Do I know what balance is? To me it means having the right perspective on things. Why is this important? Because, years ago, my sponsor emphasized the idea that I needed balance in my life. Neither going too far this way or too far that way. If I wanted to stay sober he said, I needed to get balance in my life.
For one thing, even though I wanted desperately to stay sober, this AA way of life seemed to want to take the “fun” out of things. It looked too “pure” and sterile to me. I wasn’t too sure that I wanted to be “good”. I now know that I had a very narrow view what life was about. I had been living life in the extreme. Crisis was an everyday companion. The idea of peace was as foreign to me as real happiness.
Tom, my sponsor, told me that I needed to get in the middle of the table. He warned me about going near the edges. He said that the edges were too sharp and I might just get cut if I played around there. Now that sounded like boring to me. I had no idea of the excitement which was ahead of me. For now, he told me, that I was going to have to learn something about discipline.
Why am I telling you all of this? Because, I was to learn that he was right. Over the years I have learned from experience what I couldn’t possibly have comprehended at the time what he was trying to tell me. I first had to live much of what he was talking about. Others have often used the metaphor of the pendulum. If my life was too far one way, it would first have to go almost too far the other way in order to get it closer to the middle. And that wasn’t easy for someone so far out of balance with life as I was. But one warning he did give me gave me a little more perspective. He told me that if I continued to live and think as I did when I was drinking that I would soon be back drinking again.
What he did show me was how uncomfortable I was with my life. When I reached a comfort level with me, I would be in balance with the rest of the world. And that’s exactly where the steps came in. I could read those steps, talk about them, and think by that I had done them. He never forced or suggested anything beyond the talks we had. However, just by observing him and others on how they were living their lives; their contentment, their obvious peace, their humor, their obvious confidence, was enough to help me to pick up the tools I was offered and use them in my life. And each step I took as my own, I began to gain the perspective he had told me about.
And what about faith and spirituality? Though he or others never went there, I could see it as clearly as I can see the words I am writing. It was there. And one thing I could see clearly in him and the rest of those who so quietly helped me, was that sense of excitement in their eyes.
That excitement is something within me.
And what about my sponsor and the others I have received so much help from. They were all just another drunk like me. No more and no less.
I’ve gone on too long, but I was thinking about this today.