Spiritual and Material Progress
With Gratitude May 26
“For us, material well-being always followed spiritual progress; it never preceded.”
-Alcoholics Anonymous p. 127
While working in early sobriety became a very important part of my program of practicing these principles in all of my affairs, I didn’t make much money and was in a very bad financial mess. Because my job was as a wedding chapel assistant and not as a teacher at that time, I really had a chance to keep throwing myself into AA the way I did for the first two months of my sobriety before I was working. This was a very good thing. My sole focus was my program.
I had just enough money to get by and no money for extras. God knew exactly what he was doing. If I had had material success, I would not have been so very desperate for the program. This small job allowed me to go to meetings every day and work my steps. It was a very simple equation that worked very well.
My spiritual progress was developing at a slow and steady rate. It took years of financial problems before my material well-being started to catch up. I have seen many in the program fall victim to the allure of material success—making money and more money. I have seen this happen to men and women. They work themselves to death and stop going to meetings. Then they lose their sobriety, sanity, or both.
Today’s Prayer
God, you know exactly what order I need to live my life in. I am grateful that you kept me so humble and so desperate those first years of sobriety. I am grateful for the program I have today because of it.
Happy Memorial Day, Readers! Summer is here! This summer I will be working on two more books that I plan to publish by the end of the year, even possibly by the end of this summer. They will be shorter, topical books on aspects of recovery. If you have any topics you would like me to cover, please add them to the comments below or respond to this email post. Also, I am planning to add guest writings for the books. Please respond to your inbox email if you may want to contribute your experience, strength, and hope through the A.A. or Al-Anon programs in these books. The only thing I ask is that your writing be original and not created by AI. Finally, I am looking for cover art for both books. These should be original photographs or artwork that can be saved as a .jpeg or .png file. The photo on the cover of With Gratitude was actually taken by a sponsee who lives in Southampton, England and is of the English Channel. All submissions used in the book will receive credit by first name and last initial (if desired).
-Jamey M.