What are these? The return of personal objectives and ambitions. These, like vermin, will gnaw away, until the structures collapses.
What does this look like?
Essentially: Putting other activities first. Cutting back on sleep and exercise; skimping on self-maintenance; rationing the number of people I'm willing to sponsor; not turning round sponsee or other AA requests for help promptly (at the most within 24 hours). In short, pursuing my own agenda.
What's the test?
There will come many times where I have to make a choice: Am I going to put God first, or am I going to act out of fear, to sacrifice the very thing that is making my life possible in order to forefend some worldly ill?
It can takes nerves of steel to keep the main thing the main thing when the world and its people (who are often quite wrong, page 66) are clamouring for this or for that, and when my ego is clamouring for this or for that.
But soon the sense of His presence had been blotted out by worldly clamors, mostly those within myself. And so it had been ever since. How blind I had been. (Big Book)
Actually we were fooling ourselves, for deep down in every man, woman, and child, is the fundamental idea of God. It may be obscured by calamity, by pomp, by worship of other things, but in some form or other it is there. (Big Book)
If I pursue those clamours, God will be obscured, the link will be broken, the insanity will return, and I will drink again.
For when harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die.
I have to be willing to put God first and take the consequences.
As soon as I get things backwards: using the programme to help me meet my objectives, rather than simply giving myself to the programme, the ego starts to strengthen, and soon enough I'm the hamster on my own wheel again, chasing, chasing, chasing.
If the world is the master, this is the result:
As animals on a treadmill, we have patiently and wearily climbed, falling back in exhaustion after each futile effort to reach solid ground. (Big Book)
Such a life always fails:
The first requirement is that we be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success. (Big Book)
There is no solid ground apart from God. God is the rock and the only rock.
I have learned to stay firm in my allegiance to the above system, whatever perils and threats loom. No harm has ever come to me from this. When God has work for me to do, the world will simply have to wait.