“What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition.” (Chapter 6, Big Book)
This refers to what happens when one has completed the process of the first nine Steps.
I first completed this process somewhere around the two- or three-year mark in AA. Over these first years, I firstly had unfinished business and secondly was often in a parlous state mentally and emotionally.
How was I staying sober if I wasn’t spiritually fit?
Sometimes it is easier to figure out what is going on by looking around in one’s home group: plenty of people who are new seem to stay sober without any difficulty, and it is not because they have achieved spiritual heights.
The answer seems to be this: spiritual fitness refers to the direction in which one is pointed and the speed at which one is moving in that direction.
Being spiritually well seems to have more to do with humility (taking oneself with a bushel of salt and so looking elsewhere for guidance) and action in accordance with that humble position.
This seems to do the trick.
The opposite—holding my own perceptions, beliefs, and thoughts in high regard, plus self-willed action—seems to erode spiritual condition until, out of spiritual credit, I drink again. I’ve had close calls.
The terrible curse of spiritual disease is this: the unhappier I am, the more I cling to my perceptions, beliefs, and thoughts, the greater my certainty I am right. When unhappy: better to be wrong.