How often and how easy it is to forget some important parts of this program. It is for me anyway. I can forget the simplest of things. Today the subject at the meeting was let go and let God. Simple right?
You would think, with my background, that it would be something I wouldn’t forget. I mean, after all, early on I spent years training for a religious program. But while I was doing that, I lost my faith and the drinking began. That occupied the next 20 years or so.
Then my bottom and my first real prayer in all that time, which was the turning point in my life. A prayer, which was to open the door to sobriety and relieve me of the obsession to alcohol. You’d think I would remember prayer after that. But not so.
Overloaded with too much intellectual thoughts, too much arrogance with all that, I almost missed what this was all about. Sobriety that is. I was lacking in the basics of how to live life. In particular a spiritual life. A life I had led so many years before. And here it was again. Overwhelming. A long mountain to climb. Back to a concept of a higher power, a God of my understanding. Thank God for my sponsor and all the old timers, who knew just how to cut me down to size and bring me back to reality. Not just from alcohol but from myself.
Today, as I sat there listening to others, all of this came back to me. And there I was being reminded once more of how we stay sober. Letting go and letting God. The net result of these 12 Steps. This program. I say being reminded because this is often what I tend to forget. My thinking and my emotions can lead me down paths I didn’t plan on going and muddy up the waters. And then I come to a meeting and am once again brought back down to earth and remember because I am reminded of such things as prayer and surrender.
The day before Thanksgiving. Thanks.