Ah, that bondage of self. How often it plagues me. Gets in my way and I find myself cluttering up my life with me. Easing God out or ego.
A friend of mine and I were talking about egos, self, me, and of all things, humility. Imagine. Humility in the midst of this.
Today at the meeting, I had to give myself a good laugh. While speaking and using my time and experience in here, as an example of staying sober and living a good life, it gave me a chance to end it on a laugh. I couldn’t help myself. It poked fun at me. And that’s exactly what I wanted to do. To make fun of myself and get some laughs at my expense. In a sense, cutting myself down to size. Acting somewhat stupid and making fun of myself.
It’s what sobriety is all about, when we talk about humility. Like Dr. Bob said, when talking about anonymity, humility vs. praise. He called it “halo poisoning”. That’s not what we’re here for. We’re here, as those old timers pointed out in that First Tradition, to put our desires, our agendas aside, and practice humility for the good of the whole. Quite a job for an alcoholic, like myself, to step aside and think of others besides myself.
Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of this program. It’s not so much about fear of exposure, as it is about practicing humility. Getting out of my own way and letting my higher power take over.
Thinking of others rather than myself. Practicing these principles in all of my affairs. And, yes, staying sober a day at a time.
None of this is perfect. Not in my experience. It takes paying attention. Practicing understanding of others. Not taking their inventories, but my own. Minding my own business. Stepping out of the way and exercising gratitude for all that has been given to me.
It means surrender and acceptance. Changing from the drunk I was into someone, who no longer drinks and doesn’t want to, and living an open and good way of life. A sober life.
All of this is easy to say and quite another thing to practice on a daily basis. It does take effort. Like I said, I have to pay attention. And that’s exactly what meetings are about for me. To go there and learn what I need in order to continue to stay sober. To talk about what works. The solution to this disease of alcoholism. The 12 Steps and a spiritual awakening. It was the practice of this program, which woke me up and showed me how to become a different person. With the help of so many good old timers, I got cut down to size and began to learn what humility was all about.
As we talked about “staying green”, it was just a reminder of my bottom and what encourages me to stay sober. When I go back in my mind to how awful that end of my drinking was, the hell and insanity of it, the despair I experienced, I have nothing to be proud about. It’s a reminder that I don’t owe myself for those moments, which opened the door to my getting sober. I owe my higher power, who empowers me to live this sober life. It’s nothing I did to deserve this. And there to me is humility in a nutshell. Not that I’m saying I have it, just a description.
Anyway, when I got back this afternoon and spent some time thinking about what we talked about and the meeting this noon, I felt I had to take some time to think about my ego vs. humility. To me sobriety and humility go together. Anonymity and humility are the same thing to me. It’s part and parcel of the spiritual solution of this program. How grateful I am to have had the opportunities I have been given.