Today at the meeting, I could see and feel what Bill had said in the 6th step in the 12&12. The man, who had brought up the subject, was sitting right in front of me. He had lost his leg in surgery and had no forgiveness for the surgeon, who had removed it. He claimed the surgeon was on drugs at the time and apparently was also a member of the program. It was obvious that he had an abiding resentment and anger at this person. As he said, he would not only never forgive this man, but he would never help any alcoholic.
I couldn’t help but think of what Bill had said in that step about saying, this I will never give up. Tom had warned me about saying the word “never”. He said the minute we start saying never, we’re almost doomed to go down.
I guess I must have been using that word a lot. After his repeated warnings, I started to stop using that word. I didn’t want to end up drinking again. I must have said that I would never drink again.
But, when it comes to something like anger and resentment and I’ll never forgive this person, it could be fatal. That’s almost exactly what Bill says. To delay could be fatal. He said we needed to change the word “never” to maybe someday I’ll be able to give this up. I told this to the man and I could see he wasn’t having any part of it. My feeling was that he was setting himself up for a drink. That’s where never takes us.
I was listening to Sandy B. this afternoon, when he was talking about the 6th step. He said, on first reading it seemed so simple. I think we all felt that way. I know that I did. What was the old joke? Not so fast, my friend.
But, I was in and out of it in no time at all. Six months later I realized that I hadn’t even scratched the surface. How did I know this? Because my life was more unmanageable than it was before. My anger, my resentments, my everything was all over the place. I was nearly out of control. I needed help fast and I knew it.
I harp a lot on sponsorship, but this was so important at this time. Although I wasn’t conciously thinking of a drink, I think I was aware on some level that this was a possibility. It was at this time that I could identify what Bill was talking about loving our defects too much. I became aware of how much I loved anger. How much I enjoyed my resentments. How much I was attracted to self pity. I used to wallow in it for days and even weeks.
How was I ever going to be able to let go of this stuff?
My sponsor, Tom, told me that I needed to read a part of the BB, where it said that we were as powerless over our anger as we were our alcohol. Talk about dread. Then Tom told me that I had to treat anger like the alcohol. I had to work the steps on anger. I began to see that this was true of almost every character defect in my life.
But first I had to learn just how powerless I was. Up to that point, I had been trying to remove my character defects myself. I was trying to do all the heavy lifting. I was climbing up hill and I had no strength. I had run out of steam. Like the 4th chapter said, lack of power that was my dilemma. I needed a power greater than myself to empower me.
There was a club at that time, which posted a great big sign with something like 50 character defects. I remember sitting there and reading that and coming to believe that I had everyone of them. I was exhausted just looking at that. But, I knew that something had to be done or I would drink again sometime in the future.
It was the first time that I began to understand the meaning of the Serenity Prayer. What was my job and what was God’s. In the 6th step I was to learn that I had the power to keep my mouth shut and it was God’s job to remove the cause. I was also to learn how useful my character defects were. I had so many, that I would have to spend the rest of my life so busy dealing with them that I hardly had time to be thinking about a drink. They became more valuable to me than any asset I could possibly have.
They’re still with me. I fail often. But, I have at least learned that there is a solution. God could and would if He was sought. But, I still need the people to give me a hand and some answers when I stumble and get lost once again.