“The wars which had been fought, the burnings and chicanery that religious dispute had facilitated, made me sick. I honestly doubted whether, on balance, the religions of mankind had done any good. Judging from what I had seen in Europe and since, the power of God in human affairs was negligible, the Brotherhood of Man a grim jest. If there was a Devil, he seemed the Boss Universal, and he certainly had me.”
– Alcoholics Anonymous, 3rd Edition, 1976, Ch 1 (“Bill’s Story”), p 11.
Today, may I not reject the possibility that a higher power of good can exist despite all the bad – even evil – that I see every day. Just as Bill W. shared as co-founder of the Program, cynicism may block willingness for me to believe the possibility that something stronger and better than myself could exist to set me on the journey toward sobriety and recovery. Perhaps a beginning is to understand the distinction between religion and spirituality and that one has nothing to do with the other. The Program does not require me to adhere to any religious code; it does require that I come to believe in a Higher Power or God of my understanding. But how can I be reconciled to the bad that surrounds me, including wars and all other affairs? If I can accept that one of our most precious collective gifts is the freedom of choice, is it not plausible that the state of man is a direct consequence of his choices individually and collectively? If so, cannot what is bad around me be the consequence of man’s self-will run riot and not because of a punitive god? Today, I set out to find my Higher Power
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