Today the subject was right on the money. Staying sober. Great meeting listening to people, who were dedicated and committed to this program. I heard a lot of things I hopefully have taken home with me. Good reminder of why I came here.
For me I know that when I start my day, sooner rather than later, I find my mind going right to where it should. This is a day when I need to practice this program and stay sober. To live a spiritual way of life. To pray and ask for the help I will need this day from my Higher Power.
Like most people in here I came to this program to stop drinking and stay sober. In fact it was the only reason I came to this program. I didn’t come here to get a job, a car, a woman, or anything else. I only wanted to stop drinking and never ever to take another drink as long as I lived. My problem was that it was all I wanted to do. I didn’t want to do anything else. I thought as long as I didn’t drink I would be all right. No way I discovered from my sponsor and those old timers. I discovered I was going to have to begin to live a spiritual life and to change everything in and about my life. I was not only going to have to come to believe in a Power greater than myself, but I was going to have to begin to work these Twelve Steps and then the Twelve Traditions.
In other words, I discovered that I was going to have to grow up and become a mature adult, and not the child I dragged in through these doors. I was somehow going to have to find a way to stop thinking the way I had been thinking and acting. I was going to have to get rid of a lot of things, which had dragged me down. I was going to have to find a way to become a kinder and better person than I was. I was going to have to get rid of my anger and resentments. To get my emotions under control. To begin to pray and meditate. To develop a working faith in my newly acquired Higher Power. To learn to depend on him and to turn my will and my life over to him. To begin to practice the Serenity Prayer. To give up trying to control and run the world around me. To learn, as a friend of mine always says, how to get out of the driver’s seat and go to the back of the bus and take a seat. To get an open mind and an open heart. To become willing to reach out to others and help the new alcoholic. To begin to come to meetings on a regular basis and to learn that I can’t stay sober by myself. And I was going to have to become disciplined and to practice this program each and everyday. To develop hope, faith, and love in my life.
Sounds like an awful lot of stuff. But not really. It’s just the way we all should be. For a person like myself it was amazingly complicated and difficult. That’s because of the type of personality I dragged through these doors with me. My completely self centered overwhelming ego. My super pride. What all the old timers and people like Dr. Harry Tiebout, who supported and worked with this program from near the beginning would say about people like us. We needed to undergo ego deflation in depth. And none of this was going to be an overnight experience. It was going to take me a long long time. And it did. It still does.
But the result is that I have gotten exactly what I was seeking, when I came into this program. I have found that sobriety. I found that I had been restored to sanity, as far as alcohol goes. I have been placed in a position of neutrality. However the rest of my junk is still around. Nothing near like it used to be. But I’m still human I have discovered.
Yet I have found peace and happiness that I never knew before I arrived. I have found freedom and serenity. I have found a faith I never expected to have. I have found my hopes being fulfilled. I have found love and caring I was not used to. I have discovered that I can return all of this to those around me and to the new person coming into these rooms. What was so freely given to me I can now give to others. What I have found I once thought was impossible. I have had my wildest dreams fulfilled.
So, when I found the time after I got home, I thought I owed it to myself and my Higher Power to sit down and think about all of this and probably more, as the night goes on. I need to do this to express my gratitude to all I have known, presently know, and the God of my understanding, my Higher Power. Thanks.