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AA Way of Life

Before AA my number one goal in life was getting comfortable and staying comfortable. I sought to create a warm cocoon of a life wherein I was protected from all fear and hardship. A life where I could do what I wanted. I decorated my cocoon with as much stuff as I could afford. As my drinking progressed. I found there wasn't room for other people in my cocoon, so I chased them all away. At the end there was only me, my bottle of wine and my remote control. Had I had enough money, I might have stayed in that dirty easy chair, in that dirty apartment surrounded by half-eaten fast food bags until the end.

Today the comfort zone continues to beckon loudly. It is still the biggest threat to my sobriety. Going to the same meetings every week, talking to the same people, saying the same prayers, and sponsoring every newcomer the same way can be indications that I've lapsed into another comfort zone where I 'm living my life largely from habit.

The book tells me that I must continue to "perfect and enlarge" my spiritual condition through work and self-sacrifice or I will drink again. This means to me that I cannot allow myself get into comfortable habits with my sobriety and think that I am living the AA way of life.

Instead I must be willing to reach out to new people, walk through the discomfort of continuous inventory and introspection, volunteer for a new service commitment, seek to be of service outside of AA in my community and the world at large and constantly work at better balance between body, mind and spirit. This to me is the AA way of life.