Listening to one person today, who exhibited a kind of rebellion against what the program stands for, I could kind of identify with them.
That was something I went through myself, when I first came here. I wanted to be sober, of course, but I had this streak, which told me I wanted to do it my way. Guess what? A little of that is still there down within me.
What it got me to thinking about was what this month means to me. It’s my anniversary month. The reason it popped into my head was that I was looking at a person, who is struggling to stay sober. I thought to myself I know some of this stuff, but I’m a long way away from that by years. I had to go through what I had to go through to get to this point in time. So does this person, if they stay sober.
I thought about how I viewed old timers back then. How I envied them and wanted to be where they were. Of course without having to put the time in, a day at a time, and having to go through whatever it was they went through in those years.
I thought what a mistake it would be, if it were possible to jump from here to there. I would have missed out on all the things, which happened to me. The problems, the joy, the tragedies, the failures, the successes, and a host of other things, including my defects of character getting out of hand. I look back and see that all these made me who I am today.
It also illustrates to me that thought, I’m sober in spite of myself. It’s so true. My dependence on my higher power is what got me to this point. That and the support of so many sober alcoholics, who earned this sober time for me. In truth I think I just showed up. Everyone in the room should get my chip for me. They earned it.
Anyway, the thought of rebellion brought up a lot of stuff today within me. I’m grateful for all that has happened to me. Grateful to be sober. Grateful for the grace of the God of my understanding, Whose sobriety this is. And grateful to my old sponsor, and those old timers back then, who kept me on track and cut me down to size, which I needed desperately. And grateful for the program and the Steps, which brought about a spiritual awakening, which changed me and my life.