Posts Tagged: helping others

“No Regrets? Not Yet.”

On August 31, 2020 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

“If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us—sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.” (Alcoholics Anonymous: The Big Book, pages 83-84)

These are wonderful promises. With some of them, I have already begun to experience their reality. Others, I think I can see from a distance.

But not regretting the past or wishing to shut the door on it? No, I do not experience that promise. I wonder why I don’t? And serenity and peace? Sometimes, yes. Often, not.

Perhaps my problem is that I don’t take seriously enough the following sentence: “No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.” The antidote to regret is using my past to benefit others.

How do I use my past—particularly those parts of the past that I would love to forget but can’t—to benefit others?  One way might be to understand some of my fellow-strugglers’ problems. One of the worst aspects of any struggle is the feeling of aloneness. If I can honestly say to someone who feels isolated and uniquely evil, “No, dear brother/sister, you are not alone,” that may help that person in and of itself. One of the services of all support and recovery groups is the awareness that we are not terminally unique.

There is a saying among us 12-steppers that “when you’re struggling in your own recovery, find someone to help who is worse off than you are.” The word “regret” may come from an Old French word that means “to bewail the dead.” If I’m using my past to help the living, that might help me not to keep on continually bewailing that past.

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