Prior to arriving at realization of the “Promises” in the ninth step, I never really noticed what my state of mind was. All I knew was that I was always laboring with the process of arriving at decisions I felt I needed to make. It was like the character in Dante’s Inferno, who was condemned to push a huge boulder up hill, only to see it roll back down and having to do it over and over again. What was missing was intuition. When, finally, I began to get the rubbish in my life out of the way, I slowly began to realize what this intuition was all about.
First of all, it’s about the beginning of the spiritual awakening. By that I mean, this is the beginning of the restoration of sanity talked about in the second step. The suspension of the mental obsession. The neutralization of that way of thinking. But it’s more than that. Like Jung said, it’s the complete reversal of our attitudes and motivations for doing things. The psychic change talked about by Silkworth and Jung. A gradual change in personality.
What I was thinking about was a young woman, who talked about needing to make a decision concerning her livelihood. As she talked you could see how she was wrestling with this problem. I was just like that. Wrestling.
It reminded me of my attitude toward approaching the steps. The wondering what I was going to get out of the process, when I eventually got around to doing it. Tom settled that for me, when he told me I would see after I worked the step. I was going to get what I was going to get and not before. That was me. Always mentally arguing and trying to figure things out. Analyzing everything.
As I sat there, a story came to mind. It was about a man in ancient times, who was fascinated by the wonder of the Sun. Everyday he would go out and sit in the Sun, trying to figure out what the Sun was made of and what made it work. He would sit there staring up at it all day. The result was that he was struck blind. We’re the same way. Without the intuitive faculty being opened up to us, we are left on our own to wander around blindly. We become a victim of our feelings. Tom once told me that was one of my problems. He told me that I thought I was an intellectual, but the truth was that I was a victim of my feelings. He said I was like a blind man, feeling my way through life. How right he was.
When I began to experience the intuitive process in my life, I no longer had to struggle with things, which formerly baffled me. But, it was only open to me, as long as I was aware of my character defects. Whenever anger, resentment, fear, pride or whatever came back in force, intuition was blocked. That’s where the statement in the BB comes into play, that in spiritual matters it’s dangerous to go it alone. Whether I’m operating on my feelings or even intuition, I need to check it out with someone else. What’s my own thinking and what is it that comes to me from my Higher Power? How would I know? Presumption can often lead to frustration. Frustration can lead to us being blindsided by anger and self pity.
And, what’s this all about? It’s about alcohol. It’s always about that. The bottom line. It’s about living sober. It’s about sober thinking. Always I will be subject to making mistakes. But it’s always about getting help and picking myself up and staying the course. It gets better. It always does. I have to remember that there is a solution. There’s always hope. I wish I could have conveyed this to the woman. But, I could see she was listening to herself. At least that’s the way it appeared to me. But what do I know? Enough not to take a drink.