How simple this program is, if we will but clear our minds and open up to look at the instructions given to us. I can remember my sponsor saying this to me. I would go to him with some problem(s) and all he would say was “When all else fails, follow the instructions.” He meant for me to read the BB because that’s where they are.
It took me a long time to understand what he was saying. My mind was too busy with other things. I kept complicating things. I would stall and put things off because I was analyzing everything. Then I would start to read the BB and I thought it was either too easy or too hard. It took me a while to see what it really was saying to me. To us.
What it really was telling me that there was a way out. Not just from my drinking problem, but all the problems I was to meet in my life. That’s because I was still thinking with the “old mind”. I hadn’t made the necessary changes and the reason I hadn’t was that I had failed to make any real progress with the steps. And why was that? Because I had only surrendered to one thing: my problem with alcohol. I hadn’t woke up to the fact that there was more. For instance the spiritual life.
I had begun to “invent” my own version of a spiritual life. I really didn’t know that it was the last thing I had to do. But gradually through listening to my sponsor and other old timers, I came to realize that was exactly what the steps were going to do for me. They were going to change my attitude, my thinking, my motives, everything. They were going to introduce me to a God of my understanding. They were going bring about such a change that I can honestly say today that I’m not the man who came through these doors in the beginning. They were going to teach me how little I knew and how much I had to learn.
When all else fails, follow directions. I’m so grateful for those words of my old sponsor. When I find myself in difficulty, I try to remember them. When I do, the words I have found in the BB, the instructions, pop up in my mind and I find them appropriate for the circumstances in which I find myself. I also find that when I do that I know that I can stay sober no matter what the conditions. And not taking a drink is one of the most spiritual things I will do this day.