Well I am in program and trying to live a spiritual life but in real life i have to deal with lot of people who are really BAD, dishonest, cruel, shameless, they can do anything for their own benefits , In real world i see that bad people are always more successful, powerful and very influential
I feel very weak from inside to deal with everyday tough situation, prayer and stuff doesn't work as Bad people really don't care for nothing
Hey soldier78, How long have you been in Program? And what do you exactly mean by this?
You said that "you're trying" which is incredible, because that gives you opportunity to be open-minded about the things.
You will see that spiritual life is in real life and the real life is in spiritual life. If you read the BB in How it works says that "The first thing apparent was that this world and its people were often quite wrong." But we must see far more than that to stay sober and to have spiritual life. They are wrong? So what? First I have to see only my mistakes which is the inventory of Fourth Step and after that step 5 and everyday doing it in 10 and 11 steps. I learn to watch only for my mistakes. So, you see, first of all i must quit to see the world at all, but to watch only the concrete situations - people, principle and institutions. "We began to see that the world and its people really dominate us". They are in my bed when I go to bed, they are with me when I drink coffee, they are with me when I kiss my brother for goodnight, they are with me all day, in my dreams all night.
"In that state, the wrong-doing of others, fancies or real, had power to actually kill" - Its killing me, no matter if I am wrong or right. If I have resentments and fears I will drink and if i drink i will die. The symptoms of untreated alcoholism "restless, irritable and discontented". So you are working this SPIRITUAL PROGRAM ... You have the power, which is given by God to accept this world with its people and to "realize that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick. Though we did not like their symptoms and the way these disturbed us, they, like ourselves, were sick too. We asked God to help us show them the same tolerance,pity and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend." So this Program gives us opportunity to see the things in far more different way than it was before. Its program that gives us freedom not only from ourselves but from the people and world.
If I can't accept the people and the world in the way they are exactly, I am not accepting God, because people are God's creations.
I must look only my mistakes, no matter if people are right or wrong. When i started to search only my mistakes i saw that I am not good person, too. So, what? Someone has to kill me?
And when I realize that I am not perfect, what makes me think that others are perfect?
-- Edited by myownhell on Friday 4th of October 2013 03:11:34 AM
Well I am in program and trying to live a spiritual life but in real life i have to deal with lot of people who are really BAD, dishonest, cruel, shameless, they can do anything for their own benefits , In real world i see that bad people are always more successful, powerful and very influential
I feel very weak from inside to deal with everyday tough situation, prayer and stuff doesn't work as Bad people really don't care for nothing
Well I am in program and trying to live a spiritual life but in real life i have to deal with lot of people who are really BAD, dishonest, cruel, shameless, they can do anything for their own benefits , In real world i see that bad people are always more successful, powerful and very influential
I feel very weak from inside to deal with everyday tough situation, prayer and stuff doesn't work as Bad people really don't care for nothing
Welcome to MIP soldier78, ...
Ha, ... 'bad people' are not always more successful, but it really looks that way sometimes, huh? ... ... ... I had to repeat the 'Serenity Prayer' over and over and over every day when I first got sober ... it helped me deal with these 'so-called' bad people you refer to ... AND I found out a little later on, that I became someone that many of these type people started to 'look-up' to ... they began to see something in me that they wanted ... with the 'non-alcoholics' it was the spirituality that they wanted , and they would often ask me how I kept such a ;positive' attitude through the troubling times we have ...
I simply explained to those that were interested, just how my relationship with a 'higher power' (God for me), helped me SEE the world in a different light so to speak ... In AA, I found that it was ME and MY attitude and my allowing others to determine how I felt, that was the problem ... so I learned how to turn the 'negative' switch 'off' and let God deal with all the B.S., it was really none of my business to let it affect me ... there are others better able to deal with those situations than me, so let 'em ... ... ...
Love ya and God Bless,
Pappy
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'Those who leave everything in God's hand will eventually see God's hand in everything.'
It seems strange that I have worked in jails, with people who have had their kids taken from them, and with serious drug addicts and alcoholics and yet I do not see the world as full of bad people. I see it as full of good people who may or may not be making great choices. AA has taught me that whenever I start poopooing people and the world around me, I do not need to look too far for the problem. The problem is with me and my attitudes. God doesn't make junk.
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
I'd rather be me - and know love and empathy, than to be a psychopath. That would suck. They aren't just killers.
What "Psychopath" Means
It is not quite what you may think
By Scott O. Lilienfeld and Hal Arkowitz
Charming but Callous
First described systematically by Medical College of Georgia psychiatrist Hervey M. Cleckley in 1941, psychopathy consists of a specific set of personality traits and behaviors. Superficially charming, psychopaths tend to make a good first impression on others and often strike observers as remarkably normal. Yet they are self-centered, dishonest and undependable, and at times they engage in irresponsible behavior for no apparent reason other than the sheer fun of it. Largely devoid of guilt, empathy and love, they have casual and callous interpersonal and romantic relationships. Psychopaths routinely offer excuses for their reckless and often outrageous actions, placing blame on others instead. They rarely learn from their mistakes or benefit from negative feedback, and they have difficulty inhibiting their impulses.
Not surprisingly, psychopaths are overrepresented in prisons; studies indicate that about 25 percent of inmates meet diagnostic criteria for psychopathy. Nevertheless, research also suggests that a sizable number of psychopaths may be walking among us in everyday life. Some investigators have even speculated that successful psychopathsthose who attain prominent positions in societymay be overrepresented in certain occupations, such as politics, business and entertainment. Yet the scientific evidence for this intriguing conjecture is preliminary.
Most psychopaths are male, although the reasons for this sex difference are unknown. Psychopathy seems to be present in both Western and non-Western cultures, including those that have had minimal exposure to media portrayals of the condition. In a 1976 study anthropologist Jane M. Murphy, then at Harvard University, found that an isolated group of Yupik-speaking Inuits near the Bering Strait had a term (kunlangeta) they used to describe a man who repeatedly lies and cheats and steals things and takes sexual advantage of many womensomeone who does not pay attention to reprimands and who is always being brought to the elders for punishment. When Murphy asked an Inuit what the group would typically do with a kunlangeta, he replied, Somebody would have pushed him off the ice when nobody else was looking.
The best-established measure of psychopathy, the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R), developed by University of British Columbia psychologist Robert D. Hare, requires a standardized interview with subjects and an examination of their file records, such as their criminal and educational histories. Analyses of the PCL-R reveal that it comprises at least three overlapping, but separable, constellations of traits: interpersonal deficits (such as grandiosity, arrogance and deceitfulness), affective deficits (lack of guilt and empathy, for instance), and impulsive and criminal behaviors (including sexual promiscuity and stealing).
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Thanks for everything. Peace and Love on your journey.
I use this motto quite often in my daily affairs "you may be new to A.A. but you're not new to the world". It pretty much speaks for itself, especially in this day and age.
If it were up to me; I would try to follow a more spiritual vibe, like the one you mentioned earlier, and forgo all those unnecessary labels. It will only complicate things further. The truth is; people will always resort to bad behavior as a way of getting what they think is necessary, money, material things, etc. But in the end you can't take it with you. Focusing on what makes 'you' happy and leaving all those other intangibles alone is the key to lasting sobriety.
Let's face it, though: The more you feel connected to your higher power, the rooms, etc, the more troubling the world will become. You'll finally see what lies ahead at the intersection of 4th and vine and how it can never compare to this wonderful gift known as recovery. After that, everything else will seem so insignificant.
There's a principal in step 11 that sums up my feelings all too well, and it goes like this: "The moment we catch even a glimpse of God's will for our lives, the moment we begin to see truth, justice and love as the real and eternal things in life, we are no longer deeply disturbed by all the seeming evidence to the contrary that surrounds us in purely human affairs. " That, my friend, is how we "come to believe". I hope it has a happy ending just for you.
-- Edited by Mr_David on Saturday 5th of October 2013 10:54:32 PM
Hi Soldier 78, glad you're with us! The first thing on my mind is that I'd like to know exactly what you mean when you say you're "in program" and trying to live a spiritual life. What do you mean by a "spiritual life"? Some folks may have different understandings of what that means. Have you worked all 12 of the Steps yet? Are you in the early Steps? Not knowing any of this makes it more difficult to respond in a helpful way. I hope you'll elaborate more about these things. With what little information you've given us, I'll simply tell you that there have always been good people who do good things in this world, and there have always been bad people who do bad things in this world. For many years when I drank, I mistakenly thought that all those bad people in the world were my problem. However, my Fourth Step inventory proved to me that all of the bad in ME (my character defects) were my real problem. In other words, it was the bad in ME that had kept me full of fear, and anger, and guilt, and drunk. It wasn't THEM doing me harm. It was ME. As much as I thought they were making my life difficult, the fact is, I was the one creating my own misery. Yes, there are bad people in this world, but now I know I don't have to be one of them. No matter how they behave, I know it's MY behavior that matters. Thanks for letting me share, Blessings...Mike D.
I was just thinking, it's not that most people are 'bad', but they are not 'spiritual giants' either ... ... ...
If you give any credence to what the Bible tells us, then remember it say that the gate to Heaven is very narrow and few are they that find it ... AND that the gate to Hell is broad and very wide and many are they that enter therein ... SO, that leads me to think that the majority of human souls live in such a way that they will probably never achieve a spiritual condition that points them toward the 'Peace & Serenity' that, basically, we all seek ... ... ... (whether we are alcoholic or not) ... ... ...
On that same note ... we are told that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than it is for a rich man to enter Heaven ... (the eye of a 'needle', back then referred to a very narrow and low passageway through a city stone defense wall ... it was hard for a man to get through, not to mention, a camel ...)
There, there's your lesson for the day, ... LOL
__________________
'Those who leave everything in God's hand will eventually see God's hand in everything.'
Hope that you are still checking your post soldier78, as there are some really great responses. Just want to add that for me, I am one who has focused too much on "the bad and the ugly" people or circumstances in my life, which I have used as excuses to drink. I am trying to focus on the positive things in my life now and how proud I am of myself for staying sober, for how grateful I am for AA and being around people who I relate to and are struggling with alcoholism like I have for over 30 years. I don't like to label people as being either "good" or "bad" anymore. I like "human" much better because no one is perfect and everyone makes mistakes, and I am far from perfect and have made a ton of mistakes. I think there are good choices and bad choices and it is up to each individual to choose which one to make. And what is "good" for them, with my warped perception at times, I might view as "bad" and that is not really fair. I have to worry about myself and trying to make the right choices now and live with those and not worry about changing someone else. I am powerless over alcohol and I know know since being sober, I am powerless over changing others. I am trying hard to not let others' choices affect me because this is my life and I am in control, with help from my Higher Power. That said, I am trying to focus on taking care of myself and staying sober one day at a time, so that in the future I may be of help to another person who suffers from this disease. Since I have (and still am) so affected by what other people say and I think they do to me, I have started to try and be around people in the program who are staying sober and don't have the need to push my buttons. I will always be around people who are not living their lives like I think they should. I have to catch myself on a daily basis when I find the need to be judgmental about them and examine my own life. My previous posts confirm that I still do this. I have my hands full trying to take care of my own flaws and get rid of those. This is something that at least for me, will be something I have to do for the rest of my life. I love the expressions I never heard until I started AA. One is "What somebody thinks about me is none of my business" and the other is "I am only responsible of keeping my own side of the street clean". Good Luck to you and you have a lot of support from caring and giving people here.
-- Edited by betterthanyesterday52 on Monday 7th of October 2013 08:44:26 AM
