July 16, 2015 - Readings in Recovery: Step by Step

The Serenity Prayer

Step by Step
Thursday, July 16, 2015
 
"It would be hard to estimate how much AA has done for me. I really wanted the program, and I wanted to go along with it. I noticed that the others seemed to have such a release, a happiness, a something that I thought a person ought to have. I was trying to find the answer." - Alcoholics Anonymous, 3rd Edition, 1976, Part I ("Personal Stories"), (1), p 191.

Today, grant me the common sense to realize the answer I seek to questions about recovery and life in general is no farther away than the text and program of Alcoholics Anonymous. The excerpt reproduced here, in its proper context, is that the answer is the spiritual foundation on which recovery must be cemented. Paraphrasing the quote, "I was raised in religion but born of the spirit," let me understand that I must surrender on blind faith if I still struggle with the Program's concepts of higher power and spirituality. But if I still require some logical argument that a stronger power for good exists, can I not say that something stronger and better exists if alcohol and its destructive power also exist? Today, any answer I seek is here, and I am here in the now. I need look no farther. And our common journey continues. Step by step. - Chris M., 2015