Today I’m bouncing back to Step 2 and looking at a paragraph that the Emotional Sobriety men’s group discussed several weeks ago, but one that I feel needs another look. This paragraph comes on the heels of my Savage State of Mind post and offers simple and practical applications that can help me come to believe and get me back on track.
The first paragraph on page 26 in the “12&12″ states:
At this juncture, his A.A. sponsor usually laughs. This the newcomer thinks, is just about the last straw. This is the beginning of the end. And so it is: the beginning of the end of his old life, and the beginning of his emergence into a new one. His sponsor probably says, “Take it easy. The hoop you have to jump through is a lot wider than you think. At least I’ve found it so. So did a friend of mine who was a one-time vice-president of the American Atheist Society, but he got through with room to spare.”
The previous paragraph on the savage state of mind ended with a question: must I renounce all this to save myself? And now comes the solution, the escape from my savage mind and promises of a better life if I am willing to renounce. The recognition of my savage state of mind is essential for bringing me to this point, this juncture.
Once I am aware of my alcoholism, in a moment, I am at a crossroads. At this juncture I have a choice to go down the old path I’ve always gone down, or enter into a new life. This is a great definition of surrender, the end of the old and the beginning of the new, the letting go of all I think I know for a brand new experience. But doing in this on my own can be challenging because I have trouble seeing myself. That’s why I need a sponsor and A.A. friends. They can relate to my struggles and they don’t have the emotional attachment to them. That’s why they can laugh and say, “take it easy.”
The laughter is not at me, it’s with me. The laughter is because they have been there before and crossed through to the other side. Laughter is a principle, meaning no matter who applies it, we all get the same result. It’s universal. It changes the energy from the dark to the light, right now. It widens the hoop.
Coming to believe was a tiny little hoop for me. My childhood faith came into question when I was in high school and was destroyed when my father passed away when I was 18. I wasn’t the vice-president of the American Atheist Society, but my disbelief was about the same. Years of running on self-will and lots of self-righteousness when it came to religion helped me down the path of self-destruction.
I came into A.A. angry at God, and actually ran out the door at one of my first meetings because some guy tried to tell me that it was a spiritual program. Fortunately, the hoop was a lot wider than I thought. I even tried to run my own program in untreated alcoholism without a sponsor for 9 months and got to see how ugly that was. I was at a juncture by circumstance, a chance to experience the end of the old and the beginning of the new. I had nowhere else to go. I had to come to believe. The more I tried, the wider the hoop got.
Today, I have to squeeze through hoops all the time. The hoops are called struggles, struggles in relationships, struggles at work, struggles with family, struggles with friends, struggles with money. And that’s what I often try to do at first, squeeze. My old character is on auto-pilot. But I am building a new character based on spiritual principles in the 12 Steps and this new character has an awareness that there is an old life and a new life.
The new character has learned by repeated behavior how to widen the hoop and it all starts with the awareness that I am acting in old behavior. At this juncture, I can pick up the phone and call my sponsor. The hoop widens. I can call another alcoholic. The hoop widens. I can pause, get quiet, try talking to a Power other than me. The hoop widens. I can take out my journal and start writing about my struggle. The hoop widens. I can make a gratitude list instead of focussing on everything that is wrong in my life and the world. The hoop widens. I can go to a meeting. The hoop widens. I can laugh.
Check out some of my older posts on this paragraph: Widen the Hoop , Begin the New , The Principle of Laughter , and This Juncture










