I also know that being sober isn't enough. Not drinking is probably the easiest part. I don't think my life would have changed much if I had only stopped drinking. What made the difference was getting involved with my spirituality, picking up the pipe and our traditional ways.

Walking Elk  Santee

 

 

We have learned that whatever the human frailties of various faiths may be, those faiths have given purpose and direction to millions. People of faith have a logical idea of what life is all about. Actually, we used to have no reasonable conception whatever. We used to amuse ourselves by cynically dissecting spiritual beliefs and practices when we might have observed that many spiritually-minded persons of all races, colors, and creeds were demonstrating a degree of stability, happiness and usefulness which we should have sought ourselves.

Instead, we looked at the human defects of these people, and sometimes used their shortcomings as a basis of wholesale condemnation. We talked of intolerance, while we were intolerant ourselves. We missed the reality and the beauty of the forest because we were diverted by the ugliness of some of its trees. We never gave the spiritual side of life a fair hearing.

Big Book  pgs. 49 & 50

 

 

 

The spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it.

Big Book  pg. 83

 

  

 

 

Great Mystery remind us that what we really have is a daily reprieve contingent upon our spiritual condition.