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Dear Friend,
Recently my sponsor, Joy, celebrated her
25th birthday. She discussed what it was like to be sober after so many
years of drinking. She talked about discovery - that trees were round,
that the world was filled with color, art, music, literature, and
travel. It made me think of a very popular movie called Pleasantville.
In that movie, the audience is brought into a black and white TV show, Pleasantville,
in which everything is like the Beaver Cleaver family. Home life is
wonderful. Everyone really loves everyone else, and the worst problems
are just miniscule and insignificant with just enough conflict to last
for a half an hour. The problem could be something like one of the
children didn't get invited to a party, but, in the end it turns out
that it was because it was a surprise party for the child herself. After
awhile people in Pleasantville begin to feel real
emotions, joy, pain and the world starts to emerge in color. By the end
of the movie all of Pleasantville is in the colors of the
world, authentic and realistic in vivid Technicolor.
Alcoholism (or any addiction) is like
that with a negative twist. The world, in the heart of my alcoholism,
was a very bleak, black and white. It was also, in a strange way, very
uniform. Wake up with the shakes, take a drink or drink and drug, make
my way through the day in a blur, wind up in some sordid situation at
night and begin again the next day. When I got to the Pleasantville of
AA, I never really thought things would be different. I just thought
that my bleak world would be there in all its devastating sameness.
Only, I would not be able to escape or experience any happiness with
alcohol.
Then I took the Second Step
and Third Step, gave my life and will to God. He then began to teach me how to
participate in my life in living color. I have learned over the years
that this does not mean I will not have pain. I will be afflicted, and I
will suffer. But life in living color means that I will experience as
another movie is called, Love, Pain, Suffering and the Whole Damn
Thing.
God promised abundant life, and that's what we receive with the Second
Step, and Third Step, if we truly have given our lives to God.
Jesus said in John 16:33 ... "In the
world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have overcome
the world."
And in Psalm 34:19, David says "Many
are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of
all of them."
What a Gift! To be able to live a
full life with meaning and knowing, God's knowing, that we are painting
with the brightest and most intense colors an incredible and eternal art
work, our lives.
Precious
Lord: Thank you for the gift of spiritual listening. You are always
communicating with us, and so we ask, "Please continue to amplify,
turn up the volume and the Technicolor, so that we may better hear
you."
Warmly,
Diana Burg
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