Friday 9 November 2018

WALK IN DRY PLACES #essentialsofrecovery

COMPLIANCE ISN’T ACCEPTANCE

Honesty


We are sometimes mystified when people come into the AA program, respond to its message for months or years, and then disappear, seemingly without a trace. Later, we may be shocked to learn that they’re drinking again.

While we have no way of knowing the real reason, one possible explanation is that they were practicing compliance without really accepting the program. The danger of compliance is that it may simply be an outward show of working the program while leaving one’s real thoughts and feelings unchanged.

At the same time, we often urge people to practice what is really only a form of compliance. We tell them, for example, to “bring the body” to meetings in the belief that the heart will follow. This does little good if one’s heart does not follow!

The only solution is to continue the difficult but rewarding search for honesty in all things. When we examine ourselves honestly, we will recognize when we are truly accepting and when we are merely complying.

I’ll remember today that the real success of AA is not in the number of people who show up at meetings, but in how we truly accept the program.

© 1996 by Hazelden Foundation 
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