I was coming back from the store and I was thinking how everything changes. Everything. And that depends on whether or not I’m working this program, or better yet, the program is working me.
I’ve probably told this story before, but it bears repeating. About thirty years ago or so, I was floundering around in this program, trying to find my feet and keep from taking a drink. I needed help badly and an old friend directed me to a woman, who I have since come to know was my salvation. One day we were sitting in her office and for some reason I told her why I was stuck. I told her it was because that was the way I was. She looked at me and asked me, “Are you going to stay that way?” It was the first time I recognized that it was possible for me to change.
Somewhere along the line I put my ninth step into action and that’s when I recognized that things had changed. I had changed. Like the tenth step said, I had stopped fighting everyone and everything, even alcohol. I had a new attitude. To me it was like a miracle. I really knew that I didn’t have to drink again and I didn’t have to fear alcohol like I formerly did.
Over the years I have come to realize that everything has changed. But more than that, it keeps on changing. The more I apply these steps to my daily life, the more I keep on trying to let go of things, the more things change.
I used to hate change. I really feared it. It was always, what’s going to happen to me? Change is still difficult, but not in the same way. Every time I am faced with change of any sort, I still catch my breath, but I know now that change is inevitable. I’ve learned that all I really have to do is to cooperate with what’s going on. Applying the spiritual principles to my life eases me through these transitions.
And, what’s more amazing to me, as I look back, is where I was at the time this all started. I was totally out of my element back then. I had grown up in the north country, but was living in Wash. DC. Had I stayed up north, I would have been encouraged and enabled by my family and friends not to get sober and not to change. Out of a familiar environment, I had no one to prop me up. I hit my bottom and began to recover from an illness which was killing me. And I started to change for the first time in my life.
Anyway, I was thinking about this today.