Pain Is a Useful Commodity

NO ONE LIKES pain or willingly embraces it (unless he be a saint or mentally ill) and yet from a little temporary lull, a small plateau of momentary serenity, I can look back over a few short years of AA sobriety and clearly see that every gain I have made has been purchased with a very humiliating and sometimes brutal pain. Not physical, not emotional in the sense of loss or pity for others. . .the pain I am speaking of is the pain of my ego, the pain to my self-esteem. It is a difficult pain to isolate and it is always there waiting to engage me.