Today I had to go back and think about what it is that keeps me sober. I know it’s my higher power and the meetings and all. The Steps. But what is it in myself that keeps me coming back to the meetings? What is it that keeps me on this path, besides what I hear at meetings and read in the literature?
I know what I believe it is. It’s the quest I think I’m on. A friend of mine and I spent the afternoon talking about this. It’s God. The God of my understanding or misunderstanding.
It’s what Dr. Carl Jung wrote to Bill about. The idea that what the alcoholic was looking for in his drinking. God. That’s what the good doctor said was missing in the life of an alcoholic. And, of course, that’s what the 12 Steps do for us. But, as we talked, the conversation came back to God over and over again.
After my friend left, I sat and thought about this. Among other things, both of us agreed that there are many barriers in our lives between ourselves and God. Fear, pride, self centered-ness, just to name a few. But what hit me was the self centered-ness. Just think: God and me. In the whole world, throughout the ages, all the billions of people, who went before me and are in this world with me today, I still see myself as the most important.
How does humility have a chance in my life? Somehow, though, I think it’s this that is the basis of my sobriety. This overwhelming human condition of mine. I remember one very spiritual person in my life, saying to me that my ego was so large that there was no room for anyone in the cosmos. I laughed then, but I have grown to know what she was saying.
The necessary element that was lacking in myself was humility. Ego deflation in depth.
Among those old ideas, which I must rid myself of is the self importance. I certainly don’t conceive of myself that way. I never tell myself that I’m all that important. In fact just the opposite. But it’s there. Whether I think of myself less than others, or worse, or best, or smarter than, or dumber than, it’s still all about me. This to the exclusion of others and even God. Bill was right, when he said in the 7th Step in the 12&12 that, though it took some humility to admit in the 1st Step, that it was going to take more humility as we work our way through the program.
I and others talk about the maintenance of our spiritual condition. What is that? If I were to hazard a guess, it has got to be humility. Or, as one alcoholic used to put it, “the all-ness of God and the nothing-ness of self”. That used to grate on my nerves. Today it begins to take on meaning. Especially, when I read the words in the BB, which said, Of myself I am nothing, my Father does the work.
So, this is part of what keeps pushing me forward. Trying to overcome my biggest hurdle; Me. The mind of a chronic alcoholic. I know that the struggle to do this will never be done in this lifetime. But part of that process was what went on today. Talking to another sober alcoholic and sharing, not just the problem, but the solution.