Both you and the new man must walk day by day in the path or spiritual progress. If you persist, remarkable things will happen. When we look backward realize that the things which came to us when we put ourselves in God’s hands were better than anything we could have planned. Follow the dictates of a Higher Power and you will presently live in a new and wonderful world, no matter what your present circumstance. BB pg 100
The path of spiritual progress is uplifting. It just feels good when everybody is on the same page and or at the very least, open to progressing toward God. Some of us are day walkers, the seekers, spiritual progressors, enlightened, soul awakened, conscious of God and wanting to do God's will- who walk among the and converse with the dead, the hopeless, the ungrateful and tormented, the stagnant, stuck, comfortably numb, vampiric, seeking to please the world or their whims and desires...though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...concept
Being able to honestly say I have been both, means I can relate to both. This is called being well rounded, or coming full circle. When someone knows what it's like to be at the mercy of an addiction and the s**t show that comes with that: the juggling of lies, jobs, relationships, family, trying to keeping up appearances while in simultaneously hiding in shadow of a dis-ease that's main purpose is to humiliate, degrade but somehow convinces them otherwise and ultimately wants to kill me-that's not something many people get out of alive. Most alcoholics and addicts, especially nowadays, will die in their mess untreated.
So when I have the opportunity to break bread with someone who is proactively fighting for their life, you bet you a** I'm on board and look forward to walking with them and the miracles I will get to witness. I am lifted and charged up by the process of giving back from my experience. That positive charge makes that experience worth going through. I can't imagine not being able to use my experiences in hell for good-to be able to bring back the good news that there is a way out...I mean, what 's the point in going through something if you don't get to help others with that experience...no matter what it is.
Any seemingly tragic or bad thing that's happened to us, can be used for good-anything-and that's how it loses its power to keep us enslaved to it or to them if we have been violated, through the forever victim consciousness trap. There is no power in staying a victim or reliving the horror of it by unpacking it every chance I get. We unpack and then we see what we learned from it and if we can help anyone with it. Then it's brought into completion or neutrality where it holds no power.
I have had the good fortune of seeing this process in real time by women and men in our humble program. A woman who was drunk while her child drowned in the swimming pool-instead of drinking herself to death in self pity and despair, she went on to have a beautiful life, forgive herself and sponsor tons of women- a man whos son was killed by a gang member who not only forgave him, but visits this man in prison regularly and became a spiritual leader in the community; the wife who was cheated on but loved her husband the lady he cheated on more than she loved the idea of becoming bitter and angry; or the man who killed someone while he was driving drunk, but still made restitution and bravely went to the family and asked them how he can make it right.
These are alcoholics that I have sat in rooms with and been sponsored by. This is going to any lengths in real life. These are people who actually followed the book and did precisely what it said and recovered and still helped others out of hell. This can be the Hero's Journey written about by Joseph Campbell and expressed through many spiritual and religious stories, like the prodigal son in the bible. You take your experience back to your tribe, your people and you tell them and help them and teach them what you learned. It is written on our hearts to be and birth in practicing warriors, not be or bred in perpetual victims.