On the way to realizing the promises in the ninth step, Tom would always say to me something that would later help me to achieve peace of mind. He would tell me to be content with what I had. Never satisfied, he told me, but to be content.
That took a long time to sink in. The thinking I came into the program with caused me to always be looking around for more. Eventually it came to me that this kind of thinking was making me restless, irritable, and discontent. Fertile ground for the seeds to go back to drinking.
Part of what he told me related to living in the now; just for today. He helped me realize how dissatisfied I really was with my life. He showed me how unhappy this way of thinking made me. It was about this time he began to describe the alcoholic. He would always tell me that the alcoholic was immature, insecure, and oversensitive.&n!
bsp; I had to be rid of these things and grow up. I had to be able to mature mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
This is where the “God hole” came in. He and others told me that I had been trying to fill up the abyss within in me with people and things. He made me realize that no matter how many people and things I threw into that “hole” that I would never even make a dent. I would always be lonely and bereft of comfort. Like the 12&12 describes our bottom; we were struck down and left in terrifying loneliness. Like Sandy B. said, all he needed, when he came in was a two thousand dollar loan. He said he didn’t see a two thousand dollar loan in the steps.
I learned from Tom and the people in the rooms that this hole within in me could only be filled from the inside. That’s why he kept insisting that I read the fourth chapter in the Big Book. I had resisted doing! this for a long time, because I thought I already knew what an agnostic was and that I wasn’t one of them. When I fianlly surrendered to his directions, I learned otherwise. I learned that I really didn’t have faith, nor a God of my understanding.
When I did start to want to have God in my life and to do God’s will for me, the hole began to fill. The loneliness and the fear began to recede. The more I surrendered, the more I accepted, the more full I became. I began to be content. I began to achieve peace of mind. All this, when I began to put the steps into action in my life. I began to realize what Fred said in the BB; that just as important was the fact that the application of spiritual principles would solve all my problems.
All this I learned was going to be a lifetime process a day at a time. I’m still in process.
I w! as reminded of this yesterday, when I received an email from a friend. He described a prayer of thanksgiving he said daily. “God, thank you for everything you have given me, thank you for everything you have taken away from me, and thank you for everything you have left me.”
Simple. Enough said.
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