Couldn’t help but think about the Eleventh Step today. In fact most of the day. My readings and listening to others puts it right in front of my mind. That’s what my thinking and my “meditations” were pretty much about all day long.
I was reminded earlier on about what my state and condition were, when I arrived here. That spiritual malady I was suffering from. That “God hole” within me. Totally spiritually ill. And all that did not go away over night, even though I had been able to start the Second and Third Steps fairly early on. And, as I worked my way through the Steps, I was still plagued by my shallow conception about my Higher Power and my relationship with Him.
Like I said, I had started to pray and meditate early on. I also had to go through a phase a couple of times, which might have helped, and that was what was described to me by a spiritual director and another spiritual man, as a dark night of the soul. Where there was absolutely no connection. That’s when I learned to keep going and trusting. Having faith and hope, without anything else but my commitment to this program and the spiritual life I was aiming at.
Today, as I look back and wonder how I have gotten this far, I can only be grateful. I have seen others, who have struggled with this, and who have remained sober. I know from some of the talks we have had that they have their own concepts about what this way of life is all about, but never quit and work this Step.
There was a time, when I thought all I had to do was do the Steps and get to the Twelfth and that would be it, but not so. The need for these Steps are always there each day. Today it’s almost like all the Steps are one Step. Whatever I need from each one is right there in front of me and I almost know exactly where I need to go. But, though each one seems as important as they are written and I’ve learned them and from them, each day begins and ends with the Eleventh. And often is in the rest of the day.
And there it is all that is brought up in the BB, the 12&12, and the meetings, and some of the other literature. Especially the Grapevine books on Spiritual Awakenings, which often speak directly to where I am and where I was. A few of those were written by sober priests, whom I identify with, when they talked about how their spiritual lives weren’t even close to what they should have been, when they got here. No clue. Had to learn all over again, or for the first time. Yet they did and it changed their lives, as it did mine.
How grateful I am that I’m here and have slowly learned what I have today. I guess it wasn’t in the cards for me to develop any faster than I have. And even that is still vague enough for me to know that I still have a long way to go. But I am willing. All this driven by the fact that I’m an alcoholic and was driven in here because of what alcohol did to me. Anyway need to say thanks, as always for what I have been given.