Today one of the members brought up the Ninth Step. Always interesting and helpful to someone like me. I can well remember my experiences with this Step and the results. Especially the Promises and a spiritual awakening.
Always, when I think about this Step, I go back to the 12&12 and the first statement. Prudence, good judgment, a sense of good timing, and courage. Grateful to my sponsor and his assistant in talking to me about these very things. What I should do and what I shouldn’t and when I could or should.
I was told whom I should avoid and whom I needed to go to. I knew that both of them and others had experience with these things. In fact I was told to call and make appointments, if I could. And that led to my first rejection. I was told by one old employer that he never wanted to ever see me again. That blew my mind. But when I talked it over with my sponsor he told me the very fact that I was willing to make amends to that man took care of the amend. What a relief.
None of this was easy but prayer and the hope and faith that my Higher Power was there to help get me through what it was I did do. However it was the sense of good timing, which delayed some of these and in a couple of instances it went on for years before I could make them. When I did I knew it was exactly what it should be.
However that last instruction “courage” is what I think we all need. I know that my self centered thinking would have prevented me from making any of these. And that’s where prayer came in and changed all of this. I could go ahead even when I felt uncomfortable. And I did.
I think I talk about the one instance which changed all of this frequently because it almost blew my mind. I was making an amend to an old boss I couldn’t stand. And his attitude and mouth was making me angry even while I was going through the amend. When I finally finished I remember walking out of the office when something happened. All of a sudden I was relieved of all my resentments. They vanished and I could feel this weight being lifted from me. If one of them had walked into the room at that moment I probably wouldn’t have known who it was. It really was a spiritual awakening.
At the same time the Promises started to appear in my life. A new freedom and a new happiness. The restoration to sanity as far as alcohol was concerned. I had stopped fighting everyone and everything including alcohol. I began to know serenity and peace of mind and the rest of the Promises began to appear in my life.
I thought about the young man, who brought the subject up and almost knew he was going to do this Step and be all right. If he does what most of us have done, talk to his sponsor, I know things will go well, as they did for me. And like all of us he will stay sober. It’s at that point in our program that it talks about the Spiritual Awakening. Never want to ever forget that.
Anyway I know that many told me how much they got from that and the reminder of the Second Step, which was part of the meeting. That is always a reminder to me how all of this started for me. It’s about sobriety.