After a discussion today on acceptance, I found myself thinking about that and also thought about knowledge, knowing, and faith. For instance, if I know, actually have knowledge, then faith is impossible. Why? Because I do know.
When I got to this program, I accepted the fact that I was an alcoholic and that my life was unmanageable. I knew the truth of both of these facts. The evidence was clear. I couldn’t stop drinking no matter what I had tried, and my decisions, based on my thinking I knew what I was doing had led to dire consequences. So I surrendered and accepted the 1st Step.
But, when it came to that 2nd Step, I thought I knew what I was doing. It took time, but with the help of my sponsor I found out that I didn’t know that I didn’t know. I only thought I knew. And there was the problem I had then and still have to work on today, my thinking. Intellectualizing and analyzing. Two stumbling blocks, which have been with me all of my life. It makes me shiver to think where this stuff has led me.
If I think I know about God, then it means that I don’t need faith. Not knowing about God demands a faith in Him. Either God is or God isn’t, as the BB said. That was the challenge I had to face, when I finally accepted a Power greater than myself in the 2nd Step.
I finally agreed with the Program and my sponsor that I was powerless. I needed a Higher Power, who could empower me to live a sober life. Indeed just to live life. I had to come to believe in something, which could restore me to sanity from the insanity of drinking alcohol. And indeed that came to pass in two forms. One was what I forgot happened and the other was the spiritual awakening, as a result of these 12 Steps.
What I had forgot was the power of prayer. The prayer I had said on that last night of drinking. I begged God to stop me from drinking and stop me from living the life I had been living. I promised Him I would do anything He wanted me to do, if He would do that. The result came, when I awoke the next day and the desire, the compulsion and craving, and the mental obsession was gone. Five days later I came to this program free of alcohol. Though I would always tell that in my story, some crazy thing in my head never let me be aware of the impact of that first spiritual awakening. No wonder I needed to be restored to sanity.
It took time in this program, a day at a time, to gradually quiet the disturbance within my head. That demand on my part “to know”. That constant intellectualizing. Trying to find through “logic” what I demanded to know. And to come to believe in that which I couldn’t see, touch, or feel. Just to surrender and accept a God of my understanding.
What finally did that was the evidence in this program. All I had to do was look around the rooms to see that. And there it was before my very eyes. Men and women with years of sobriety, living changed lives. Better lives than I had, when I came in here. And they gave me the hope that maybe this could happen to me. And the fact is that it did. All I had to do was accept that and get on with this program a day at a time. And for the most part I have. That enabled me to come to believe.
So there I was thinking about this today. And guess what? That was the problem. I was thinking. The three words that are a hazard for the alcoholic like myself. So I stopped.