Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Maybe Ego?

A client was telling the group how he's afraid to do his fifth step. For those not familiar with AA that's the step where we share the results of our 4th step with another person, usually a sponsor.

When he asked why he felt so bad when certain things came up, the group facilitator suggested it might be his ego. And that response appeared to surprise him.

After all, the facilitator asked, what makes you think the things you've done are so much more terrible that what others have done? There are many of us addicts who've done descpicable things, awful things, when we were using.

And we're not in a tiny minority. Many people in the world have done terrible things - both alcoholics and non- alcoholics. So we shouldn't feel so unique that we color the rest of our lives with depression and lack of self-worth.

Nor should we be pleased with ourselves. What we must do is learn from the past. To resolve to stay on a better path

We need to not go back where we came from. Nor do we need to try to make up for lost time. We need to stay on the path of recovery and realize that we are good enough just as we are.  Just as our Creator made us.