Got a call today from a man I know, who has gone back to drinking again. A man, who found it difficult to listen. He had his own ideas, even though he attended meetings on a fairly regular basis. I never really knew what he heard and digested from the meetings. But from what he said, he always seemed to think he was being logical.
Now there’s a word, “logical”, which gave me a few problems, when I came in. I told him what my sponsor told me: you don’t know that you don’t know, you only think you know.
Was I logical, when I was drinking? Absolutely not. Alcohol was doing my thinking for me. Every time I thought I was thinking clearly, my thought would turn to that next drink.
When I came in, I thought I was thinking logically. But that’s when my sponsor told me to stop thinking. An easy thing to say to a new man, but a very difficult task. How do we manage to stop thinking. That mental machine is going on all the time.
The problem was not to stop thinking, but what I was thinking about. I was thinking with an alcoholically drenched mind. That’s when my sponsor started me reading the BB. He actually was giving me something to think about. The beginning of changing my mind and what I was thinking.
Over the years, I have come to the conclusion that “logic” goes only so far. If I look at the evidence around me of all these people, who are sober, then it’s logical to think that this program works. Working the Steps into my life did work.
But logic stops at some point. It doesn’t work, when it comes to the spiritual life. If I’m living a spiritual life, or trying to, what happens to me and all the others in this program begins to take on a whole new way of thinking.
Hope, faith, humility, and love don’t fall into the realm of logic. It may be logical to follow the guidelines of what works in staying sober, but that’s about as far as it goes. I can meditate on the spiritual life and grasp what I can, but it’s beyond me. It’s a mystery. Problems can be solved, but not mysteries. Like so many old timers have told me, I know it works, but I don’t know why it works.
That’s where this man is at the beginning. The man, who called me. All I could tell him was what I’ve had to tell so many before. Don’t take a drink, get to a meeting, and talk to the sober people there…and listen. Of course, and I thought about this when I was talking to him, his ears are still drunk.
But I did tell him to pray. To ask for help from the God of his understanding. That’s what I had to do, when I was where he is. It worked for me and I can only hope it will work for him. I can’t do for him, what he has to do for himself. I can’t stop drinking for him and I can’t work this program for him. I can only hope that he can and will.
Makes me grateful to my higher power that I’m sober and not drinking.