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Just For Today

Up Or Down

'This is our road to spiritual growth. We change every day.... This growth is not the result of wishing but of action and prayer.'

Basic Text, p. 35-36

Our spiritual condition is never static; if it's not growing, it's decaying. If we stand still, our spiritual progress will lose its upward momentum. Gradually, our growth will slow, then halt, then reverse itself. Our tolerance will wear thin; our willingness to serve others will wane; our minds will narrow and close. Before long, we'll be right back where we started: in conflict with everyone and everything around us, unable to bear even ourselves.

Our only option is to actively participate in our program of spiritual growth. We pray, seeking knowledge greater than our own from a Power greater than ourselves. We open our minds and keep them open, becoming teachable and taking advantage of what others have to share with us. We demonstrate our willingness to try new ideas and new ways of doing things, experiencing life in a whole new way. Our spiritual progress picks up speed and momentum, driven by the Higher Power we are coming to understand better each day.

Up or down - it's one or the other, with very little in between, where spiritual growth is concerned. Recovery is not fueled by wishing and dreaming, we've discovered, but by prayer and action.

Just for today: The only constant in my spiritual condition is change. I cannot rely on yesterday's program. Today, I seek new spiritual growth through prayer and action.

pg. 238

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The Perfect High

The Perfect High - Shell Silverstein

There once was a boy named Gimmesome Roy. He was nothing like me or you. 'Cause laying back and getting high was all he cared to do. As a kid, he sat in the cellar, sniffing airplane glue. And then he smoked bananas -- which was then the thing to do. He tried aspirin in Coca-Cola, breathed helium on the sly, And his life was just one endless search to find that perfect high. But grass just made him want to lay back and eat chocolate-chip pizza all night, And the great things he wrote while he was stoned looked like shit in the morning light. And speed just made him rap all day, reds just laid him back, And Cocaine Rose was sweet to his nose, but the price nearly broke his back. He tried PCP and THC, but they didn't quite do the trick, And poppers nearly blew his heart and mushrooms made him sick. Acid made him see the light, but he couldn't remember it long. And hashish was just a little too weak, and smack was a lot too strong, And Quaaludes made him stumble, and booze just made him cry, Till he heard of a cat named Baba Fats who knew of the perfect high.

Now, Baba Fats was a hermit cat who lived up in Nepal, High on a craggy mountaintop, up a sheer and icy wall. "But hell," says Roy, "I'm a healthy boy, and I'll crawl or climb or fly, But I'll find that guru who'll give me the clue as to what's the perfect high." So out and off goes Gimmesome Roy to the land that knows no time, Up a trail no man could conquer to a cliff no man could climb. For fourteen years he tries that cliff, then back down again he slides Then sits -- and cries -- and climbs again, pursuing the perfect high. He's grinding his teeth, he's coughing blood, he's aching and shaking and weak, As starving and sore and bleeding and tore, he reaches the mountain peak. And his eyes blink red like a snow-blind wolf, and he snarls the snarl of a rat, As there in perfect repose and wearing no clothes -- sits the godlike Baba Fats.

"What's happening, Fats?" says Roy with joy, "I've come to state my biz. I hear you're hip to the perfect trip. Please tell me what it is. For you can see," says Roy to he, "that I'm about to die, So for my last ride, Fats, how can I achieve the perfect high?" "Well, dog my cats!" says Baba Fats. "here's one more burnt-out soul, Who's looking for some alchemist to turn his trip to gold. But you won't find it in no dealer's stash, or on no druggist's shelf. Son, if you would seek the perfect high -- find it in yourself."

"Why, you jive motherfucker!" screamed Gimmesome Roy, "I've climbed through rain and sleet, I've lost three fingers off my hands and four toes off my feet! I've braved the lair of the polar bear and tasted the maggot's kiss. Now, you tell me the high is in myself. What kind of shit is this? My ears 'fore they froze off," says Roy, "had heard all kind of crap, But I didn't climb for fourteen years to listen to that sophomore rap. And I didn't crawl up here to hear that the high is on the natch, So you tell me where the real stuff is or I'll kill your guru ass!"

"Ok, OK," says Baba Fats, "you're forcing it out of me. There is a land beyond the sun that's known as Zaboli. A wretched land of stone and sand where snakes and buzzards scream, And in this devil's garden blooms the mystic Tzu-Tzu tree. And every ten years it blooms one flower as white as the Key West sky, And he who eats of the Tzu-Tzu flower will know the perfect high. For the rush comes on like a tidal wave and it hits like the blazing sun. And the high, it lasts a lifetime and the down don't ever come. But the Zaboli land is ruled by a giant who stands twelve cubits high. With eyes of red in his hundred heads, he waits for the passers-by. And you must slay the red-eyed giant, and swim the River of Slime, Where the mucous beasts, they wait to feast on those who journey by. And if you survive the giant and the beasts and swim that slimy sea, There's a blood-drinking witch who sharpens her teeth as she guards that Tzu-Tzu tree." "To hell with your witches and giants," laughs Roy. "To hell with the beasts of the sea. As long as the Tzu-Tzu flower blooms, some hope still blooms for me." And with tears of joy in his snow-blind eye, Roy hands the guru a five, Then back down the icy mountain he crawls, pursuing that perfect high.

"Well, that is that," says Baba Fats, sitting back down on his stone, Facing another thousand years of talking to God alone. "It seems, Lord", says Fats, "it's always the same, old men or bright-eyed youth, It's always easier to sell them some shit than it is to give them the truth."

The Twelve Steps		The Twelve Traditions
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable. 2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. 7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptlym admitted it. 11. Sought though prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.		1. Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon A.A. unity. 2. For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority - a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern. 3. The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking. 4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or A.A. as a whole. 5. Each group has but one primary purpose - to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers. 6. An A.A. group ought never endorse, finance or lend the A.A. name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary purpose. 7. Every A.A. group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions. 8. Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may employ special workers. 9. A.A., as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve. 10. Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the A.A. name ought never be drawn into public controversy. 11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio and films. 12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.