Step 2

How is Your Relationship with God?

Why are some people afraid to get close to God or have a meaningful relationship with him? I think it is because when we sin, or when we commit habitual sin in our lives, we feel guilty over it. God has equipped every one of us with a conscience for this very reason. A guilty conscience is a warning signal that goes off in the mind, letting us know that we have done wrong. The problem is people try to eradicate those guilty feelings without eradicating the cause of it. But this is like taking painkillers instead of treating the disease.

How is Your Relationship with God? Read More »

Twelve Steps to Power

Note: This is one of Sam Shoemaker’s most helpful articles which shows how “the program” so effective for alcoholics can work for all of us.

One of the most remarkable phenomena of our time is the growth of the movement called Alcoholics Anonymous. My interest in it is personal as well as objective, for the men who set it in motion first found the spiritual experience which changed their lives in my own church, though the first actual group of Alcoholics Anonymous was formed in Akron, Ohio.

Twelve Steps to Power Read More »

Higher Power: Alcoholics Anonymous Basics

Some of us have spent a lot of time puzzling over the question “What is a Higher Power?”

Sometimes we hear that it is, “Something.” Sometimes, the answer is that it is,”Somebody.” Sometimes the answer is “Anything that keeps me from drinking.” Many have said, “it” is a light bulb, a radiator, a chair, the Big Dipper, a rock, “Her,” a tree, the Big Dipper, Ralph, a rainbow, or “nothing at all.” I have personally read, heard, and recorded all of these strange characterizations. One compilation is in my book, God and Alcoholism. But whatever we hear, such answers have sounded pretty screwy to some of us. And they certainly are.

Higher Power: Alcoholics Anonymous Basics Read More »

Bill Wilson’s Call on God for Help

Dr. William D. Silkworth advised Bill Wilson that Jesus Christ, the Great Physician, could cure Bill of his alcoholism. At the time of Bill Wilson’s third hospitalization in Towns Hospital, Bill had a discussion with his physician, Dr. William D. Silkworth, on the subject of the “Great Physician.” And Silkworth’s biographer Dale Mitchel wrote in Silkworth: The Little Doctor Who Loved Drunks:

Bill Wilson’s Call on God for Help Read More »

A.A. and the Pioneers’ Basic Principle: The Love of God

Back to Our Creator and His Love

You may be a believer. You may be a Christian believer. And you may wonder what in the world recovery literature today is talking about when it speaks of a mysterious “higher power” or “not-God” or Santa Claus or a Coke bottle in connection with taking one of the Steps, achieving recovery, or learning how to believe.

That’s what revisionist historians, writers, and unbelievers are telling the world today. Just pick some inanimate “Something” as your “higher power,” they say. And their sayings dominate 12 Step literature and recovery literature – even some Christian recovery literature.

A.A. and the Pioneers’ Basic Principle: The Love of God Read More »

I ASKED God and He SAID

I asked God to take away my addictions and behaviors.­
God said, No.­
It is not for me to take away, but for you to give it up.­

I asked God to make my handicapped child whole.­
God said, No.­
His spirit is whole, his body is only temporary­

I asked God to grant me patience.­
God said, No.­
Patience is a byproduct of tribulations;
it isn’t granted, it is learned.­

I asked God to give me happiness.­
God said, No.­
I give you blessings; Happiness is up to you.­

I asked God to spare me pain.­
God said, No.­
Suffering draws you apart from worldly cares
and brings you closer to me.­

I asked God to make my spirit grow.­
God said, No.­
You must grow on your own! ,
but I will prune you to make you fruitful.­

I asked God for all things that I might enjoy life.­

I ASKED God and He SAID Read More »

Do You Feel Your Sins Cut You Off From God and All Hope of Change?

This is written for those who say:
“The things I have done and said weigh on my heart like a mountain of lead. This burdens me and keeps me from Christ. My sins cut me off from all hope of heaven. I am afraid that my past eagerness to relish my behavior has so twisted my mind, seared my conscience, and hardened my heart–that I will never be able to repent with any hope of pardon!”

But I answer you,
Is your sin greater than wicked King Manasseh’s, who “sacrificed his own son in the fire, practiced witchcraft and divination, and consulted mediums and spiritists”? (2 Kings 21:2-7)

Is your sin greater than Paul’s drinking up the blood of saints?

Do You Feel Your Sins Cut You Off From God and All Hope of Change? Read More »