What’s fair? Someone brought up the old complaint today that life was not fair. A person, who is struggling not to drink.
Among other things I have learned in this program that, if I have a problem, not to dwell on the problem, but to seek the solution. Of course life is not fair. Who ever said it was. But there is a solution for this.
Again, I had to learn how to deal with this, as a problem. I had to look at it the way my sponsor and the program told me to do. I learned that if I had a problem, I was disturbed. He told me that I needed to first calm the disturbance. How was I to do this, taking the unfairness of life as an example? He showed me the spiritual axiom; that whenever I was disturbed, there was something wrong with me. Talk about unfair. I thought that was unfair. Why me?
But I did learn. I remember the night the old timer told me to shut up and listen. I definitely thought that was unfair. But, when I thought about it, there I was, running my mouth and I didn’t have a clue what AA was about. I only thought I did. Looking at it, he was right and I was wrong. It might have been a slap in the face, but it was just what I needed to deflate my ego and to get my attention. I needed to listen, even though I didn’t want to. And that was my problem, not his. In fact I was to learn how much of a help that was to me.
Sandy B. talks about this. It doesn’t matter how unfair things might seem. What matters is am I willing to treat others and life in a fair manner? Fairness has to begin with me not others. If I’m not willing to act in a fair manner, how can I ever expect others to do the same? That’s part of the change I had to undergo, in order not to drink again. It always begins with me.
I remember, when I was drinking and crazy with alcohol, I was always complaining that life wasn’t fair. I’d buy something and then get the bill and think how unfair it was that I was being asked to pay the bill sent to me. I came in here with that kind of thinking. Plus the fact that someplace along the line I could remember that the drink had turned on me, but I didn’t want my problem to be alcohol. I wanted it to be something else wrong with me. My nerves, my brain, whatever. Not the alcohol. I suspected the truth, but I thought it would be unfair to have to stop drinking. Thank God I hit bottom and came to realize it was the alcohol.
The solution for all of this, as it is with all my other “problems” can be found in practicing the principles I found in working the steps. And it begins with that First Step. Surrendering to my being powerless. And then the solution, which begins with the Second Step and then all the rest of the Steps, which follow.
When I’m really living a spiritual life, I find that all my problems can be solved by a spiritual solution. Not an instant resolution, but something which will resolve itself in time. Is life unfair? Probably, but that really isn’t much of a problem, if I know it is. I can deal with that today, because the program has given me an answer, a solution. The same solution, which has enabled me to stay sober.