Once again I was presented with the words from the Tenth Step, that whenever we’re disturbed there is something wrong with us. It came up in several conversations today with others and it appeared, to me anyway, when the subject of live and let live was brought up as a topic at the meeting today.
For a long time in the program, I was plagued by the blame game. How often I saw others wrong and myself right. Or righteous would be a better word. Self righteous. Judging others. All this stirred by anger. I remember one old timer saying, “Wait twenty-four hours and you’ll be right.”
There’s always a way to be able to justify our anger. Even though the BB warns us not to go down that path. Once we can find a way to justify it we’re locked in. The results are burning resentments within. I know, because that’s how I used to do things.
Today, talking to others I know just how much I owe this program in helping me to stay sober and not take that next drink. Because that’s just where ignoring the wisdom of the spiritual axiom in the Tenth Step can lead an alcoholic like myself. Justifying my anger and grabbing on to those resentments is almost a guarantee.
Thank God for sponsors and old timers, who stepped in and guided me along this path to sober living. They showed me how this program works. They got me to practice the Steps, which led me to a change in my thinking, my attitude, my motives, my personality. Due to their help I am not the same man, who came through the doors of this program. They showed me the value of living a spiritual way of life.
When I reached that point in the Steps, particularly the Ninth, I suddenly realized what the BB said, that we had stopped fighting everyone and everything, even alcohol. That sanity, which the Second Step had offered as the solution, recovery from the insanity of taking a drink, had returned. What a miracle.
Now that I had that sanity back, freed from the obsessive call of alcohol, it was up to me, with the help of my higher power and my fellow alcoholics, to do what it takes to maintain my spiritual condition. The very foundation of my staying sober. And it starts with the Tenth Step and the spiritual axiom. Am I willing to face the truth of myself and look at the root and causes of my part in whatever disturbance enters my life. I’d better be, because I want to stay sober. I love this way of life.
Sandy B. once said that to be disturbed is unspiritual. Not being disturbed is the opposite: spiritual. Today I really want to live this spiritual way of life. I love being undisturbed. To have the promises of peace of mind and serenity.