Something I was reminded of today was the power of the spiritual way of life. The connection I have found in this program. The very fact I have been sober as long as I have is just one piece of evidence I have in my life.
Looking over the past and the present is almost an impossible view of sorts. I mean, when I look back at what my life was all about, when I was drinking, and I look at the kind of life I have today is inexplicable in a very real sense. If the people I knew back then could see me today I doubt they would be able to recognize who I am. Not so much in the visual sense, but in who I was and how I was, and who and what I am today.
I know the way I came into this program that I dragged everything wrong about me in through the doors. I know today that I was alcoholically insane. Mentally my mind was colored by alcohol and all the effects it had on my brain and my thinking. Physically I was completely messed up. Hard to describe. How I was able to still walk around and go to meetings and even to work seems crazy today. Combining that with the thinking is another amazingly seeming impossibility. But there it was.
Top all this off with the fact that I was still a child at the “adult” age I was, when I came into this program, is a fact as far as I’m concerned. I know my sponsor and some of those old timers would have said that. I was told that I was insecure, immature, and oversensitive. And they were absolutely right. I can say that today looking back.
And added to this all was the fact that I had what they called a “God hole” within me. That black vacuum inside of me. And I was going to have to fill that from the inside. Nothing outside of me, the material world could do anything about this. Not knowing or understanding what was wrong I was always buying things and getting relationships to settle what was going on within me. Nothing worked.
Then I was introduced to the Second Step. The beginning of a spiritual way of life. Something I had not been doing in all those years wherein I was a slave to alcohol. At that time I was worshiping that liquid way of life. Obsessed and controlled by alcohol. And now I was starting a new way of thinking and living.
Not only was I acquiring a relationship with a Higher Power, but I had to begin to change my actions and thinking to continue this new acquaintance of mine. The first thing I learned was that I was going to have to start to not quit what I was doing. I was going to have to learn to persist no matter what. To continue each and everyday to pray and to try to learn to meditate. I also learned that I had to begin to develop hope. Hope that my Higher Power and this way of life could do for me what I could not do for myself. And then, when I found my hopes being fulfilled, I had to begin to develop a faith I either never had or had lost. I had to become faithful and rely on my Higher Power each and everyday. And finally I had to develop something I totally lacked. Love. True love. Compassion for others. The very same thing I had been given by my Higher Power and the people within this program. A totally new way of life. A miracle as far as I was concerned.
I knew that, when I got home, that no matter what was going on, I needed to pull back and sit and spend some time to contemplate on all of this. To practice some of what I have learned in here. And that’s exactly what I am doing now at this moment. To practice not quitting, hoping, believing, and loving. Plus refreshing my memory and my knowledge of all of this.
Finally I know that I also needed to do what this program and it’s results in my life showed me what I should always do. And that is to express my gratitude for all that I have been given. To thank my Higher Power and all those I have known, who have in so many ways influenced my life and my program.