“Accept everything as it is.”
Musashi
So hard…it is so hard to accept people who are mean to you but I know if I hope to have any peace in my life I have to try.
I went to a meeting this morning that I don’t usually go to. They read this out loud as part of the intro - I was asked to read it and it was so profound as it was just what I needed to start my day.
It’s quoted a lot around the rooms. I must have read it 1000 times in my first couple of months. I really like the “and nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God’s world by mistake”.
It’s a great story in the back of the big book if you have never read it. It’s called Acceptance is the Answer. Around page 414. What’s funny about that story is in the 2nd and 3rd edition of the B.B. it was called
“Doctor, Drugs and Alcohol”. They changed it to the Acceptance is the answer in the 4th edition
This is true, but you have to remember, people show us who they are, and often, it’s not what we want them or wish for them to be. I’ve wasted so much energy trying to get people to be something they’re not, and now I just accept that they are mean, selfish, etc., and rather than sit there and be abused, I walk away or otherwise remove them from my life. They can be mean all they like, just not to me.
Probably one of the most important components to my sobriety.
Acceptance doesn’t come quickly for me but it happens faster than before.
Yup. Accepting that I was an alcoholic was when everything changed for me.
An alcoholic by definition is somebody that has lost the ability to control and enjoy their drinking. So by accepting that is what I am, I didn’t have to fight anymore. I was able to surrender that fight.