Oct. 25, 2012 - Just for Today

Just for Today
Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012

"God has abundantly supplied this world with fine doctors, psychologists and practitioners of various kinds. Do not hesitate to take your health problems to such persons. Most of them give freely of themselves, that their fellows may enjoy sound minds and bodies. Try to remember that though God has wrought miracles among us, we should never belittle a good doctor or psychiatrist. Their services are often indispensable in treating a newcomer and in following his case afterward." - Alcoholics Anonymous, 3rd Edition, 1976, Ch 9 ("The Family Afterward"), p 133.

Just for today, let me not be discouraged even in sobriety if the Program of AA is not complete enough to treat my physical, emotional or spiritual maladies. The Program was never intended to replace treatments that might be needed for those medical or psychological conditions that preceded alcoholism or developed in sobriety. If clinical depression or bipolar disorder have been ever-present shadows in my life, for example, I may need medication to treat those conditions, and I should not and cannot feel let down if AA does not treat such maladies. The Program was never intended to and, instead, is another facet of the multiple therapies that I might require. As the Program's Big Book points out, alcohol is but a symptom of our underlying problems. And if those problems should be a medical or psychological condition that warrants medical treatment, sobriety will be an elusive payoff if we treat only the symptoms and leave the conditions unattended. And our common journey continues. Just for today. - Chris M., 2012