I could have sent them my picture, and though I don’t have even one self portrait, they could have not have even bothered asking a question, but could have made a statement. Most of us could have done the same thing.
I always remember the story of Narcissus. The myth descibes him as a most beautiful young man. So beautiful, that others were always remarking on just how beautiful he was. He was full of himself. He had a young girlfriend named Echo. She too was beautiful, but he had no time for her. She died, pineing away for him. The ancient Greeks believed that when they were alone in a woods or a great hall, could call out and hear her voice come back to them in her grief. Anyway, young Narcissus, was going by a deep pool one day and glimpsed his reflection in the pool. He knelt down and looked at his reflection and was so enamored by what he saw that he fell in and drowned.
Me too. I almost drowned in a sea of alcohol.
I have a friend up here, who frequently says that “I’m not much, but I’m all I think about.”
The BB says that our problem is our selfishness and self centeredness. It tells us that we must be done with these things or they will kill us. Pretty harsh words. It also tells us that a lifetime of self centeredness and selfishness will not go away overnight. Our job is cut out for us.
This kind of egocentricity makes us heirs to a lot of trouble. It can convince me that I’m always right. It can lead me to think that it’s everyone else’s fault but mine. It can cut me off from others by making me believe that I don’t need help and I can do it myself. It can give me the delusion that I have a direct pipeline to God and let me live above the crowd. From this place I can look down on those less than myself. It can also lead me to a pool of alcohol into which I will fall and drown.
When I came in, I was so self centered that I suffered from paranoia. I was sure that people in a corner talking and laughing were centered on me. I had a hard time even entering the rooms at times, because I was sure eveyone was looking at me. Sandy B. was right, when he said that if we wanted to cause someone great suffeing we should pray for them to become self centered.
The only cure for this is ego deflation in depth. The old timers used to confront people like me and knock their socks off. Things like telling us to shut up and take the cotton out of our ears and shove it in our mouth and listen. Of course, there is always the first step, and the humbling process of having to admit complete defeat.
And then we’re told that it is only a small step toward achieving humility. That there is more and more to be done, if we want to stay sober.
I was told to learn to say “I could be wrong and you might be right.” How objectionable to my ego that was. I was to repeat it to myself over and over until I could speak it to others. And how often I gave others the opportunity to prick my baloon and deflate me. A lot. I was often challenged by these old timers on the truth of my statements. And as deflating as this process was, I always came back, because the fatality of that first drink was waiting right outside the doors. I couldn’t go back, because I didn’t want to drink again.
Of course the process of working these twelve steps was perfect for me. There is a natural progression of self revelation removing the layers of a lifetime of self involvement a step at a time.
Then there’s the lifetime of beginning to believe that there is something greater than myself in this universe, who can do for me what I could never do for myself. The first is the belief that He could remove this curse of alcohol out of my life. That I could never do. Then there was the process of having to believe that others could help and having to go to them and ask for help. Before that I wouldn’t even ask for directions when I was lost.
I have grown to love all of this. Imagine. A lifetime of self ceteredness being converted into a life centered on God and others. A small price to pay for all this freedom. And yet the echoes of my old self is still there and I have to go to others and be reminded of this everyday lest I forget.