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Post Info TOPIC: The Fallacy of Defiance
Sobrietyspell


MIP Old Timer

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The Fallacy of Defiance
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I found this on www.Blisstree.com after googling the defiance of God's Love which I feel I've been suffering with throughout my recovery & fearing of surrender to an appropriate dependency upon my Higher Power.

I can identify with & I'm grateful for the wisdom in this person's words. If any of you here@MIP would like to share with me your experience of this trouble & your reconciliation I'll find it especially interesting. Love, Danielle x


Most of us dont realize to what extent we are defiant.

I first published this two years ago and Id like to refer to it again. It feels very appropriate considering some of the folks whove displayed their own recently

****************************************

It surprised me when I discovered how defiant I had been toward God in my drinking days and for quite some time after He helped me sober up.

Small, simple things like, no, Ill do it my way, thank you. Do you have any idea how often and to what degree we do this?

Theres an old story I wish I could relate about someone demanding a sign from God while theyre standing in the middle of a field. They dismiss a soft breeze, a butterfly and a couple of other signs because they misperceive them and leave discouraged.

I really like what it says on page 31 in the 12&12 When we encountered A.A., the fallacy of our defiance was revealed. I like it today, I didnt quite like it when I was a green pea. I didnt want to be considered defiant. Id been told that throughout my life Youre so defiant Mark. I can hear my mom now. It was my ego and pride I really didnt want to be wrong in yet another way.

Our book goes on to say At no time had we asked what Gods will was for us: instead we had been telling Him what it ought to be. I thought how had I been telling Him what it ought to be? Consider that all, ALL my prayers, revolved around getting something I wanted or not losing something I had. Please, please God, do this for me.

God had other ideas I wasnt very accepting of Gods other ideas. When He didnt deliver I became angry and hurt. I developed a manner of thinking that God didnt love me because he never gave me what I wanted. Ever

Then A.A. tells me No man, we saw, could believe in God and defy Him, too. Belief meant reliance, not defiance.

Oh heck, Im done but wait!

In A.A. we saw the fruits of this belief: men and women spared from alcohols final catastrophe. We saw them meet and transcend their other pains and trials. We saw them calmly accept impossible situations, seeking neither to run nor to recriminate.

Theres hope in those words! Maybe Im not done after all?

This was not only faith; it was faith that worked under all conditions. We soon concluded that whatever price in humility we must pay, we would pay.

All Conditions!

From the previous page Self-righteousness, the very thing that we had contemptuously condemned in others, was our own besetting evil. This phony form of respectability was our undoing, so far as faith was concerned.

Self-righteousness undid me and was phony!

Humility!



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turninggrey


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I love it. Nice post.

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Aquaman


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Hubris. It has to be a real bugger to make Dante's 7 Deadly list.

Peace,
Rob


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murrill


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Danielle,
Thank you for a thoughtful post.  I, too, struggled with the idea of God & turning it over.  I first had to dispense with my notion of a sky-God who was punitive and vindictive.  That was the world as I understood it at the time, of course, for that is what I attracted.  I am very comfortable with my understanding of a Higher Power, even though it does not include a relationship with a deity.  My understanding is of a spirit, or energy, that binds us together.  And when I join with that instead of resisting, then I am in the "right place" and "right sized."
"God" did not get me sober or find me a good job:  Those were the things that happened once I gave up the fight.  Someone dear to me says, and I concur, that the choice is quite simple:  Chose love, or chose ego.


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Murrill
pinkchip


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Hubris sucks...It sure f*cked up Oedipus lol. Yah...AA has made me realize a lot of ways that I am pretty messed up...this is just another one of those "King Baby" dry drunk tendencies that I am left with and prone to if I don't work the program....defiant, whiny, crybaby...not to down myself too much cuz I think it's pretty universal or it wouldn't be in the literature.

Mark

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Tessa


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Mark, you're only the second person I've heard mention the King Baby Syndrome. Surprisenly I didn't learn about it in the AA meetings. But, by talking to a friend & he explained it to me. It's a very interesting read!! Funny while looking for a non-pdf file I came acroos your blog!!

http://recoveringfamily.blogspot.com/2007/06/king-baby.html

Here's a copy of the King Baby:

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/friends-family-substance-abusers/170831-king-baby-syndrome.html

-- Edited by Tessa on Thursday 4th of March 2010 01:09:03 PM

-- Edited by Tessa on Thursday 4th of March 2010 01:12:24 PM

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serenity to accept the things I cannot change.
Courage to change the things I can,
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turninggrey


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smileSo, are you saying that.....I.....am NOT.........the center of the universe???!!! Hmmmm, I will have to give that some thought.

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Tessa


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Sorry, turninggrey...as we say here in my area. You're just not that darn important!! I love that saying! lol

__________________

             God grant me the
serenity to accept the things I cannot change.
Courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
                               Rheinhold Niebuhr
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