Thinking about a friend of mine today, I remembered what I was told a long time ago. It’s easy to forget those things, which helped me on this road to sober living. Things which played a big part in my staying sober.
What I remembered and wanted to pass along to my friend was this: when you find yourself in a hole, the pits, stop digging and climb out. In other words, what the conclusion of the Ninth Step tells us, we’ve stopped fighting everyone and everything, including alcohol.
When I find myself stuck, struggling to get something done, or to overcome some difficult problem, and my way is not working, stop! Talk to someone, pray and ask for help, do a Tenth Step and look at what I have been doing, and then stop and use the Eleventh Step; meditate. Perhaps the way I was going was the wrong way. Do I have the humility to admit it?
If my insanity continues to urge me to go on digging, what may be ahead of me is anger, frustration, resentment, darkness, and that next drink. It’s difficult to swallow my pride, my ego, my commitment to prove that I was right all along. Or, I can change my mind, with the help of my higher power and others, and start to do things differently.
Perhaps to stop and do nothing at all. The old saying; when in doubt don’t. But that’s why we have sponsors.
One of the obstacles for me was a closed mind. Once I had made my mind up, I closed the gates. Nothing could get my mind open until it was almost too late. Thank God for sponsors and others in sobriety.
Sometimes we can be sober, but at times our ears are still drunk.
Anyway, I was thinking about this today. How to be prepared to stop and do things differently, when what I find that what I’m doing is not working and driving those near me crazy. After all, sobriety is about relationships. Practicing these principles in all my affairs.