“These are our times and our responsibilities. Every human being has a
sacred duty to protect the welfare of our Mother Earth, from whom all life
comes. In order to do this, we must recognize the enemy - the one within us. We
must begin with ourselves..."
Leon
Shenandoah Onondaga
Selfishness--self-centeredness!
That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear,
self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows
and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but
we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based
on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt.
So
our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They arise out of
ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot,
though he usually doesn't think so. Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid
of this selfishness. We must or it kills us! God makes that possible. And
there often seems no way of entirely getting rid of self without His aid. Many
of us had moral and philosophical convictions galore, but we could not live up
to them even though we would have liked to. Neither could we reduce our
self-centeredness much by wishing or trying on our own power. We had to have
God's help.
Big
Book pg. 62
Grandfather, today let me realize my greatest enemy is within me.