I was reminded today about the consequences we derive from our drinking. They follow us through the doors of AA. We bring them in with us. Then, after time, they begin to emerge and sometimes overwhelm us. Sometimes they appear soon after we come in and some rise up many years later.
Marriages break up sometimes after we come in. The husband or wife, who have stuck by us and put up with our shennanigans, hoping against hope we would get sober, only to find that their best efforts fell short, then see a couple of stangers come on the scene and we get sober. Disappointment, depression, devastation are the result. Or maybe the damage we have done catches up with us. The necessary trust is gone.
Sometimes it’s physical. Things we have done to ourselves begin to pop up. We end up having to go to doctors for these and some of them become chronic. One of my sponsors once told me that our circulatory systems have been damaged and show up in later life. How right they were. And during our active drinking many of us never even knew that we had to see a doctor, when we really needed attention, because our alcohol had numbed us to some of these problems.
Then there’s the psychological damage we’ve suffered, as the result of our drinking. Much of this can be handled by the 12 Steps of AA. But some things we might have had a chance to deal with, if we had been sober, appear unbidden, when we’re finally through with the drink.
Financial and work related problems pursue us into the program, as well as legal difficulties.
All of these are a real threat to living a sober life, unless we are able to follow suggestions of those who have preceded us into the program and grab onto what is offered to us. The solution to our alcoholism; a spiritual way of life. These are men and women, who have gone through the same things we experience and can show us by the wisdom they have garnered by their own efforts in working this program. By word and example they can show us the way through what we are going through.
A friend and I talked about these things today, after the subject was raised at the meeting we had attended. We both have gone through our share of these consequences and were able to maintain our sobriety in spite of what has happened. We shared our experiences through the time we have spent living this life and both of us agreed that the men and women we have met along the way have helped us in our efforts to overcome and deal with all these things. We were shown how these seeming obstacles in our life could be turned into opportunities to grow along spiritual lines and enhance our sobriety.
I was reminded of the prayer a man, who had suffered some of these, had composed and said: God grant me the serenity to accept the seemingly bad things, as well as the good, as necessary for my growth. I can only say “amen” to that with gratitude.