On Honesty

BY: DON MCF. | BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA

I FIND that being “rigorously honest” is not always easy. The paths through the jungle of our money society, in which I earn my daily bread, are set with a lot of materialistic traps that make it quite difficult. Even complete honesty with myself is not always possible. There are too many occasions on which I am uncertain as to what the absolutely honest answer might be.

Maybe our ability to be honest with ourselves, or anyone else, depends upon our ability to be humble. Our Big Book and the “Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions” tell us our honesty will be in direct proportion to our humility, and that the basic ingredient of all humility is a desire to seek and do God’s will, not our own. So if I’m to make honesty, tolerance and true love of man and God my daily bases of living, I must frequently throughout the day think and say, “Thy will be done–Let go and let God,” and then do just that.

I hope to develop enough humility to be courteously respectful of other people’s feeling and opinions, and to have a modest sense of my own significance. I pray that I can obtain sufficient humility and honesty with myself so that I can stay sober; so I don’t have to stumble and fall and slip, in and out of AA. I can at least keep trying.