Who’s in the way? Ever since we had a 6th Step meeting last week I have been periodically running a 10th Step. And the answer to that question is me.
What I found out is what I guess I’ve known all along. That most my new ideas and thoughts are related to my old ideas. They just seem to be in disguise.
One of our members, who is extremely thoughtful and intelligent related what he had been able to come up with from his studies of the human mind. He said that the experts have come up with an average of what the human thought process is. He said on average an adult will have a new thought every 15 seconds. Sometimes I think I get one every 5 seconds. My mind will seem crowded with this junk.
Why is all this so important to me? Because it’s my junk that gets between me and my higher power. There sometimes seems no room for my higher power. Particularly, when I really need him.
My sponsor and others, and what I’ve read from spiritual writers, tell me that even though my thoughts ordinarily wouldn’t be welcome, or shouldn’t be, I have choices and I can end them in seconds. Throw them out the door like unwelcome visitors.
All this tied into the 6th Step. I know that I’m human and that my character defects are part and parcel of being human. The only difference is that this alcoholic has an itch to want more than my share in almost everything human. Scanning back over these I find that my selfish nature wants to hang on to a lot of them, even though I may tell myself and others that I need and want to be done with them.
I know that these defects will be with me to the end of my life. Just part of human nature. On the other hand, I can think all I want to about all the excuses I have, but the truth is that my sobriety has a dependence on something else other than human. It’s the spiritual life I’ve been asked to live that opens the door to my being sober. All I have to do is to go back to that 2nd Step and read what it says. Came to believe a power greater than myself (ourselves) could restore me to sanity.
A power greater than myself. The God of my understanding. The one I prayed to that last night drinking and who relieved me of the thought and desire for a drink. The God, who introduced me to the program and eventually these 12 Steps, which brought me to a spiritual awakening.
And that rules out sleep walking. The kind of mumbling, bumbling state that comes about, as the result of my mentally and emotionally entertaining my old ideas. And the help with this is right in front of me, if I will step aside and let my higher power in.
Anyway, I was thinking about this this past week. It’s about sobriety and staying sober and recognizing that I can’t do this alone. I need the God of my understanding and the people in this program to assist me in my attempts at the 7th and the rest of these Steps. And thank God for meetings, which serve as reminders of what it is I need to do.