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Mr. Ed's Page |
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Recovery Journal Archives: Ed Speaks at the Toronto International AA Conference 2005 (MP3 Audio) Judgement While serving in the military, my semi-annual fitness reports almost always graded me low in the field of judgment. I think that was a gross error on the part of my superiors in rank as I was one of the most judgmental persons you could meet. My judgmentalism and critical observation of others worked perfectly and I should have been rated very high. My desire to be evaluated higher than all others caused me to be very perceptive in discovering the flaws and mistakes of others. After all it was my responsibility to find things that needed corrected and assure that everything be brought up to perfect standards. Upon entering AA I found that this was a character flaw along with my other gross handicaps. I was told that I needed to pursue such despicable aims such as surrender, acceptance and tolerance. The idea that I should tolerate and accept less than perfect performance was distasteful and foreign to my established criteria for success in life. Further more, surrender was a totally unacceptable choice and should not be considered under any circumstances. Sponsors told me that I was one of the sickest people they had encountered in AA and I needed to change not only my way of acting but also my thinking and state of lack of awareness of God's love. I had already dismissed religion as a crutch of superstition that would weaken my subordinates and ridiculed any who would be naïve enough to fall for such an apparent method of control by religious leaders. So it was obvious that my leaders who evaluated me as lacking judgment were suffering under their own misunderstanding and certainly not capable of demanding the standards of excellence that I possessed. Establishing myself as the enforcer and determiner of perfect standards for others was as AA told me "the exact nature of my wrongs by playing God" and I needed to set myself free of such bondage and quit the persecution of self and others. What I began to understand was that this state of mind kept me in constant conflict with others and the frustration of not being able to accomplish my goals of perfection would eventually take me back to drinking. In trying to remain willing to receive new ideas and ways of enacting those ideas needed to come from A Power Greater Than Myself. My solution had to come from a source more intelligent and more loving than my established criteria for life and surrender to that source of power was my only hope. Continuing to be willing to seek the direction and empowerment of a loving source has been my salvation for the last 37 years of life in sobriety and my hope is that I will always remember that the judgment that I held in such high esteem was the implement of pain that made me somewhat willing to be changed along loving ideals of perfection and not the perfectionism that brought me to my knees.
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