Listening to a man today, who was having difficulty in holding his temper, because of a member in his family, I also listened to the reponses of members sharing their experiences with him. When it came my turn, I didn’t respond to him. Instead I shared what got me sober and has kept me sober through the years. After all, what could I tell him?
Later he came over to me after the meeting and told me he needed to talk to me. I knew almost intuitively what he was going to say. And he did. I told him that he couldn’t change them, but he could himself. And if he wanted any kind of relief, it would be just what I found. It would be spiritual in nature.
The reason I bring all this up is that we all have our problems with certain relaltionships, especially family members. I know I have from time to time and others have shared the same thing with me. The problem is that I don’t want these things to get to such a point that I would drink over them. I sure have seen that any number of times in my lifetime in this program and I don’t relish the thought.
I learned a long time ago, if I don’t want to drink again, I will have to nurture and take care of my spiritual life in this program. One of those ways is to work the steps in my life, the principles I have learned in here, and to do the one thing AA tells us to do, wake up! The spiritual awakening, which is the result of these steps. The 10th Step tells me to look at my part in any relationship, which troubles me. The 11th tells me that I should seek through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with God. And therein is the answer, I believe.
There is so much I am powerless over. I need somehow to find God’s will for me in this day and the power to carry it out. On my own unaided strength, this is not going to happen. However, if it is my intention to sit quietly and try to make this connection, I know this is the beginning of the solution to all my problems. Especially the problem I still carry within me; my alcoholism.
Anyway, after I got home, I sat down and thought about this man and what he said and took a quick survey of my own life today. I know how troubling these things can be and asked myself, am I willing to do something about them? The answer was yes, because I did that this morning before the meeting. As my sponsor would alway say, after I had told him what a bad day I was having. Did I take a drink? I would answer no. He would always say, “then you had a good day”.