June 23, 2022

Acceptance is Not the Answer

6 minutes

Aloha and welcome to episode 28 of the Sobriety Rocks Podcast, today we talk about Acceptance is Not the Answer

Brian Tracy said, The greatest gift that you can give to others is the gift of unconditional love and acceptance.

In A.A. we often hear Dr. Paul’s famous “Acceptance is the answer” paragraph from the Big Book quoted and recited at the end of meetings. If acceptance was the answer to all our problems, recovery would be easy. We wouldn’t have had to go to all the meetings, do all the prayers, meditations, reading, service, self-examination, and making amends.

Many of us had to accept unacceptable behavior from others, and from ourselves just to survive. Alcohol and drugs helped us to rationalize, justify, deny, get through and often times accept what should have been unacceptable conditions and events.

So I say acceptance is not the answer!

Fearlessly and thoroughly going through all twelve steps with a sponsor to uncover, discover and discard all the wreckage from our past, followed by consistent meetings, prayer, meditation, self-examination, and service IS the answer. And when we do that, a new acceptance is one of the many by-products of this new action.

When we take the action, we begin to accept people for who they are, and stop engaging with people who don’t respect our physical, emotional, sexual, material, intellectual, and scheduling boundaries. We also stop accepting our own unacceptable behavior, begin to take action to change it, and find that we're treating ourselves and others much better than we had in years.

As we progress, other wonderful by-products of this new action begin to grow within us including hope, faith, courage, honesty, patience, humility, willingness, brotherly-love, compassion, integrity, authenticity, adaptability, reliability, trustworthiness, authenticity, self-discipline, tolerance, forgiveness, service, peace, freedom, happiness, and love.

So, once again I say, acceptance is not the answer. Fearless, thorough, and consistent 12-step recovery action is the answer!

Here’s to taking the action and having a new acceptance be one of the many wonderful by-products.