Step We Are On: Four
Page: 70
Chapter: 5 "How It Works"
Subject: Resentment Inventory, Fear, Self reliance, Trust, Sexual Redirection
Read Time: 4 minutes
Read Time: 4 minutes
Good morning. We are going through the columns of the 4th step directions. We are looking at sex and learning how sex problems…….are problematic; in that they can be as much a part of self-centered behaviors and cause harms to others as other human activities.
Page 70 – continued
Comment: The following is the third prayer for our sex conduct.
- We earnestly pray for what?
To sum up about sex: We earnestly pray for the right ideal, for guidance in each questionable situation, for sanity, and for the strength to do the right thing.
- If sex continues to be a problem, is there something we can do?
If sex is very troublesome, we throw ourselves the harder into helping others.
Please remember that this ‘section’ of the Big Book is the Step Four inventory. It’s still early in the awakening process. Inventory is a newcomer phase of recovery as presented in this book. These observations are for the barely abstinent alcoholic who has not yet had a spiritual awakening.
Many un-awake, still spiritually slumbering folks, are very much obsessed with their self-centered sexual urges.
Many un-awake, still spiritually slumbering folks, are very much obsessed with their self-centered sexual urges.
Diversions away from selfishness habits can be a useful tool to help postpone some obsessive behaviors at this stage of the game. In today’s terms, this is known as “Redirection”, replacing “troubling” obsessive behavior for more appropriate behavior and it can have an impact - It is a common technique, well known in secular psychology.
Comment: Please note that we are in the process of taking the first action Step to recovery and the First Hundred tell us it is not too soon to start trying to help a newcomer.
The idea that we must have a minimum length of sobriety before we can try to help a newcomer did not come from our Basic Text.- What do we try to think of?
We think of their needs and work for them
- What does this do?
This takes us out of ourselves. It quiets the imperious urge, when to yield would mean heartache.
- It will quiet what?
It quiets the imperious urge,
Imperious - Dictatorial, commandeering, overbearing
~ The Winston Simplified Dictionary – 1938
~ The Winston Simplified Dictionary – 1938
- If we yield, what will it mean?
when to yield would mean heartache.
Like many secular gimmicks, redirection is not a permanent solution to mentally obsessive thinking or behavior, especially not those tied to instinctual proclivities like reproduction (or eating.) Only God will remove that kind of selfishness. Only God can permanently “redirect our thinking.”
This is an internal, deep and lasting change in attitude and it only comes through ongoing spiritual growth.
Question: Should a “sponsor” who has already had a spiritual awakening, who continues to live and improve his Conscious Contact with God, need to “work with others” in order to keep his sexual urges in check? Or should his God Consciousness provide a lifestyle that is free from the sexual shortcomings (immorality) so often bedeviling the newcomer?
When I ran a newspaper in New York I hired a managing editor who frequently worked with intern copy editors. These were high school seniors, mostly girls who would come in after school to work part time in the newsroom. He would sometimes bolt from his desk and run out of the newsroom and down the hall. I figured he had a bladder problem.
One day one of the girls, named Kelly, came to me and said, “Larry just ran down the hall and into an empty office.”
“Yeah, so?” I said without looking up. If I had Kelly might have seen the look on my face; that I was a little confused. Why didn’t he run into the men’s room?
“He’s in their doing push-ups, “ Kelly said.
“Push-ups?”
“Yup. He’s on the floor in that empty office down there grunting and going a mile a minute.”
“Oh. I see.”
“He does that like three or four times every afternoon. I think he has a problem with uh…girls?” I knew what she meant.
“Know what I mean?” she asked. I shook my head in the affirmative.
As Kelly left I heard her mutter something unintelligible. It had the word “creepy” in it.
Larry did not do anything improper in the office. He successfully redirected his behaviors. But he burned like a dog in heat and knew he needed to act like a God disciplined human being. He suffered from the bondage of self, a torment that a recovered alcoholic who has had a spiritual awakening and is learning to live God-consciously does not experience.
Larry was not free.
Larry was not free.
Peace and Love,
Danny S – RLRA
Real Live Recovered Alcoholic
No comments:
Post a Comment