After the meeting today I was wondering to myself, why we allow a whole meeting dwell, not on sobriety, freedom from alcohol, not on recovery, but someones bad feelings. Really?
It reminded me of several things in my past in this program. Like, when I would whine to my sponsor about how I felt and what I was thinking. He’d pretty much tell me that I was to stop dwelling on how I felt and what I thought. I would say something like “I can’t” and he would say “you mean you won’t”. In those days you talked to your sponsor and not the group. The meetings then were along the lines of the 5th Tradition. Carrying the message to the alcoholic, who still suffers. In other words the solution.
Thank God for my sponsor and those old timers. They taught me not to depend on how I felt about anything. And they certainly taught me that it was my thinking, which often got me into trouble. I had to learn to put my feelings aside. Feelings so often have nothing to do with reality. And, if I allow my feelings to do my thinking for me, it compounds my problems.
But more importantly for me, my sponsor taught me that it was going to take patience to get where I was going. I want what I want, when I want it. That was me. He told me that I would get what I would get, when I got it. If I got it. Not before.
That spiritual awakening, which comes as a result of practicing these Steps in our lives, is what really changed me. It changed how I thought and what I thought. It changed my attitude. How I viewed the world. Once it was negative and now it was positive. The Promises in the 9th Step came to fruition in my life. My purpose in life changed. I was now living a spiritual life. I was no longer dependent on me. I was now dependent on my higher power.
All this because I had stopped drinking. Not on my own, but because of the relief my higher power provided, plus through coming into this program. I believed sincerely in what the 1st Step said in the 12&12. That it was here we came to learn of the fatal nature of this disease of alcoholism. It kind of tells me that I have a gun at my head (alcohol), which if I don’t work this program is going to blow my head off.
No, I don’t want to hear someone asking others to fix their feelings for them. That’s up to their sponsor, a priest, a minister, a rabbi, a therapist, or a doctor. I know how this program works. I know the solution to our problem with alcohol. That’s why I’m there with the rest of the alcoholics in the room. The Traditions tell us that’s the group’s primary purpose. To carry the message to the alcoholic, who still suffers. New comer or old timer. What’s the message? This program works, if I will work it. The solution is spiritual and the Steps will take us there.
Moreover, the 5th Tradition describes what the group ought to be. A spiritual entity. No mention of a doctorate in therapy.
Anyway, I was thinking about this after the meeting today.