I was contemplating today on something my sponsor passed on to me. He told me that it was going to take everything that I had left, when I came in, plus a little bit more to get sober. Sometimes that thought surfaces, when I need it. Other times it causes me to reflect on what it really takes to be sober. All I had left and a little bit more.
Like most of us, I was pretty much running on empty, when I got here. There wan’t much inside me, except all the junk I had dragged in with me. So, that’s what you people had to work with. Not much. Where was I to get that “plus a little bit more from”?
I found it, believe it or not. It was called desperation and another piece of junk; fear. But this was the good kind. I was afraid to go back to where I had just come from. Amazing how much energy that added to the equation. I knew that I was a goner, if I went back out. No question.
All that, plus the energy those old timers gave to me. Their support and their urging me to come back and to go on, in spite of all I lacked. They propped me up and supported me for a long, long time. In a very real sense, they literally nursed me back to life. And each day that passed, I was asked to add what I had accumulated from those days. I was asked to take what energy I could and concentrate on the one thing I needed so desperately; sobriety. My sponsor and others asked me to focus everything on this program. Everything. It meant life to me.
Into all of this, they introduced me back into faith in something, which could pick me up and support me for the rest of my life. A God of my understanding. Without that, I would still be an empy shell. But, what I found out, was that the shell was not empty. I had to only open the door within and there I would find what could fill me up and supply me with all that I needed. I didn’t know that. It had been there all along, but was hidden in the fog of booze, which had blinded me.
When I see so many others, who come in and tend to separate and fracture themselves, before they have a chance to focus on what’s really wrong, it disturbs me. I know this happens, because some have come to me and told me what they were doing. Without waiting for the miracle to happen, they are off to other twelve step programs to govern their eating habits or some other twelve step program, looking for solutions to problems they either do have or think they have and never have a chance to get that “plus”. It’s sad and it’s the result of a lot of self diagnosis. Like the lawyer, who represents himself, they have a foolish client in their hands. I know that the BB has an answer for all of this stuff. It suggests that we see doctors, priests, ministers, rabbis, and other experts to help us back to health, without violating the integrity of what we have to do to get sober.
But, I shouldn’t berate them. I have enough to do focus on my own business, which is my sobriety. I can only suggest and nothing more. But, it still doesn’t mean that I’m not bothered by it.
I only know what it has taken me to get this far. And that’s what I was thinking about today.