How right my sponsor was, when he talked to me about comfort. Comfort ability with myself. What he told me was that, when I achieved a level of comfort with myself, I would never want to drink again.
This was not an overnight thing. I don’t think I ever was comfortable with myself. When I was drinking, I certainly was uncomfortable and no amount of alcohol could change that. And when I hit my bottom and came into this program, my discomfort level was way out of control.
Only gradually, as I muddled my way through these Steps, did that begin to change. The directions (ahem), suggestions my sponsor gave me helped enormously to aim for a level of some sort. But only after he had to repeat a lot of these, because of my stubbornness and my arrogance; my pride. Like he often said, it took hitting me up by the side of my head with a two-by-four to get my attention. My mind was so closed that he had to be Superman to pry it open. But pry he did and it eventually began to work.
Without preaching he eventually, with the help of others, got me to take a look at what the spiritual life was about. The life I needed to living, if I wanted to stay sober. If I wanted to be comfortable. It was by his example and not his words that he got this point across.
He told me that he didn’t care what I wanted. And he often told me that he didn’t give a damn how I felt about anything. He was only interested in what I did. And, when I said “I can’t”, he told me that meant “I won’t”. Learning the meaning of words (I was “supposed” to be the expert) was part of this journey.
I learned to live with discomfort, pain, to get to the other side. To comfort. I had to learn to live with what I had and not what I wanted. I learned to live with the pain of lack, but not to suffer from the yearning. Like it or not, I had to learn that in reality I had what I needed.
In other words, I had to learn to be content. The result was comfort. I became comfortable with being me. And being comfortable with me there was nothing alcohol could do to help. I didn’t need it. In fact, I learned to live with comfort and joy. Sounds like an old Christmas Carol. But indeed the joy of living, working with other alcoholics became the norm.
I owe so much to my old sponsor that words will never be adequate to describe the experience. He’s gone now and yet he’s not. I’m comfortable with that. Comfortable and sober, thanks to his efforts and those of dozens of old timers. And most thanks go to my higher power, the God of my understanding.