How easy it is for me to assume that I’ve done my 1st Step perfectly. Bill W. tells us that the 1st is the only one we can do perfectly. I was talking to a man this afternoon, who after a few years discovered that he had more to do on the 1st Step.
That made me think that just because I stopped drinking and have “gone” through these Steps doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m sober. Although most dictionaries would say that. Not intoxicated, not drinking, However, the changes I know I had to go through did not come overnight. I was made to go back and look deeper into what this program required of me.
What I needed was for me to acquire some sanity. That’s pretty much the word the man used in our conversation. The realization that it was one thing to admit and accept our being alcoholics, but the unmanageable part of my life can and will show up later in crazy and insane ways. Glazing over that part of the 1st Step is so easy. Most of us, I have discovered are so preoccupied with coming to terms with our alcoholism that the second part is just given a nod on the way in.
How do I know this? Awful. I hit a lot of brick walls along the way, because I experienced this kind of stuff. It reminds me of something I heard about someones sponsor, who talked to them about “layers” in all the Steps. That all of them have deeper and deeper parts within and it’s up to us to delve deep into all of them. After I heard that I took a look and I believe he had something.
What am I talking about? I’m talking about getting the best out of my life in this program. I want to stay sober and at the same time experience a sense of comfort that I had lacked in the years previous to entering this program. A sense of serenity and peace of mind. That happiness we are promised. A new happiness. Something I have never known before. And of course the freedom. Not just from alcohol, but the past and what comes to us each day.
All this is based on the concept of the spiritual life I was introduced to in this program. It’s a challenge, but something which requires me to seek the way to put this into action. Not that I think I have much to do with this. Just the footwork. The rest is up to my higher power. I mean all of it is. All I try to do is be present for it. Of course none of this is perfect. I know I just have to try each day.
Something must be working. I’m still sober and happy to be that way.