Because we can't on our own, process the world around us and the things that happen, and react sanely like we ought to, due to our disease of maladjusted perception.
The text book for one of my classes right now had an exerpt of the story about the 3 blind men from India who came upon an elephant, an animal they had never seen (they were blind) nor heard of before.
The first man touched the elephant's trunk and said, "An elephant is like a snake". The second man touched the elephant's ear and said, "No, an elephant is mmore delicate like a big leaf on a tree". The third man felt the elephant's powerful leg and said, "No, an elephant is like the ROOT and trunk of a tree, very strong..."
We are all blind when it comes to perceiving life and it's many facets. What one of us sees as a blessing another sees as frightening. What one sees as a trajedy, another sees as a golden opportunity. Without one another, and in alcoholism's isolation, we have a very limited view of our world and we react directly to the tiny fragment of life as we sense it for that moment, never seeing the BIG PICTURE.
But together, when once-isolated alcoholics come together and LEARN from eachother, we start broadening our view of the world, and allowing ourselves to open up and flourish in it, with a lot more information and guidance that we ever had on our own.
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~Your Higher Power has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.
Being an alcoholic is like being trapped in a box, and the instructions for getting out of the box are on the outside of the box. You need someone to read them to you (and you must listen!)
Larry, ----------------- Consider the postage stamp: its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there. ~Josh Billings
American poet John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887) based this poem, on a fable that was told in India many years ago. It is a good warning about how our sensory perceptions can lead to some serious misinterpretations; especially when the investigations of the component parts of a whole, and their relations in making up the whole, are inadequate and lack co-ordination.
It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind
The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
"God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!"
The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, "Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me 'tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!"
The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a snake!"
The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
"What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain," quoth he;
" 'Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!"
The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: "E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!"
The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a rope!"
And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!
Moral:
So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!
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Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a night, light a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life
