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Post by ~graced~ on Aug 11, 2005 8:49:35 GMT -5
When wiseperson had me do that first list of character defects, I had pages of them. And I mean PAGES. I was rather devastated as he shuffled the pages around and merely glanced at them to announce "Pride and ego".
Ummm...excuse, me--did you NOT read what I painstakingly WROTE?
"Pride and ego, kid."
Okay.....fine, so I have a pride and ego problem. Sheeeshhhhh.....
And here I am, STILL working on the pride and ego problem.
I have NO problem saying "yes, thank-you, I think I'd like to do that".
But I continue to have a severe problem with saying "yes thank-you, I think I'd like HELP to do that".
I can almost FEEL the 'homework' coming! LOL
I sucked at letting people help me when I walked into this program--literally kicked and screamed the entire way, demanding that they 'make that make sense' before I'd surrender and willingly TRY a suggestion or a discipline given from people with a sincere desire to help me find a better life. It's taken me a whole lotta 24 hours to simply get willing to do what's given to me to do. This letting others help you idea, works.
The problem is, I don't tend to work IT.
I'm sure I'm the ONLY person with this problem! LOLOL
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Post by caressa on Aug 11, 2005 9:43:03 GMT -5
Personally, I figure ego is a 'male' thing!!! Even shared that one night when I spoke at my home group.
False pride can be very painful! Kept me sick for a long time.
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Post by ~graced~ on Aug 11, 2005 20:41:17 GMT -5
Welllllllllll, now there's an interesting concept, Caressa. Perhaps it's the testosterone that I take? LOL
In the meantime, I think I'll practice 'yes thank-you, I think I'd like your help to do that'. That's still a mighty tough one for me to do.
Self sufficient, self reliant, self assured--all things I 'prided' myself on 'being'.........until wiseperson in my life pointed out the SELF in all those things.
I much prefer G-d reliant, today. And G-d sees fit to puts people in my path for a reason. I think it all goes back to the WE.
And WE was a very foreign concept to this gal.
Have a great one!
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Post by caressa on Aug 22, 2005 21:42:13 GMT -5
Was at my group tonight and we discussed Tradition Four. Ego and chaos is comfortable and not always easy to recognize when we are in it. Personally, I need to remember that it is part of my disease not my recovery.
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Post by majestyjo on Sept 3, 2016 9:30:29 GMT -5
How fitting. Everyone said I was full of ego when I started a group at the request of Hamilton Housing, my landlord. They wanted help with the drug and alcohol problem in their buildings. They called it a JoAnne meeting. They said it was ego when I announced the group. It was called "The Freedom of Recovery." A guy with supposedly 50 years in AA tried to get the group closed. We ordered more meeting lists than all the other meetings combined, about 40 if I am not mistaken. We had newcomers, people from two recovery houses and the people did not come out and support it for the first two years it was going. It was really sad. I had to go to General Service and talk about the group. We had 2-22 people there. It was in a 2nd floor apartment and we had a big meeting room, a kitchen, and a room to do one on ones with people who were hurting. We had a balcony to go out on to smoke. We had 7 meetings in 6 days. The group was registered with New York and they gave us literature to get started. The home group night was Saturday night. We had Big Book discussion Monday and Thursday. 12 & 12 on Tuesday and Friday. Friday night we had a 12 Promises meeting. They complained about that saying it wasn't AA approved literature we used. They were written by the man who wrote the little black book 24 Hours, which most old timers used for their own meditation. On Wednesday and Saturday, we had topic discussion. I turned the group over to two other people and went back to school. Unfortunately, they closed it. I did not live in the area and didn't know or I would have kept it going.
If that is EGO, so be it! Easing God Out, I don't think so. The group kept afloat in spite of all the criticism. People would walk into the group, thinking I was holding the meetings in my home (that was the rumor going around), and I would say, "I don't live in this building, I live next door." They would say, "What floor do you live on," or "Oh, I was told that you were holding meetings in your home." I am so glad we survived, gossip is a real killer. It almost drove me out of AA. I needed my sobriety, so I couldn't let others dictate my recovery.
I know I had ego when I came in. I enjoyed getting to read the longest Step or Tradition when they were passed around the room. I liked to put my 2 cents in and then I learned I wasn't suppose to cross talk. I had people disagree with me and I would say, "How can you disagree, you were not there, you didn't walk in my shoes." I learned people have a right to their opinion and just possibly, he had been in the same situations and he had some kind of enlightenment that I didn't receive.
There was a guy who always started his share with, "Keep an open mind." In truth it was an ego thing. He relapsed at 22 years sober after being in a relationship with a girl half his age. She stayed sober to the best of my knowledge.
We don't have a right to play God with someone else's life.
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Post by caressa222 on Sept 2, 2020 21:15:09 GMT -5
EGO - Easing God Out.
PRIDE - One of the 7 deadly sins.
They needed to be changed within me in order to recover.
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. I will be back looking for Lin and others.