Made Possible by Alcoholics Like You
By Vanessa H.
Seeing that “aspirations” was the theme for the February 2023 issue of The Point, my mind immediately went to the bridge of the Reading Rainbow theme song.
If you aren’t a late Gen X-er or early Millennial, you may not be familiar with the lyrics, but it’s fun to read them and think about how they can apply to A.A.:
“I can go anywhere
Friends to know
And ways to grow
A reading rainbow
I can be anything
Take a look
It’s in a book
A reading rainbow”
By taking a look at the process outlined in our Big Book and Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, I learned how to ask for help, how to put my faith in a Higher Power of my own understanding and how to build honest friendships. I can go anywhere with my head held high. I am no longer living under the insane delusion that I can drink like normal people.
Our Program and the literature can sometimes seem scary to the newcomers because of the idea of coming to believe in a Higher Power (also sometimes called God). But it’s difficult to be restored to sanity and achieve some of your true aspirations if you don’t accept that there is some kind of force bigger than you at play in this world.
It may be helpful to think of God as an acronym: Good Orderly Direction, Great OutDoors, Grace Over Drama, Group of Drunks. The beauty of A.A. is that there is no rule that we must all believe in the same conception of a Higher Power. You get to come to believe in a Higher Power of your understanding that you can turn your will over to. And as the 12×12 says, dependence upon the Higher Power of our own understanding actually makes us more independent—free to live a life of true happiness and serenity.
Your life as you know it can be radically transformed by A.A. Things that did not seem possible before can become realities. You will see the Ninth Step promises come true. But, as they used to say on every episode of Reading Rainbow, “you don’t have to take my word for it!”
PS: Apologies to anyone who may have the theme song stuck in their head now.
