At meetings, the 9th step promises usually get read: If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through.
We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.
We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace.
No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.
That feeling of uselessness and self pity will disappear.
We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.
Self-seeking will slip away.
Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.
Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.
We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.
We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us—sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.
3rd ed. Big Book pg. 83 & 84
These promises are unfortunetly mistaken for promises for everyone who simply enters the room and puts down the drink. This is a fatal mistake for some, for others it is a long drawn out living hell as they wander the halls of AA meetings as if waiting in pergatory, to have sobriety rub off on them by some stoke of a miracle. The truth for all of us is that “Faith without works is dead”, meaning, you need to get together with someone who has had this experience, and have them take you through the the steps outlined in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous to have your own experience and fully see the promises come true in your life.
Continue reading...