What were the words to that old song a few years back? Don’t worry. be happy. Or that old comic character; What, me worry?
I’ve guess I’ve written about my mother, taking a character of the comics, Out Our Way, calling me her little Worry Wart. That was me. I grew up worrying. Worrying about what? About everything I guess. And, when alcohol entered the picture, the worrying was magnified.
No wonder I came in here just loaded down with worry. It was an old habit of thinking and feeling. If ever I was going to find the peace and serenity, which this program offers to all, I was going to have to find an answer. And I did.
The first answer came, when I got sober. I almost missed it. For months and maybe more, I didn’t see what I had. I was sober and not even thinking about a drink anymore. Yet I worried about drinking again a lot. It was my sponsor, who came up with the answer and even then I almost missed it. I was whining about my problems, my worries to him. He just asked me why I was whining. And then he asked me why I had come here. To get sober, I answered. Are you he asked. Yes. Then why are you whining? You got what you wanted.
Then I had to go back and think about all of this. Not just the fact I got sober, but how? The 12 Steps? Yes. Of course. But it was something else. And then I remembered. On my last day drinking I did something I hadn’t really done in 20 or more years. I prayed. I mean, I really prayed. I asked God to stop me from drinking and living the life I had been living and promised Him that, if He did, I would do anything he wanted me to do. And then I found AA and came in. I figured that was what He wanted me to do. And the result was that I was relieved of the bondage of alcohol.
What I had missed was spirituality. The answer to all my problems. I have found this to be true over and over, when I would go back and look at what happened.
How could I have missed that? I mean the BB and the program is all based on growing along spiritual lines. And, if I will follow this way of life, of course things like worry, fear, and a whole lot more, many of which are described in the promises, will come to pass.
Not all of this happened immediately like the lifting of alcohol was for me. There were things I had to do before I could make any headway. Sounds egotistical. Like I was the one doing this. Truth is that my Higher Power is doing the work.
But first I had to get hope that things could change for me. Then I had to develop a faith, a belief that the God of my understanding could, and would do what was necessary to bring about the peace of mind and serenity I sought. And that’s where the Steps in combination with spirituality, which are what the Steps are all about, began to change me. My thinking, my feelings, my outlook, my attitude. and a whole lot more.
It took persistence, which was less perfect than I ordinarily think, In truth, I had to overcome a lot of balking and resistance. I also had to overcome sloth, a favorite of mine, stalling, compromising, and just generally bumbling and stumbling around. My Step work is so imperfect that I just have to say all of this is in spite of myself.
Anyway, as I was thinking about this, the words of an old timer of years ago came back: Attitudes are everything. They’re more important than facts. Indeed they are.