Today I had an epiphany of sorts.....a friend of mine, and fellow alcoholic pointed out a line from a scripture...."Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall." Proverbs 16:18. The epiphany comes in because the word "pride" virtually took me to my grave with my disease. For so many years I had always been the "go getter", the outgoing one, the girl on the "right track", a "giver", the "strong one" and on and on. How was I EVER going to let ALL those people down and admit that I had a HUGE problem...oh and by the way....I was human? HA What a joke.... on ME!! How "haughty" of me to think people didn't have anything better to do than watch my life! My pride kept me from falling all the way down to my knees sooner than I finally did. However, even with the cry out to God and the fall to my knees I still had A LOT more to learn about my pride! Pride will kill all of us....pride does not discriminate where it finds its prisoners.....! As I thought about that scripture today I thanked God that He showed me very early in my recovery how poisonous pride is. He put incredible people in my life that helped shatter the walls my pride had built. There is no growth in pride....it may make you feel extremely vulnerable to let go of it, but the truth is, setting that pride free also frees you!! Let Go....Let God!!! "Cliche' " I know....but SO true! Make it a great one.
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Imperfect changes are slow steps of progress wrapped in His Grace......hence, Imperfect progress.........progress not perfection....
While false pride and ego are a large obstacle to sobriety, Pride is not all bad. I think taking pride in personal accomplishments, and adherence to our principals is a building block of self esteem, self worth. Humility is a virtue but we can't exist on pure humility unless we're saints. Looking back on your own experience you likely did a lot of the "right things" and good, but perhaps for skewed motives. Too stretch the conversation beyond the realm of AA, our codependent nature required us to seek so much approval and validation that we wore ourselves out overachieving and doing (we thought for others) that we often wore ourselves out because no amount of approval was enough. Add to that, that we generally surround ourselves with "takers" and folks that are unable to give little if any approval. This lead to great resentments, frustration and of course drinking.
You are right Dean....there is a "healthy" amount, and kind of pride....and I definitely was not thinking about that kind of pride when I was wrote this, so it is good to point out the difference! We were just talking about seeking approval and validation yesterday in my 7AM meeting.....it was an awesome discussion, because we all did wear ourselves out in in different ways in the name of approval. I really like your last point about surrounding ourselves with "takers"....WOW, this is so true, I never really disected that point very much until I read your last two lines!! What a great topic, I think I will bring that to my next meeting! Thanks for the feedback.....LOVE it!! Hope you have a wonderful day!
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Imperfect changes are slow steps of progress wrapped in His Grace......hence, Imperfect progress.........progress not perfection....
I like the share because it has a lot of reminders for me...stuff of works with sponsors and listening with an open mind in meetings. There are so many tools that have been handed to me along the way...some scientific for part of my recovery has come from within college as I sought higher education rather than only the rooms and most simple ones from the fellowship. My sponsor gave me a very simple practice which involves using EGO as an acronym to describe what I do when I use it...Easing God Out. He gave me the solution also using it when I wanted the opposide of easing God out....Turn it around OGE or Offering God Entry. It Simply works.
