The best salesmen in the country are alcoholics. The best con men in the country are alcoholics. The best salesmen are good because they believe in their product. The best con men are good, because they can make their victims believe in something that’s not real.
So who’s buying and who’s selling. The alcoholic is always capable of being the salesman and at the same time the con man. He sells himself the product the con man made him believe is real. He buys his own insane idea and tries to get others to believe in it. He’s a victim of his own thinking. His own insanity.
That was me, when I came to this program. My sales pitch was “please believe me. I can’t help myself”. Of course the old timers in this program just laughed out loud at this. They weren’t buying. I couldn’t con them and I couldn’t make them believe the unbelievable.
That’s where the Serenity Prayer came in. I couldn’t understand it. Or wouldn’t is a better word. I didn’t want it to be true. I wanted others to believe that I was helpless and hopeless. But my sponsor threw responsibility right back into my face. I was responsible for what I thought and did. I had to begin the process of growing up and becoming an adult and part of the mainstream of life, if I wanted to stay sober. I had to give up the fantasies I had been buying into throughout my drinking.
I was not responsible for the disease of alcoholism. I really couldn’t help drinking. But once I understood that, I became responsible for my not drinking. I became responsible for doing the Steps, which would help me stay sober. I became responsible for choosing to live a spiritual way of life, which would give me a daily reprieve from my drinking. I was responsible for coming to understand what I could do and what I couldn’t. There were no more excuses. I had used them all up.
Fortunately for me, I was to receive some great and wonderful help in order to accomplish this. I was to come to believe that there was a power greater than myself, who could do for me what I couldn’t do for myself. That’s what I had lacked all through the insanity of my alcoholism. It was truly a solution.
And I was to discover more solutions as I progressed through the steps.
I was also to learn that I don’t have to do things perfectly. No one can. We all are prone to make mistakes. But I had to learn that I was responsible for picking myself up and trying again. I am responsible for asking for help and to stop trying to do the impossible. I cannot improve on the past. It’s over. I can make amends for my past actions. That’s what I’m responsible for; my past actions. I cannot live in the future. That’s a fantasy. It’s make believe. I can plan for the future, but it stops there. I am responsible for staying in the present and trying to do God’s will for me and to practice these principles in all of my affairs…right now.
It’s about sobriety; my experience in staying sober.