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Whole Extra Inventory
A member recently mentioned Bill W’s wonderful ‘1958 grapevine essay, ‘The Next Frontier: Emotional Sobriety’. It reminded me to have another read and see if anything new might be revealed. In short, something was. Quite a simple and miraculous thing actually; a whole extra inventory!
Here’s a short section of the essay that really seems to sum up the internal issue Bill was wrestling with at that time:
‘…Suddenly I realized what the matter was. My basic flaw had always been dependence — almost absolute dependence – on people or circumstances to supply me with prestige, security, and the like. Failing to get these things according to my perfectionist dreams and specifications, I had fought for them. And when defeat came, so did my depression.
There wasn’t a chance of making the outgoing love of St. Francis a workable and joyous way of life until these fatal and almost absolute dependencies were cut away.
Because I had over the years undergone a little spiritual development, the absolute quality of these frightful dependencies had never before been so starkly revealed. Reinforced by what Grace I could secure in prayer, I found I had to exert every ounce of will and action to cut off these faulty emotional dependencies upon people, upon AA, indeed, upon any set of circumstances whatsoever.’
Troubling stuff, and boy, can I identify! How often do I depend on praise, reputation and standing within the fellowship, or my contributions to the success of others to feel good about myself? Not all the time, but enough for Bill’s words to, as they so often do, cut me to the quick
Quest for less dependency
The rest of the essay points to Bill’s quest for less dependency on other people, places and things to feel OK; the quest for more emotional sobriety. He writes:
“…This seems to be the primary healing circuit: an outgoing love of God’s creation and His people, by means of which we avail ourselves of His love for us. It is most clear that the current can’t flow until our paralyzing dependencies are broken, and broken at depth. Only then can we possibly have a glimmer of what adult love really is.”
Again, heady, thought-proving and heart-desiring stuff! I’ll leave you to read the entire essay – just Google the title and it pops right up! I want to cut to the chase however, and get to what I truly see as Bill’s last, and perhaps least identified, inventory for obtaining more emotional sobriety!
Surrender these hobbling demands.
The second to last paragraph outlines how Bill went about finding the ‘primary healing circuit’ he sought:
“…If we examine every disturbance we have, great or small, we will find at the root of it some unhealthy dependency and its consequent unhealthy demand. Let us, with God’s help, continually surrender these hobbling demands. Then we can be set free to live and love; we may then be able to Twelfth Step ourselves and others into emotional sobriety.”
Do you see them; the inventory-like steps we can take to free ourselves of our unhealthy dependencies?
For me they read like this:
- COLUMN 1: What is disturbing me, great or small?
- COLUMN 2: Why? What unhealthy dependency is at the root of this disturbance?
- COLUMN 3: For each identified dependency, what hobbling demands do they prompt you to seek, make etc?
PRAYER: “God, I surrender these hobbling demands to you, just as I do my other shortcomings. Please set me free of them so that I may be set free to live and love; so that I may then be able to Twelfth Step myself and others into emotional sobriety”.
Quiet place in bright sunshine
Bill’s final paragraph presents his final thoughts on the process, even going so far as to call it a gimmick, thus indicating just how much of a process it really is!
“…Of course I haven’t offered you a really new idea — only a gimmick that has started to unhook several of my own “hexes” at depth. Nowadays my brain no longer races compulsively in either elation, grandiosity or depression. I have been given a quiet place in bright sunshine.”
The little use I’ve made so far of what I choose to call Bill’s ‘extra inventory’, certainly assists me to find a quiet place in bright sunshine. I mean yes, it is summer, but I do feel asking God to remove my hobbling demands may have something to do with it too!
AA Member Albury NSW
