My Exp.
That is how we react--so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition.

Please remember I mean only to express my experience when I reply to a post. I do not speak for A.A., only for myself. I never mean any ill toward anyones post. I mean only to be part of the discussion about the topic of the post. With this said.....

My spin on this one is that we find this statement and direction in step ten, which suggests we have already worked steps one thru nine. I have found that God's Grace has been given me through inspiration, guidence, and abilities when needed, even before I achieved working all the steps and before all has been found that I need to work on. (A lifetime of working and living the A.A. way of life.)

However;

"We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes." pg. 85 B.B.

I am believing this statement means, it just comes to us during, and because of, the process of, and experience we find through working the first 10 steps. Yes, Grace is a gift, given us without us having to be 'worthy of it'. Yet, I do not believe these freedoms (ceased fighting anything or anyone, reacting sanely & normally, physical compulsion and mental obsession to drink gone) comes with any consistency in our daily lives without the daily practice of the steps.

I did not have the physical compulsion to drink, nor the mental obsession to drink taken away from me without any effort on my part. I did not react sanely and normal in my relationships throughout the day without a lot of work on my part. I still have difficulty with the reacting sanely and whatever normal means throughout my day, hence my need for step 10!!

I believe we really need to have a sponsor to walk through these steps with, and a lot of work, study, and experience before we can understand what some of these phrases mean in the Big Book. Especially when we take them out of the paragraph from which they came, without the language of the paragraphs before and after the the statement we are referring to, we lose a lot of what it is really attempting to be expressed to us.

In my experience we have so many spiritual experiences during the working of each step, with each step building upon the previous step's experience, some of which is spiritual in nature, with the limitted language we have to express spiritual experience with in the first place, it becomes very difficult to express our exact meaning.

So I believe I must be careful in my expression of what I believe the meaning of any part of the Big Book is. I love all the experience we get through the sharing on each post here on D.S.
It is almost better than the meetings I go to physically because we each have time to think and ponder, do some research etc. before we reply to a post, giving us ample time to express our understandings of each. The addition of on-line A.A. in my life has been a God send. I am not able to get away from home to go to outside meetings as much as I was 20 yrs ago. This place saves my butt all the time.
Thanks for all of you who share here and those who keep it up and running daily. I owe you all my life today.

In Love, Light, Truth, & Service,
'Stubborn' TerrieAnn
ralop