I was reminded this morning, again, of the tenth step in the 12&12. I got a call from a good friend, who had just gone through some very rough stuff. He said that he went to meetings, talked to others, didn’t take a drink, and stayed sober.
That’s the opening line of the tenth step. Can we stay sober, keep in emotional balance, and live to good purpose under any and all conditions? Can we meet calamity with serenity? The answer is obviously yes. But it comes with a cost.
The first price is our surrender to our being powerless over alcohol. There used to be a saying around the program, when I first came in that I treasure. If you can’t remember your last drunk, you may not have had it yet. At least I remember mine in fine detail. That was the convincer. The hammer. It ended all arguments I had that I could drink anymore. I was finished once and for all. Alcohol had brought me down to defeat. It was my master and I its slave. I came into the program and could do no more than admit to the first step. There was no question of surrender. What a liberating conviction. It was the beginning of freedom from bondage.
The second cost was in willingness. I had come in with a life that was self will run riot. I found out that I had to harness this rebellion within me, but how was I to do that? The fourth chapter in the BB laid it out for me. It told me that I lacked the necessary power to do this. Then it told me the solution. I had to find a power greater than myself, which could empower me to live this life. I could become willing to live a spiritual life or die an alcoholic death. I had already faced the latter and come to the brink, I couldn’t go back. I somehow had to find a way to achieve emotional balance in my life or perish.
Here was the crossroads that the fifth chapter talked about; the turning point. I was already fumbling my way through beginning to try to put this program into action. Then, something happened. My first sponsor went back out and drank again. He died as a result of this. I was not yet two years sober. I witnessed the whole process he went through. At his funeral, there were just three of us from the program. The man, who was to become my sponsor, his wife, and myself. This man, Tom L. turned to me and said that I now had a choice. I could follow my first sponsor, or I could get sober and stay sober. I was desperate. I said I would choose to stay sober. He then asked me what lengths I was willing to go to achieve this. I replied I was willing to go to any lengths.
There were to be a lot of bumps in the road, but I finally arrived at the tenth and elventh steps. The tenth told me that I was at the point where sanity had returned. The eleventh told me that the first fruits of meditation was emotional balance. At this point, Tom said to me that I was to think with my head and not my heart. Meditation taught me that I could place sentries around my heart and mind, so that humand emotions would not rush the gates and overwhelm me. For the most part this has happened. Not always, because I have a quick forgetter.
Another old timer would remind me that the AA way of life was ephemeral. Any distance away from this way of life and it would begin to fade away. There have been times, when this has proved to be the case. I need always be in touch with others to remind me of where the path is and to keep my feet on it at all times.
The third cost is in the last part of the twelfth step. I had to begin to learn how to get along with others. This was to prove to be the toughest proposition of all. I really didn’t know how. I never had. I was a person, who for all purposes had been given a free pass all my life. Others had enabled me under the guise of me being a nice guy. Nothing could be further from the truth. A quick reading of the fourth step in the 12&12 told me what was wrong. It describes me to a tee. The paragraph that describes our inability to form true partnerships with other human beings and its causes and what must be done is my story. This was going to be the longest and hardest part of the journey to stay sober and achieve the happiness promised us. To live to good purpose under any and all conditions. It’s a daily process.
I was so glad to get that long distance phone call today. It gave me encourgement and hope. It reminded me that I too could stay sober, if I put this program into action, with God’s help and the help of the people who walk with me on this road.