Higher Power

[kelly]

I have a really hard time with the Higher Power concept.

I'm not religious and have very little faith, but I've decided that my
Higher Power is the person I was before drinking.

I will try my hardest to be the before-person, but I know it will be a
struggle.

I'm wondering how many others have questions about the Higher Power.

I'm very interested in your stories.

[Robert McGregor]

kelly wrote:
> I have a really hard time with the Higher Power concept.
>
> I'm not religious and have very little faith, but I've decided that my
> Higher Power is the person I was before drinking.
>
> I will try my hardest to be the before-person, but I know it will be a
> struggle.
>
> I'm wondering how many others have questions about the Higher Power.
>
> I'm very interested in your stories.
>

I too had a hard time coming to terms with the Higher Power business,
did heaps of searching, but I'll try hard to be brief here.

Probably my most rewarding discovery can be seen at
http://preview.tinyurl.com/y4cmd4

Accepting "Great Reality" as AAspeak for God, I had heard lots of
references to hidden power within each of us, I'm comfortable running
with that.

I had not long started on my fourth step before realising there was lots
of clutter, fears, resentments, and guilts, stopping me from taking the
best choice in all sorts of decisions I needed to make

By the time I arrived at sequential step eleven, by then with much of
that clutter removed, I was free to meditate and see optimal solutions
that would have been out of the question before.

One example should be enough. There were people I would never do
business with due to that old clutter. With some of the clutter removed,
I was able to negotiate deals that were impossible without help from
that Great Reality, deep down inside of me, that others can choose to
call God.

Bob

[Darren]

"kelly" <kah10@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:27102-457F7BD0-1625@storefull-3135.bay.webtv.net...
>
> I have a really hard time with the Higher Power concept.

Then it isn't meant for you. Don't bother with it. If you were meant to have
a higher power, you would know it.

>
> I'm not religious and have very little faith, but I've decided that my
> Higher Power is the person I was before drinking.
>

I like that. :)

> I will try my hardest to be the before-person, but I know it will be a
> struggle.
>

You will become equal if not better than you was should you stay off the
booze

> I'm wondering how many others have questions about the Higher Power.
>
> I'm very interested in your stories.

I don't have an issue with higher powers but I have problems when AA pushed
God down my throat. I have my own gods but AA had a struggle dealing with
that. It's a shame really because AA are well meaning but they should let us
decide.

>

[Sandy Mann]

I too had/have a great deal of trouble with the Higher Power concept.
I used to get annoyed with people who said things like, "I believe in
something - I don't know what it is but I believe in it"
I would quietly fume away thinking to myself, "How can you possibly believe
in something if you don't know that it it - that's an impossibility"

Then one day I remembered that when I started at Perth High School the
science teacher was asking what everyone's name was. When he found out that
my name was Mann he said, "Ah there was a chap by that name at Glasgow
University and when Professor So-in-so asked the students, 'Hands up anyone
who knows what electricity is' this chap - trying to be smart - stuck his
hand
up." However, he was the only one to do so and so he tried to take has hand
down again -but it was too late - the professor had seen him and he said,
"You there! You! Stand up and tell us, what electricity is" And this poor
chap had to stand up and say, "Please sir, I've forgotten!"

The Science Teacher said that it was a pity that he forgot because no one
else knows! No one knows what electricity is. Ask an electrician what
electricity is and he will tell you that it is a flow of electrons. OK so
that's very cleaver but what is an electron? An electron is a negatively
charged particle. Oh yes, what is it charged with? - ELECTRICTY! No one
know what it is. I don't know what electricity is. But I don't sit here
saying well I'm not going to believe in electricity until I know what it is!

Why not? Wasn't that my position with regard to a Higher Power that I did
not know what it was? Why was my position on electricity different?

Because when I switch on a light and I see light, I switch on an electric
fire and I get heat. I don't know what electricity is but I can see the
effects of it.

After I had been in AA for a while, when I looked at my life, I could see
the effects of *something* on my life. I didn't know what but the effect
was just as undeniable as electricity. I felt that it would be just as
crazy to deny it as it would be to deny that electricity existed.

Unfortunately I have not got much further than that.


--


Sandy
In Perth, the ancient capital of Scotland
and the crowning place of kings

sandymann2@mailinator.com
Replace@mailinator.com with @tiscali.co.uk


"kelly" <kah10@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:27102-457F7BD0-1625@storefull-3135.bay.webtv.net...
>
> I have a really hard time with the Higher Power concept.
>
> I'm not religious and have very little faith, but I've decided that my
> Higher Power is the person I was before drinking.
>
> I will try my hardest to be the before-person, but I know it will be a
> struggle.
>
> I'm wondering how many others have questions about the Higher Power.
>
> I'm very interested in your stories.
>

[Tennessee Tony]

kelly wrote:
> I have a really hard time with the Higher Power concept.

I have two higher powers. The one that helps keep me sober is AA as a
whole. Even just everyone at one meeting can be my higher power,
because by myself I certainly can't do as much as all of us can do
working together. This higher power has nothing whatsoever to do with
any god.

My other higher power is basically mother nature. I try to respect this
earth and everything on it. It also ties in with the creation of the
universe. This higher power also does *NOTHING* to keep me sober. I
think of how this creator would want me to act, and that is what I
strive for. I don't believe in prayer, and to further explain why I
don't think this higher power will keep me sober, is the same reason
that he/she/it allows all kinds of horrendous things happen to people.
I don't blame my higher power, I just think he created the world and is
sitting back watching what we do. People cause a lot more harm to the
world than nature does.


> I'm not religious and have very little faith, but I've decided that my
> Higher Power is the person I was before drinking.

That wouldn't work for me. Quite basically, I'm mentally ill. I drank
to self medicate. Now I have real medicine from a Dr. that keeps me
sane. I don't want to think of how I was before drinking. Yes even
before drinking my life was a living hell. The alcohol helped me hide
from that for many years until it stopped working and I needed more and
more until I couldn't get enough.


> I will try my hardest to be the before-person, but I know it will be a
> struggle.
>
> I'm wondering how many others have questions about the Higher Power.
>
> I'm very interested in your stories.

I hope you liked mine, if nothing else, it's different!

Tony

[Christine]

kelly wrote:
> I have a really hard time with the Higher Power concept.
>

I have always believed in God, or at least "a God" (when times were
rough ... the old "Why God?!?!" is a big part of my story) ... when I
first tried to get sober I was surrounded by Christianity - it was
overwelhming! - I thought it was the only way. I ended up being sucked
in but extremely conflicted because of the basic fact that Chrisitanity
is not my belief, is not my faith. And I drank. I was certain I was
one of the hopeless. I was doomed.

Slowly, and on my own (while drinking), I realized my faith is in God.
My God - myself. The Me, Almighty ME that I KNOW I can be, that I want
to be, that I strive to be. If I internilize that concept and slowly
look around - I see God everywhere, and that gives me faith which gives
me hope and strength and happiness and then I don't need a drink or a
drug or a cheeseburger.

It takes effort. It takes awareness. I fail but I try to do my best
and I am so much better off than I ever was before and I know I can do,
be, act, behave, research, live, love, laugh, cry, learn, sing, dance,
BE BETTER than I ever have before.

The comfort of knowing yourself, your own God, is power.

[Sam]

I found it to be a difficult concept. I had a fit with it too.

My second sponsor in AA was an atheist. He said that God is "unknown
and unknowable". He worked his program by writing God out of it. He
died sober so it must have worked for him.

I couldn't make the program work without a Higher Power. Not only did I
have to come up with such a concept, but also, in step 11 I had to form
a personal relationship with him. Neither change in me came easily. I
came up with the concept of a higher power by asking myself, "Who
effected the 'big bang'"? As to the nature of the "guiding hand" that
set off the big bang, that is beyond my comprehension. I leave that to
people who like to argue theology. I see the Higher Power's job as
running the universe.

It works for me. I doubt I will ever be a priest or a preacher. I
don't think that is in the cards.

kelly wrote:
> I have a really hard time with the Higher Power concept.
>
> I'm not religious and have very little faith, but I've decided that my
> Higher Power is the person I was before drinking.
>
> I will try my hardest to be the before-person, but I know it will be a
> struggle.
>
> I'm wondering how many others have questions about the Higher Power.
>
> I'm very interested in your stories.
>

[Steven]

Hi Kelly,
I am 8 years clean now from crack addiction. it was a hard thing for
me, this higher power. I also came to your conclusion and stayed clean
for a year then fell back. For the last 8 years and still, my higher
power is that who and what i want to become. that has worked for me, in
the process i found a higher power but my every moment focus is still
my dream. Just my story.
Kind regards and thinking of you
Steven

[Joe Jared]

On Tue, 12 Dec 2006 22:04:32 -0600, kelly wrote:

>
> I have a really hard time with the Higher Power concept.
>
> I'm not religious and have very little faith, but I've decided that my
> Higher Power is the person I was before drinking.
>
> I will try my hardest to be the before-person, but I know it will be a
> struggle.
>
> I'm wondering how many others have questions about the Higher Power.
>
> I'm very interested in your stories.


I didn't like god until I drove through nature and realized that I had
nothing to do with making it.

--
http://www.oretek.com
If you see weird responses, please do not reply to them.
Simply visit http://www.oretek.com/kookwatch/