Status Quo
By Judy F.
“Yet how many of us, for example, would presume to declare, “Well, I’m sober and I’m happy. What more can I want, or do? I’m find the way I am.” We know that the price of such self-satisfaction is an inevitable backslide, punctuated at some point by a very rude awakening. We have to grow or else deteriorate. For us “status quo” can only be for today, never for tomorrow. Change we must; we cannot stand still.
Language of the Heart Bill W. “Shape of Things to Come” February 1961
I have been talking a lot about it being “my turn in the barrel” and my spiritual disconnect and even though this article by Bill was actually referring to A.A. and the fear he had in what A.A. would look like down the road in another 25 years he used our own personal sobriety as an example of the danger in the “status quo, I’m fine” attitude.
I have gone back to Bill’s letter on Emotional Sobriety and he never mentioned that it was the activity in A.A. that helped us develop real maturity and balance and it wasn’t the demands placed on people and circumstances. Bill found that his depression lifted when he was “living and practicing” the words of St. Francis.
If you’re new to AA or an oldster, I have to remember I was never promised that if I put down the drink the rest of my life would be a “walk in the park.” I have had other tuff times in sobriety and know this too shall pass. I have the tools I need and I have to keep using them.
One day, when I tell my story of how I overcame what I’m going through it will become some one else’s survival guide – and after all isn’t that what AA is all about.