We find that the Twelfth Step's call for service – that we "carry this message to other alcoholics" – is not just a way of paying back to the program, it is crucial to our own sobriety.
It seems that the Sages knew quite a bit about us alcoholics. Who has been as ready to find fault in others as we have been? Who has been as indignant toward the shortcomings of others?
Some might think it odd when they hear an alcoholic in recovery say something like “Being an alcoholic is the greatest thing that ever happened to me.”
Like the scouts, we were tragically mistaken. G‑d desires that He be found in reality. Whether or not we are up to the task is irrelevant. It is not on our power that we rely, but on His...
It can be a hard pill for such an insecure lot as us to swallow, but if we know people who have real quality sobriety, we should admit it and aspire to be like them.
It has been said that the Twelve Steps work but that no one is really sure how or why they do. It can be unsettling to give oneself over to a process that you cannot understand.
It seems that Balaam knew what many of us have learned in recovery—that it is the pursuit of gratifying our most basic instincts that disrupts our natural connectedness with G‑d.
We don't understand those people who "stop and smell the flowers" and extol the simple pleasures of life. Some of us wouldn't recognize a "simple pleasure" if it jumped up and bit us.
Abstention is a humbling admission of defeat – "There's something in the world that G‑d created for a purpose; other people are capable of using it for that purpose; I cannot."