I first got told about the three As of program over 15 years ago but I discovered recently that I wasn’t using them. I am so good at forgetting the basics in this program, of ignoring what works for me. I think that is how my disease tries to trick me into succumbing to it.
Recently I have been stumbling over my fears, especially my fear of financial insecurity. Trying to focus on a way through it I decided to do a fear inventory. I used a sheet based on the Big Book inventory way. The inventory flowed and I felt like I was crossing off the awareness and action in one swift go. Then the next night I had the biggest fight with my partner about money, an argument that was the result of a complete over-reaction on my part and a response to my fears.
The strength of my anger about his action with money shocked me. Instinctively I am not sure what to with fear, and often resort to my old childhood friend of anger. It worked for me when I was little as the anger made me feel protected and safe, but as an adult it fails me.
I realised I had failed to accept my fears. I had intellectually been fighting them and refusing to truly acknowledge their role in my behaviour. My awareness was fine, but there was dishonesty in it. I didn’t feel I should have those fears, so I was denying their true impact on my life, denying to myself how strongly I held the fears. I was telling myself if I truly believed in my HP I would not be so fearful about anything.
That might be true, but in denying my fears I can’t shift them. It is in accepting I have these fears that I am able to give them to my HP. It is only my HP who can relieve me of my fears. Experience shows me over and over again that my fears (and resentments) are not relieved until I truly accept them.
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