Where do I go, when I have problems and seem to be in trouble? I used to go to a bar and try to drink my troubles away. Problem with that was, not only were my problems still there after I sobered up, but they seemed to have multiplied. After I got sober, it was something else.
At first I tried to solve my problems by myself. Eventually I came to realize that it had never worked. What didn’t work? My solving problems by myself. All I had to do, I found out, was go back through my life history to discover that. I had only to look at my fourth step and my eighth step and there it was. The whole history of unmangeability.
Then I went to my sponsor, seeking his help in solving my problems. I soon discovered that he had no interest in solving my problems. If the IRS was after me, he suggested I get a good accountant. When my ex wanted a divorce, he told me to get a lawyer. But for the most part he was only interested in the problem. My alcoholism and whether I wanted to get sober.
When I continued to complain, he suggested I might want to take a look at the steps and then put them into action in my life. Like an old friend said one time, there wasn’t anything in those steps with my name on them or any of my problems, like money or relationships. What could they possibly do for me?
Finally, I hurt bad enough that I began to work the steps. I put my fears and anxieties aside and dug in. Gradually I started to feel the heavy load of life without alcohol begin to lift from me. By the time I reached the twelfth step I realized that something had happened to me. My whole outlook on life had changed. I wasn’t thinking the way I used to think. I was more at peace with myself and my neighbors. I still had problems, but somehow they were different. They didn’t worry me as much as they had before. But the big thing was that no matter what happened, I didn’t think of or want a drink. Just that alone was the biggest relief in my life.
I began to think so differently that I suddenly realized that instead of going at the problem first, that if I sought the spiritual first, that most of my problems seemed to melt away. They were solved without all the anger, anxiety, worry, fears, tossing and turning all night, that I used to go through. In fact, just as the ninth step promised, I began to rely more on intuition, as long as I kept as much in the sunlight of the spirit as I could. I came to learn that God was doing for me what I could not do for myself.
That didn’t mean that I could just sit back and do nothing. I still had to do the footwork. I still had to talk to others and seek their experiences with some of the same things I was going through. I still had to work the steps. I still had to go to meetings and listen for the answers. I still had to pray and do all the things I learned in here. I still do.
Where do I go today? I go to where I have gone everyday since I found the solution. Everyday I seek sobriety first above everything else, I start to find the answers. No wonder my sponsor wasn’t interested in solving my problems for me. In getting me into action in the steps, he knew that if I got sober, I would find the answers I was looking for.