Had a revelation last night and thought about it again today and talked about it with a friend. I was reading about an alcoholic priest, who spoke about the word “spirit”. I had the same background he did, growing up in a religious family and studying in a seminary, but failed to grasp what was going on with me. Like him, I came into this program and almost missed the fact that I was suffering from a spiritual disease, as well as a mental and physical disease. I accepted that as a fact, but still was missing something in the course of using this program, the 12 Steps. What had I missed?
The program talks about us living a spiritual life. I have tried to do this, although sometimes I have felt I was missing something. I truly believe that we do this, but I have had to do this always thinking that I have to depend on my Higher Power to do this for me. Kind of hard to explain. I just do it.
Then he said he stopped and went back to the beginning of his life. He said that, when he was born, he believed that’s when his spirit was infused in him. His soul, as it were. When he said that, I immediately reacted to it. That spirit in me has grown as I have, but I was totally unaware. True I practiced a religion and then fell away from it, as I sank into my alcoholism. By the time I got to this program I was sick in every area of my life. I was insane. Alcohol had brought me down so far that, among other things, I truly was suffering from a spiritual malady.
I certainly had learned in my Latin studies, as well as religious, that the word spirit meant “breath”. I remember the person, who helped me with the spiritual life along the way, remarking on how breathing played an important part in contemplation, prayer, and meditation. The 11th Step. Apparently it didn’t get any further in me than just memory of that. Today it came back and hit me right between the eyes.
As we talked about the word “miracle” in the meeting today and people told how their sobriety is truly a miracle and how grateful they are for this, my thoughts were on the word “spirit” and the spiritual life. I had to go back and think of my last night drinking, when in total desperation I finally prayed to God to stop me from drinking alcohol. Then the miracle happened in my life. I woke up the next day and after years of struggling to stop drinking and failing, the alcohol was gone. It really has never come back in all these years. Just that one time, when I was threatened with a drink and someone told me to go outside and pray. I did and it was lifted from me. Another miracle, I truly believe.
Anyway I was thinking about what I had read, the word “spirit” and the spiritual way of life. My gratitude for what the God of my understanding has done for me. Like so many, who spoke today, I am truly thankful and filled with wonder that this has actually become my way of life. Life in the spirit and sobriety.