When I came into this program I began to learn what I should have learned a long time ago. What was that? Principles. It was in this program that I finally learned what I should be doing. Both the human principles I needed to live by and the spiritual principles I needed to stay sober.
None of this was easy. I needed to learn how to be faithful. How to maintain hope in order to change. And how to love others. To put these Steps into practice and get rid of what had been destroying me and others. And to begin to grow along spiritual lines in order to do for myself and others what I so desperately needed.
All this I began to learn a little at a time for a long time. As the sign over our door says, Time takes time. It was not an overnight event. It came to me very slowly with a lot of stumbling and bumbling. Some of this I knew from my years in school and from my home life. My family and their beliefs. But I had never been able to put it to practical use.
That’s where the alcoholism came into my life and blinded me. Drove me into alcoholic insanity and negative living. Then I hit my bottom. Pain and suffering finally got me to surrender and accept a new way of living. It took time to get me sober and free of the effects of alcohol. It took a long time in here to find a way through the mental damage and to begin to become open to this new way of life. And then I had to overcome that black hole within me. The “God hole”, as those old timers called it. To begin to fill that vacuum up from within.
I began to learn these principles in the Twelve Steps. To come to know the changes I had to undergo to become the person I find in myself today. And to put the principles in these Twelve Traditions into action as I was taught by my sponsor and those old timers. To begin to learn how to be faithful to the principles of this program as expressed in the Steps and the Traditions.
All of this I have found fostered and provided to me by my Higher Power and the people in this program. Alcoholics like myself, who have learned not to drink and to stay sober. A miracle for me and for so many others. It saved my life and it’s up to me to practice these principles in all of my affairs, as I learned. If I want to stay sober and help others like myself.
I learned in here that the spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it. It means giving of myself to this program and to others what I have learned and experienced in this program. That’s what I try to do on a daily basis. That’s why I come to meetings. To be shared with and to share with others these principles I have learned in here.
None of this is easy at times. Not everyone is attracted to what I and others have found and learned in here. And that’s why we not only have these Twelve Steps to help us, but the Twelve Traditions to guide us through the difficulties we are sometimes faced with. To learn to have the humility necessary to put our personal agendas aside for the good of the whole program. In other words beginning with the principle of Unity. That or face the destruction of what we have been given.
Anyway I was thinking about all of this today and thought I needed to stop and meditate on what it is that was given to me by my Higher Power and all those alcoholics I met early on who helped me change my thinking and my actions by practicing these new principles in my life. I am so grateful for all of this. To me it is what this sober life is all about.