Since AA’s 12 Steps are the backbone of this program and the reason so many of us are sober today, it’s difficult to ignore them, when discussing living a sober life. I often have to look back at what it was that brought about the changes in me, the spiritual awakening. Of course each Step played a big role in my attaining to this miracle.
I was thinking about this, because this week at our BB meeting, we read and discussed the 8th Step from the 12&12. It was this Step, which began to give me an understanding of myself and the damage I did to others, particularly family. And even though I made a list, more has been revealed to me over time. In fact, every now and then, things still pop up and I learn more.
As I recall I was supposed to go back as far as memory would take me. Not just during my drinking years. The result was that, even though I knew I would not be able to make most of the amends in the 9th Step, there were several hundred names. Well a lot of names were not there. Some were descriptions of people, since I either couldn’t remember their names or never knew them. Just victims of my actions.
Most were there, as a result of my resentments. And I learned a lot from re-feeling those resentments as I put them down on paper. It drove me back to the 6th and 7th Steps. Over and over again. I still remember the process I originally went through with the 8th, because of that.
In fact in one instance a feeling I was not even aware I had came to the surface. It came up in a meeting one night, when I heard myself say the word “hate”. Up to that point I never knew that I hated anything. But there it was and I knew I was going to have to take action of some sort. And that action was taken in the 9th later on.
A woman at the meeting today reminded me of this process. She expressed how hurt she was, when someone in her family accused her of drinking again. That brought all this up. Because a few weeks ago, when talking to one of my grown children, she brought up a couple of incidents of when I was drinking and a couple of after I stopped and was in the process of getting sober. And that raised the memories of the family afterward.
At the moment she brought these incidents back, I just listened. There was nothing I could say or do at the moment. Amends had been made, not just formally, but living amends are still going on in family and outside of family. Part of my commitment in remaining sober. The fact was that none of my children or other people have a program to take care of their hurts and resentments for the past, as we do in this program. Recall is all they have. The aches and pains still remain. I can do nothing about this but be aware.
The other night, as we discussed this Step, others said the same thing about never quite being finished with this Step, or for that matter any of the others…except as has been stated so many times. The only Step we can work perfectly is the 1st. Total surrender and acceptance of our being powerless over alcohol and our unmanageable lives.
Just thinking about this and my experiences with this Step. Not dwelling on it, but it allows me to look back and sometimes laugh, when I think about how sometimes I would wonder why no one stepped up and told me how much they admired the fact I was no longer drinking. I realize today that my family and so many others were going through a process of trying to recover from and trying to heal the wounds that came from living with an alcoholic like me. I have to believe that they were grateful that I had stopped and was attempting to change.
Anyway, just some thinking on this process we go through called sober living. It’s never done. I’m not cured. I’m still and alcoholic. And though I’m sober I still suffer from this disease of alcoholism.
But I am grateful that I am sober and that I have become a different person than I was before. And to think it all started with that 2nd Step: Came to believe in a power greater than myself. It was the beginning of hope, which led to the faith I have today, and the love and caring I grew to have for my family and others.