Our ideas did not work. But the God idea did.
I was sitting here this morning, glancing through the BB, when I came across these two sentences. I wondered if those thoughts would have had any impact on me before I got here. Just looking at them and thinking about them today, I am convinced of their truth.
Earlier, as I sat here, I recalled an incident in my past. Apparently I had gone out drinking on my own. I remember it was during a snow storm and I had walked about a mile or so to a bar to get a drink. It was night. I remember that. The next thing I knew I woke up in bed. There was a man standing talking to my mother. He was saying something about the fact that the crisis had passed. What was that? I later was to learn that I had pneumonia. The man was a doctor, who had come to the house, because I was in such a state of collapse and fever. I probably would have died, had not some quirk of fate got me home and help. How long I had been there like that, I never knew or asked. Because as soon as I could get on my feet, I was back in the bars again. I knew what I was doing after all. Didn’t I?
Of course those words wouldn’t have made any sense to me then. I was in control. That was at least twenty years before I found this program. The near death experiences were to increase and increase in severity. But my ideas were still working. Weren’t they? After all a drink would fix anything. It was the only idea I really needed.
The mental obsession, the compulsion for a drink, and the craving had taken over my whole life. The only thing left now was complete insanity and death.
But to me it was still a good idea.
Finally I was beaten down to the point of total despair that alcohol would ever again work for me. It was over. And by some miracle I was introduced to this program. And the God idea began to work for me.
What I was really thinking about was that, even though the fact that I have been sober a long time now, the possibility of a drink is still there and will be until I die. Once an alcoholic always an alcoholic. It’s the God idea, by virtue of the steps and this program, which is between me and the next drink. That same insane thinking, which I described in that incident above, can return. But at the moment I am aware of it. A day at a time I am relieved of the burden of my alcoholism by the very fact of the “God idea”. All it takes is my willingness to go to any lengths and my commitment to AA to continue.
Anyway, I was thinking about this today.