Funny in a way. I was thinking about this program and how difficult it can be at the beginning for so many of us. Alcoholics like me. And all of a sudden I could put it into two words. Words that tell a lot about me and so many others. The two words were “facts” and “opinions”.
When I got here, the only facts I had were that I was in trouble with alcohol and desperately needed help. Of that I could be sure. Everything else I had in my head were opinions. I didn’t know that. I thought they were facts. So, when I listened to what the sober people in here were trying to tell me, I thought I knew better. I had an opinion about every thing they said.
That led to me balking at a lot of this program. Like my sponsor was to tell me that I didn’t know that I didn’t know. I only thought I did. My opinions were blocking my way. Thank my Higher Power and my sponsor and those old timers, because they had the facts. And little by little they squelched my opinions and showed me the facts.
And the fact is that this program works, when I work it. My opinions on the spiritual life blinded me to solution to my alcoholism. It deafened me too. I needed someone, who really cared to reach out and restore my vision and open my ears, then my mind, and finally my heart. They gave me the facts and eventually they became facts in my life. They still are.
These Twelve Steps are facts, as are the Twelve Traditions. When I think about my experiences with them and speak about them to others, I am talking about facts. What gets me is when people, who have either never worked these Steps or bothered to learn about the Traditions, are often expressing opinions, which can blind and deafen others, new and been in here a while on the fence.
True, I often still have opinions about a lot of things. Hopefully, when asked, I will tell them whether I am relating facts from my experience, or they are what I think. My opinions. Outside the meetings and the program I have opinions on a lot of things. Don’t always express them. I think that has often kept me out of trouble, because others have their opinions on things.
Anyway I was thinking about sobriety and those two words jumped right out and I had to sit and think about them for a while. Like I said I have a lot of gratitude that so many sober people in here have had the courage to express the facts they learned from their experiences with me. It literally saved my life. And I’m grateful for my Higher Power, who opened the door and let me into sobriety.