page 84 big book 4th edition,

Take personal inventory, continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear.  this is our entrance to the world of the Spirit.  When we catch our mistakes, we at once ask God to remove our shortcomings.  we then turn our thoughts towards someone we can help.  Love and tolerance of others is our code. 

None of these good things come natural to the Alcoholic.  i blame, redirect, avoid, deny.... until i desire to stop drinking more than anything else in my world and i accept the new way of living that AA shows me how to live.

As already stated in a recent post,  "And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone - even alcohol. For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality - safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is our experience. That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition."

when my spiritual life, or the connection with my higher power gets disrupted, my stinking thinking shows up right away... which is my anger, intolerance, my meandering thoughts of having a drink, and this means my ego is in charge and i better call someone or go to a meeting.  reading the big book and praying is another thing to get back to the spiritual side, and helping others helps me get out of my own head.

thanks for letting me share.  jj/shiela