Off the Beam

Grim Death: To hang on like grim death or hang on for grim death means to do something with extreme determination, to hold onto something very firmly.  The idioms hang on like grim death and hang on for grim death appear around 1850, though the term grim death was coined by Shakespeare.

 Step Ten in The Little Red Book . . . 

George A. Dorsey (A 20th Century anthropologist): "Man is something happening all the time; he is a going concern, he makes his rules, revises his formulae and recasts his mould in the act of being and while going.  It is in man's nature that he does not stay put."

Step Four provided us with an inventory that served a definite purpose.  It exposed character defects we formerly refused to recognize - defects that made our lives unmanageable.  They (our founders) knew that new character defects would appear and that many of the old ones would present themselves in disguised form.  It is not unusual to find ourselves off the beam; the idea is to get back on again.

Get off the beam?  Where is the beam?  I don't have a beam.  You guys have a beam?  Did you go to the Beam Store and get one there?  I can't get back on the beam if I don't have a beam in the first place.

My overly simplified take on my own defects is this: many of them were lifted out quickly and completely; some of them took a lot more effort and energy to eradicate; and some of them are hanging in there like Grim Death, refusing to go and coming back again after they've left.  My intolerance for a live A.A. meeting that is obliterating medical protocol, for instance, a circumstance which is absolutely none of my business and over which I have absolutely no control is a perfect example.  In cases like this I have to remember that the process is for me to be"entirely ready" to have my defects removed.  There's no guarantee that my Higher Power is going to do so.  My Higher Power apparently has a plan for me that includes allowing some of my defects to hang on and fester a bit, reminding me always that I'm a work in progress, that dealing with my defects can help me grow and change.