Isn’t it romantic? goes the old song. Just saying the word conjures up a sigh. Visions of lovely women and handsome men come to mind. Romantic novels, movies of romance. Then Bill W. comes along and brings it all to a screeching halt. Don’t believe me? Read the sixth step in the 12&12.
I was rereading it the other day and found myself getting ticked off at a lot he was saying. I don’t know if your reading of that step affected you the way it did me. But I had this feeling of who is this guy? I never even met him and yet he seems to know me better than I know myself. The thing that irked me the most was that he was right. Boy, I really hate that when someone else is right and I’m wrong.
After a time in sobriety and moving along this path laid out for us, the old thought comes back to me, why did I come here? To get away from alcohol. It was literally killing me and driving me insane. That’s really all I wanted. Then I found out that if I wanted to escape an alcoholic death I had to accept a spiritual way of life. That was a hard proposition to face. In no way did I plan to become a saint or a little goody two shoes. The thought of a spiritual way of life seemed to suck all the air out of the fun in my life.
What I discovered after a time, was what I thought was the “fun” I was having, while I was drinking wasn’t any fun at all. There wasn’t anything funny about it. I could see the men and women in this program were wrapped in a happiness I couldn’t describe, but I envied the glow and the look in their eyes. They were sober and I wasn’t. I didn’t know how to think sober. How do you get that way? I began to want it and was introduced to the steps which would take me to that place where they were.
Along the way I found that I kept stumbling over myself. I had so many character defects that I kept falling flat on my face. My sponsor kept having to pick me up and dust me off and helped me to keep on going. I was to learn from him that what he did I was to do, also. There I was, tripping and falling again and again. The thought came alolng with this process that maybe I wasn’t going to make it. Boy, this was tougher than I thought.
At the same time something else was happening to me. I found myself becoming happy. Imagine that. I was finding more and more peace within me. I was getting longer and longer periods of this peace and I discovered a feeling of serenity. I was stumbling less and less over my own feet and I began to look around and found that my view of the world and the people in it was entirely different. I was beginning to have a relationship with not only others but with the God of my understanding.
Yet, when I opened that book up the other day, I saw that I had more to do. Unease within me made me go back an look at it again. I saw that I had fallen into a mental trap. I had to believe that I was settling for as much perfection as would get me by in my life. This idea hit me and I realized that someplace along the line I was slowing down my walk along this path.
What woke me up was my discussion with others. It was time to move on.
Thank God for Bill. As irritating as he can be, I owe him.
Anyway, that’s what crossed my mind today.