Posted by Larry Hoover on November 20, 2005, at 12:17:31
In reply to Re: attraction rather than promotion » Larry Hoover, posted by alexandra_k on November 19, 2005, at 15:01:54
> > After saying all that I said, I remembered this line from one of the readings, "Who is an Addict". "We are people in the grip of a continuing and progressive illness whose ends are always the same: jails, institutions and death."
>
> Yeah. I heard that one maybe... 3 or 4 or 5 times a day in drug treatment. We had 3 or 4 meetings per day.Good god!
> And group therapy was all about working through the therapists interpretation of 'the literature'. I should say that that particular program... Was closed down not too long after I went...
Thank god!
> >> What on earth does confessing your sins to god have to do with your recovery?
>
> > Not to god. In front of god. It's intended to promote sincerity.
>
> Hmm. Could there be an alternative way to say that that that doesn't mention god? I mean... I considered... I had to give up my sincerety in order to do the step... By lying to myself...Of course, you have to abide by your moral self. Where there is a contradiction between the literal description of a step, and the belief system of the stepper, the literal wording must fail.
I'm sure you could come up with a phrase, that when uttered, made clear that you would only speak the truth. The step only matters, and only works what it is intended to do, if the stepper believes him/herself.
> > Question: Do you have a spirit?
>
> Well now... It all depends on what you mean by 'spirit' Larry Hoover.
>
> I am composed of cells. Trillions and trillions of cells. And cells are made up of elements, as I'm sure you know.
>
> There isn't any non-physical soul stuff in my periodic table of elements, so if thats what you mean by spirit...
>
> ;-)So, you're a sack of chemicals, performing stunts (like typing words on the Internet). And that stunt production may discontinue at some point, and you'll be buried. Something like that?
I was wondering how you would manage spiritual growth. It kind of, but not necessarily, presupposes a spirit. It all gets down to definitions, I guess.
> Yeah. I'm okay :-)
> How are you doing?I'm going through one of the hardest stretches of my life. Given that, I suppose I'm okay.
I'm not even clear yet on just what are the issues at hand. Some are abundantly clear (the pain, and the meds for it), but the existence of the pain makes it hard to sort out the rest.
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:575263
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/subs/20051106/msgs/580604.html