I was thinking about what this program means to me. In a very real sense I have a lot of respect for the program. It has done so much for me. It gave me back my life, which I had almost lost to alcohol.
Just the thought of the make up of this program from the 12 Steps where I learned to change my life from what it was before to what it is now. A good life. A happy and peaceful way of life. This program has not only taught me so many things, which I’m still learning. But it also is a way of life which has introduced me to so many people like myself, who are supporting me, teaching me, guiding me, showing me understanding and love I never really knew existed before.
But it is more than that. It introduced me to a spiritual way of life in a way I never conceived of. It opened the door to something I can only explain in the way I learned in here through the Steps and and the people, who gave me so much guidance. Sure I stumbled and bumbled in the beginning, but no one condemned me for my short comings and my stupidity. In fact they not only supported me, they were able to point out to me what I couldn’t see. What couldn’t I see? The results of these Steps. The spiritual awakenings. That was because I was sleep walking. They helped me wake up to what I had been given.
As I was thinking about this, the word “revere” came to mind. A real sense of respect. Not so much awe, which is passive, but an action word. And that word revere passed into reverence. A sense of having the humility to put my own self aside in favor of holding this program in a place for what is. It’s a place where a chronic alcoholic like myself could come and find freedom not just from alcohol and what it was doing to me, but the freedom to live a way of life far beyond anything I could have imagined. And to live it with others just like me. Doesn’t matter, who or what they were before, because they were me.
That’s what the Traditions spell out for me. The coming to realize how much I need to have the humility it takes to help preserve the program and keep it whole. Not just for me, but all those, who, in desperation like myself, will find a way out of the bondage of alcohol and be able to be restored to sanity. Relieved of having to live a life of suffering, pain, and inevitably death.
And that brings me to what I was given and deeply respect. The introduction into my life of a Higher Power on whom I know now from experience that I can rely on. In here I learned that the spiritual life is not a theory. It has to be lived. The maintenance of my spiritual condition. It doesn’t matter what I believe or anyone believes or doesn’t. In the end it is here for each individual to come to believe in whatever makes sense to them. What makes sense to me.
Why wouldn’t I respect a program which made me feel at home for the first time in my life? When I walked through the door to my first meeting I felt like I had come home. Amazing. But not only that, I was given hope. And when I came to realize that hope in actual experience I came to have faith. And that faith eventually opened me to love. The willingness to help others like myself. And all I really had to do was become willing to do what was asked of me. Not what I wanted, but what I needed. And, oh yeah, there was another thing I had to do, which I had never really been able to do before: to hang in and never quit, no matter the bumps and grind. Just to learn to do it. That’s why, when I look back I have such gratitude for my old sponsor and those old timers. And, of course. my Higher Power.
Just thinking about sobriety.