Every once in a while, I like to go back to that word “perseverance”. Persevere means to persist in an undertaking, despite opposition or discouragement. That pretty much described my entrance into AA. I was told by family and friends that I would be crazy for doing what I planned to do. I told them that I was an alcoholic and I planned on doing something about it and was going to go to AA. That was on my last day of drinking. But I knew that I couldn’t go on drinking and had to find a way to stop. I had to or I knew I would be a dead man. I already knew I was crazy. It took five days before I got to my first meeting. I just had to grit my teeth and hang on while waiting for the man, who said he would get me to my first meeting. Neither of us knew anything about AA or meetings and he only had one scheduled meeting he knew about and I was depending on him to get me there.
For the first time in my drinking life, I did not quit. I had quit any number of times and always went back to the bottle. This time I just stopped. Now I had to find a way to stay stopped. In fact, I had not begged God to help me to quit. I begged him to stop me from drinking. So, in order to follow through, I had to persevere. Those first five days were discouraging to say the least, but I was determined as I had never been before. I was desperate.
That desperation and perseverance began to build hope in me that something would happen, which would turn my life around and free me from the bondage of alcohol. Hope that this endless madness of returning to drink again and again would finally come to an end. When I walked into the rooms of AA five days later that hope was realized and it was like magic. I was home at last. I had found the solution I was seeking.
In the beginning the old timers encouraged me to persevere. They told me to hang in there and to keep coming back.
Through their urgings and guidance I did. I kept persevering. It worked. It still works. I should say it’s working. Everytime I falter; everytime I get discouraged, that word keeps coming back to me “persevere”. Hang in there. Keep coming back. I hear those men’s words over and over. How can I ever forget them? I don’t want to ever forget them.
This is what I was thinking today. Perseverance. I hope that I always will, God be willing and with the help of others, I will continue.
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