Probably the hardest thing I’ve had to do was to let go of something I was holding onto. It’s still difficult. At least in my experience and those I have talked to, it’s never an easy job.
Resentments head the list of things, which are the biggest problem. Wanting to resolve the anger, which precipitated the resentment can become obsessive. This particularly true of this alcoholic, who has had so much practice in this area over a lifetime.
Worry and fear were as difficult to let go of as resentments. I’ve learned that they’re a habit of thinking, began early on in my life and were fuel for my alcoholism. I could sit and make a list of these things, which are so instilled into my character, but that would bore the daylights out of you. I know it does that to me.
Whenever I feel stuck in letting go of something, which I want to hang onto, I think back to my hanging onto alcohol. I wanted to drink so badly that I just couldn’t seem to let go of it. It held me captive for so many years that it was impossible to think of never being able to drink again. But then came my bottom. That awful day is still visible to me in my memory. I can still recall the madness and internal pain it caused. I was finally defeated and then, in the midst of all of this, was offered a solution. I let go of alcohol and grabbed on to hope as only the dying can.
Pain, I learned is one way of letting go. But there’s a problem with arriving at a point of this kind of pain, which forces me to let go of something, which is so harmful to me. In the process of getting to that point, I could pick up a drink. I know this has happened to others, because they’ve told me so. I’m no better than they are and no stronger. So, what’s the solution?
Bill talks about this very thing in the 7th step in the 12&12. He begins with the answer at the opening of that chapter. It’s humility. If ever I want to take a measure of how much I have accomplished in growth in this program, all I have to do is to take an inventory of all those things within, which I am still hanging onto. The things I find most difficult to release.
I have to face the fact that I still have the problem of the rebel within me. That’s why humility is one of those things which eludes my grasp. This streak of contrariness has always been deep down within me. I know this is one place that needs work all the time. It has gotten better over time, but it sometimes haunts me. There are so many days when this seems to have vanished. But then there are moments, when it comes back with a vengeance.
Meanwhile, I somehow seem able to stumble along, staying sober one day at a time. Thank God we’re offered that gift of a time limit in which to operate. To do the best I can for this day.
Just thinking about things.