It has always, since I came here, amazes me how I am continually going through changes. Often it seems it comes from suffering or pain of some sort. As someone once said, we don’t seem to learn from our assets, but we sure seem to learn from our defects; our mistakes or those of others.
I guess that it’s all the process we go through in staying sober. Nothing is so consistent in my life as change is. It’s the one thing I know I can count on. I certainly don’t like it, but in trying to stay sober, it’s what happens.
I was thinking about this tonight, when I was on the phone with a friend out in California. He feels out of place, since he comes from up here, where I live. And since his job is temporary and he works such long hours, he is going through the agony of change. Having to surrender and accept things as they are. Just that alone is the training ground for change in following the guidelines AA has put down for us.
Change has always been a confirmation to me that this program is working. Wasn’t always that way. At one time I was convinced that the changes I was going through would be the ruination of my life. I came to fear change, because it was always painful.
But time and experience has shown me the opposite is true. Especially since it has led to so many good things in my life. For instance peace of mind and serenity under circumstances which would ordinarily brought nothing but chaos into my life.
Imagine, I have come to a point in my life, where I more welcome change than trying to avoid it. If someone, years ago, had told me that I would arrive at this point, I probably would have laughed at them. One thing I do know is that, because of change, my life is, at least inwardly, been most interesting. And at the top of the list is my interest in my sobriety. It becomes more and more the primary focus of my life today. Sobriety and everything that goes along with it. In other words my life.
Sounds awfully self centered and selfish. But I don’t think so. I no longer feel put upon, as I once did, by the needs of others. I was thinking that, when trying to follow a game tonight, when the phone rang. When I picked it up, there was a brief temptation to focus more on listening to what was going on in the game, than the person on the line. But that quickly changed, when I realized that’s what I’m supposed to do. Listen. How great is that?
That’s one of the great things, which has happened in my life. Because I have changed I have become a listener. Once I was the one who talked all the time. That seems to have gone along with a lot of other things, because I changed. I owe it all to this program and my higher power. And for that I am truly grateful.