We are indeed a fortunate lot in AA.  The reasons that most of us feel that way are returning to health and sanity, resuming productive employment, regaining the respect and love of friends and family, and enjoying a genuine camaraderie in AA gatherings in ways at least I had never known. Although we weren’t looking for it, we gained something else as well-the beginning of a spiritual pathway that gradually takes over our lives.

But all of this doesn’t come without the threat of an instant return to our insufferable old lives if we pick up the first drink.  Like the famous story of Damocles where the courtier is jealous of King Dionysius’s seemingly perfect life.  Damocles trades places for a day and is treated to a lavish setting, a spectacular buffet, and servants to answer his every whim.  There was only one catch: the famous sword suspended by a single horsehair directly over his head.  The King puts Damocles under it to demonstrate his own existence’s fragility even though he is the King.   As the allegory goes, Damocles is so filled with fear at the prospect of being skewered by the sword he begs to be removed and restored to his previous position as a lowly courtier.

This is the position we are in as members of AA. “It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. We are headed for trouble if we do, for alcohol is a subtle foe. What we have is a Daily Reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition” P 70. Big Book. Unlike the Damocles story, it’s the Daily Reprieve instead of the single horsehair keeping us from inevitable disaster.  Having our resentments, self-pity, and guilt removed through the current identification of character defects and making amends, the connection to the Higher Power we rely upon is there for us when we need it.  Our fears and anxieties subside, and we can even know the “Peace that passes all understanding” of Biblical fame.

Although we would never choose a predicament that puts our sobriety at such grave risk, I contend that we are lucky to be in it.  When we finally grasp our dilemma as lack of power over alcohol, we must have our Daily Reprieve and, in doing so naturally grow along spiritual lines which the Big Book calls spiritual progress, not spiritual perfection.