Today the subject was false pride. To this alcoholic, for me, all pride is false. I don’t know about the rest of the world, but I do know what is wrong with me.
I sure didn’t come in here thinking anything about pride. My only interest was never drinking again. I had no knowledge about this program and frankly wasn’t interested. I only, like I said, never wanted another drink of alcohol. I didn’t even see where my pride was standing in the way of recovery. But it was.
My sponsor was the first to chip away at this over sized ego of mine. Again I was totally unaware of my condition. I was still withdrawing from alcohol and my alcoholic insanity was still in charge. Nevertheless he got me finally started on the right track by introducing me to a spiritual way of life.
As time went on I very slowly began to discover that I was totally lacking in any kind of humility. A virtue I was going to have to learn about or lose whatever kind of sobriety I had acquired up to that point. In fact it took a few years to wake me up to the concept of pride. I can remember a person, who was trying to help me along spiritual lines, told me that they were surprised that there was any room on this planet for others because of the size of my ego. Talk about humiliating. In fact it was often humiliation which began whatever kind of humility I might have.
It took time to wake me up to getting the kind of honesty to face myself and see how self absorbed I really was and how this was a roadblock to spiritual growth and my sobriety. It was difficult for me to comprehend what had been going on in this mind of mine. I found I had been hiding from myself and making up excuses for my life without alcohol. It was time to change and begin the process of ego deflation in depth.
I was talking to a friend of mine about how important honesty was and how really that was a difficult process for me. He’s been in this program over a year now and is willing to admit that he hasn’t much of a concept of what is required of people like ourselves. I told him that even after all these years in the program I’m still discovering things about myself I didn’t have a clue were inside of me. It’s always a wake up call for an alcoholic like myself.
For instance I was reading something Bill W. wrote in the 12&12 about anger today. He was talking about justifiable anger and said there was no such thing for the alcoholic. I forget when I first learned that. It was a long time ago, but I would be willing to bet that when I first heard that it probably tripped the trigger to my anger. Again that is just a guess but that was the kind of person and the kind of twisted ego I had. Today I am aware that I can still suffer from this self centered alcoholic, when I forget who and what I am.
Anyway the subject brought up a lot of things in my mind during the meeting and after. That’s why I thought I should take time out and sit down and meditate on this. I’m so grateful for my sponsor introducing me to the Second Step and my Higher Power. It’s the grace of my Higher Power which helped to open my mind and my heart to what was wrong with me besides the drink. And how my Higher Power, along with the help of others, began the process of breaking down my ego and pride and helping me to acquire what little humility I have found as a result.
Just thinking about sobriety and the importance of going to meetings.