April 09, 2006

The Necessary Ingredient is Willingness

The willingness to give up my pride and self-will to a Power greater than myself has proved to be the only ingredient absolutely necessary to solve all of my problems today. Even the smallest amount of willingness, if sincere, is sufficient to allow God to enter and take control over any problem, pain, or obsession. My level of comfort is in direct relation to the degree of willingness I possess at any given moment to give up my self-will, and allow God's will to be manifested in my life. With the key of willingness, my worries and fears are powerfully
transformed into serenity.

...let us not suppose even for an instant that we are not under constraint... Our former tyrant, King Alcohol, always stands ready again to clutch us to him. Therefore, freedom from alcohol is the great "must" that has to be achieved, else we go mad or die.

AS BILL SEES IT, p. 134

When drinking, I lived in spiritual, emotional, and sometimes, physical confinement. I had constructed my prison with bars of self-will and self-indulgence, from which I could not escape. Occasional dry spells that seemed to promise freedom would turn out to be little more than hopes of a reprieve. True escape required a willingness to follow whatever right actions were needed to turn the lock. With that willingness and action, both the lock and the bars themselves opened for me. Continued willingness and action keep me free -- in a kind of extended daily probation -- that need never end.

©Copyright 1990 ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS WORLD SERVICES, INC. Daily Reflections

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