When was it that I began to change? And just when was it that I began to recognize that change was a requirement, if I wanted to stay sober? I started thinking about this today, while we were discussing the 10th Step and the importance of meetings.
For instance, when it came to when I was wrong and promptly admitting it, when was it that I began to recognize that I was wrong? And when was it that I began to admit that I was the problem, when I was disturbed?
The BB tells me that my selfishness and being self centered had to go or it would kill me. Today I can accept that as an absolute truth. But there was a time in this program, when I had to be right, no matter how unhappy it made my life.
I was always blaming others and the circumstances in my life for what made me angry and resentful. When the BB said that this was not going to be an overnight change, I had no idea how true that was. It was going to take time and a lot of pain and suffering to realize that and surrender and accept that.
How often my sponsor had to remind me that whenever I was disturbed it was me that was the cause, I can’t tell. But it took a lot of patience on his part. Like I’ve often said, I wonder why those old timers didn’t toss me out he second story window for all the junk that was going on within me. I must have been a pain in the neck. Really.
But the day did come, when all this stuff was revealed to me. My take on it is that it was the result of becoming willing to do what was necessary in working these Steps into my life. But it also had to do with those men and women in the group, who had to suffer from my stubbornness. The importance of meetings. If I hadn’t been encouraged to keep coming back, I probably would have missed those messages, which finally penetrated this closed up and locked up mind of mine. Something eventually got through by virtue of repetition.
Today I look back and think, of course things have to be repeated over and over. How else does the truth ever penetrate the alcoholic mind, which is infected with the insanity someone like me drags into these meetings? That sick mind, which my sponsor frequently pointed out to me that was so closed that it would take dynamite to open it.
Yet at some point it worked. At some point my mind began to come open enough that the truth finally hit me and I began to respond to it. Talk about a higher power restoring me to sanity.
I still go to meetings. I still need to hear things no matter how many times I’ve heard them before. Hopefully what I am listening to may someday penetrate that still stubborn mind of mine. At some point the door may open and more of what I need to learn may come in. I still suffer from a still nearly closed mind. I have no doubt that there is more to be revealed to this alcoholic mind of mine.
When I got home I had to stop and wonder at the miracle of all of this. Had I not changed I probably would have gone back out and drank again and died. But all those people in the meeting never asked me to leave. They kept asking me to come back. More than that, they often came to me and encouraged me to stay and listen to what was being said. The results are obvious. I’m still sober.How grateful I am for all of this.