There’s this awful message we get in the program, that, if we don’t change, we will drink again. You know, that statement that the same man will drink again. But, hey, what they seem to be talking about is becoming some kind of saint or perfect person and I didn’t come here to do that. I just don’t want to drink again and they’re asking me to become some kind of goody two shoes at the very least. That’s just not me. No way.
The truth is that if we try to hold off long enough life becomes pretty painful. I can try to change me on my own power, but what’s wrong with me keeps me in mental and emotional anguish and keeps getting me into all kinds of scrapes. Like Bill tells us, there are just some of these defects we keep practicing, because we see some benefit or pleasure from holding onto them. What’s a person to do?
My sponsor told me that I could forget that fear of becoming a saint or good. I’d be lucky just to break even at the rate I was going. I was going to have to read the twelve and twelve and become willing to work the sixth and seventh steps. The fear I had of doing this was the same fear I had when faced with practicing the third step. Fear that God was going to ask me to do something extraordinary. I was to learn that kind of thinking was being self centered to the extreme. What I was going to be asked to do was to do just what the program asked me to do. Change.
Delay is dangerous and rebellion might be fatal. Faced with words like these, I was going to have to find a way to become willing to let go of these defects and depend on God for the solution to them. I said that I didn’t want to drink again. This is the way not to.
Went to a meeting today and got reminded of this. Thank God for meetings.
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