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Chapter 5: What Works Better

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Navigator’s Note: How do you respond to the perception that you have lost the Power of Choice (in drink)? —that you are acting a manner contrary to your imagined intentions. Ironically, you have a choice in how you respond, and each response creates even more choices, sculpting out very different frameworks of reality for the chooser. In this new walk though the Steps as an allegory for a progressive, evolving relationship with Power, we will ultimately learn how to close the gap between knowing what to do and being able to do it.

RESPONDING TO THE CHALLENGE OF LOST POWER:

“Why the Steps were written down in the order in which they appear today and just why they were worded as they are, I have no idea.”                                                           Bill Wilson 1960

FIRST RESPONSE: Acquiring Power (Chapter 4, What Works Poorly)                                                           (Study Crossover: Steps 1-3)

SECOND RESPONSE: Transmuting Emotions into Usable Power (Chapter 5, What Works Better)
(Study Crossover: Steps 4-9)

Given a perceived absence of Power in Choice—and the difficulties in just looking for More Power—the Stepper looks for an alternative and discovers the ability to Transmute (perpetually occurring) Emotions into Power that can be used to choose to drink or not drink. No longer necessary are spiritual experiences that always dissipate or conscious contact with a Higher Power that is constantly disconnecting. (Note: spiritual experiences do not remove character defects; ironically, they just expose them in an even more exagerrated form whose energy can also be harnessed) All that is needed is the properly harnessed Power of ordinary human experience, a Power which is always present & never dissipates, just waiting for someone with the courage to embrace their character defects, rather than inventory & pray them away.

VIDEO HIGHLIGHT: Turning Promises & Threats into Milestones (Currently Inactive)

THIRD RESPONSE: Neutralizing the Power of Alcoholism (Chapter 7, Best by Test!)
(Study Crossover: Steps 10 & 11)

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Chapter 5

HOW IT WORKS

First, we searched out the flaws in our make-up which caused our failure. Being convinced that self, manifested in various ways, was what had defeated us, we considered its common manifestations.

Resentment is the “number one” offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else. From it stem all forms of spiritual disease, for we have been not only mentally and physically ill, we have been spiritually sick. When the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically. (p. 64)

If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. (p. 66)

Chapter 6

INTO ACTION

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Chapter 5

WHAT WORKS BETTER:

Excerpt: Moving From “Number One Offender” to “Core Orientation”

…5.24 Believing without question Wilson’s ridiculous admonition to be “free from anger,” many in AA are deathly afraid of their emotions. We have seen it over and over again in meetings: express duplicitous hurt to the point of suffocating self-pity and you are consoled; express honest anger even if it be only mild irritation and you will be accused of not working your program. Spiritual adults feel their feelings—including anger. To quiet yourself in the midst of a disturbance is only a stop-gap measure that misses a chance to experience ourselves in a new way—even if it be unflattering. Some spiritual traditions even suggest that when you get angry, try to become angrier and learn how arbitrary your feeling was. To be able to feel anger to the point of rage—without reacting or expressing—is to live without resentment. This applies whether or not resentment is your number one offender.

5.25 There is no better way to guarantee resentment than trying to live without anger. Because resentment is anger only partially felt, it is inevitably re-felt. If you have resentment you can be sure that you are not feeling your anger; if you feel your anger you can sure that you will never get resentment.

5.26 Effort, yielding Power, is the least effective tool for ridding ourselves of any offending emotion. It matters little whether you try to apply Self-Will or God’s help. Lacking the Self-Knowledge to Transmute disturbing emotions into stable Power, we throw away the value of ordinary experience in favor of a search for the unstable Power of spiritual experience that may never arise. This is just one of the many places where we find the human Power to relieve our alcoholism—completely unknown to the vast majority who use the Big Book template.

© 2019 Michael V. Cossette

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This was our course: We realized 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. When a person offended we said to ourselves, “This is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him? God save me from being angry. Thy will be done.” (pp 66-67)

Chapters 5 & 6

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Chapter 5B

5.27 Today’s Stepper justifies many errant ways to shield themselves from their emotions. The seemingly reasonable “Praying for others who offend us” is one such shield. When people who have wronged us, we do not know whether they are spiritually sick, evil, or just don’t care. For us to conveniently label someone else as sick in order to mute our feelings towards them is false compassion. And to pray for them does seem to work, but it just pushes the anger down so that it will surface at some later confluence of time, place, and person unrelated to the original offending experience. “Serenity Now; Insanity Later.”

5.28 By over-emphasizing “keeping their side of the street clean,” many in AA never get past blaming themselves or preaching to others that they need to keep their side of the street clean. We are not individuals travelling separate streets at separate times; we are a community simultaneously travelling a multi-lane highway. To keep traffic moving smoothly we need to learn how to honk the horn when someone gets in our lane. Without the ability to hold other people accountable for their behavior in a positive, purposeful way—never addressed in AA—our constant focus on ourselves feeds into a hands-off attitude towards others, and festers an isolationist attitude towards the world. This is how one squanders a spiritual inheritance…

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Chapters 5 & 6

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Chapter 5B

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Chapters 5 & 6

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Chapters 5 & 6

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