Happiness and Joy

We talk a lot in meetings about both happiness and joy, but we often fail to distinguish the two.  I hear a lot of people telling their stories saying things like "I could never be happy but now, in AA, I am."  I can understand not being able to experience much, if any happiness while drinking, especially in the later stages of alcoholism.  But being happy, while certainly not a bad thing, is not the point.  Happiness is bestowed by the world and like other things bestowed by the world (power, wealth, popularity...) it is transitory.  Circumstances can give it and circumstances can take it away.

Joy is different.  Joy is not a momentary rush, like happiness, but is an underlying bass line to your life.  Joy is a gift of the spirit and a measure of spiritual growth.  It is the product of humility leading to love.  It is the experience, the knowledge (not just the transitory feeling) that we are a part of something much greater.  As long as we maintain our spiritual health it is with us.  Like any other gift, we can squander it -- and damage our spiritual health -- but once attained it is ours to throw away.  The world can't touch it.
We often say the feelings are not facts, and that is certainly true.  Happiness is a feeling; joy is a fact.