Sometimes I need to step back and take into account how much I have received from this program. What I mean by that is that just like everyone else it doesn’t matter what kind of power and strength I once thought I had at one time. I’ve heard others talk about how they ran everything in their lives. At least they thought they did. In here I learned how without the help of my Higher Power I am really nothing. I don’t have to spend a lot of time thinking about that. The truth to me is obvious.
All I ever have to do is to look at what brought me here and what was wrong. I came here with a disease. Alcoholism. And what that disease is all about is my being powerless over alcohol. I could not stop drinking no matter what I tried. Alcohol owned me physically, mentally, and spiritually. I totally lacked power, when it came to alcohol. Finally I hit a point in my life where I couldn’t go on. I was in pain, total blackness within me. Despair. I was going to kill myself. I had no hope. I was totally powerless. On my own I couldn’t help myself. I was lost.
And then I found this program. I didn’t really find it. I had no idea that there was such a thing. Someone else had to tell me and show me how to get here. That person gave me my first ray of hope. Then I asked for help from God as I understand Him and was given a spiritual awakening. I arrived at this program a few days later and found more hope. I was shown a way out of this disease and I eventually arrived at a point where I was introduced into a spiritual way of life. I found that was the only way I could get sober and stay sober. I had no place to turn but this program and a Higher Power. A Power greater than myself. Something I lacked totally before coming through these doors.
I found the key to all of this was something I had never even would have conceived of on my own. And what was that? Humility. How could an ego driven, self centered person like myself ever come up with that kind of thinking? I was going to have to strive for just the opposite of what I thought about me. Ego deflation in depth. I was going to have to learn how to get out of my own way. And all of this began with surrender. How much was I going to have to surrender? Over and over again and then accept what was handed to me and put it into practice.
Anyway all I have to do is look around me to see what I have been given, as result of surrender. Surrender and acceptance. It began with some of what I lacked and that was hope. And that hope led to faith in a Power greater than myself. But I had to learn how to begin to achieve some kind of humility within myself. To recognize what was wrong with me and then to do what I needed to change. And that’s where the Twelve Steps of this program came into my life.
One of the things I learned early on was that there was nothing special about me. I found that I was just another drunk like those around me. That was a beginning step toward deflating my ego. And when I found I was able to commit myself to a Higher Power in my life, to begin to hope that He would help me to change my life and protect me from taking another drink, and then find it happening, I began to believe. To have faith where I had none before. And all I had to do was what everyone else around me was doing. I found I didn’t have to do this alone. I was not alone anymore.
Anyway I had to stop and think about this and be grateful for what I have found.