Unbelievable in a way. Three days of the Second Step and then someone comes in today and begins by talking about their problem with coming to believe. Almost the same topic. Makes me want to back up and ask myself what’s going on. But then that would be my biggest mistake. My thinking.
It almost makes me laugh in a sense. Me spiritual? Here I am years and years later in this program and I still haven’t arrived at a place within where I can believe that maybe I am spiritual. I often say my prayers with my mind someplace else. Like I’m talking to myself. Do I feel anything like a closeness to my Higher Power? My answer is no way.
I know, when I’m like this, I’m depending on my own thinking too much. I can remember what it was like back when I finally decided I needed to surrender and begin the Second Step and enter into a spiritual way of life. Pain was the incentive within. Just like when I surrendered to the First Step. When I begged God to stop me from drinking. The pain was so great it is hard to believe. But it got me to give up my own thinking and my own way. And the gift I received as a result of that was the almost instantaneous relief from alcohol.
But then I entered into another dose of too much thinking. Too much intellectualizing. That was when I was faced with the Third Step. Trying at that point to come up with the answer of who or what is God? I almost drove myself crazy in that period. And then a simple statement changed all of that. Once again I surrendered, when I heard that God’s will for me was the other nine Steps. Amazing. All of a sudden I was free again.
My answer for the question brought up today was stop thinking and surrender. I spoke to the person afterward and received an admittance of how much pain was going on within. The answer is surrender and acceptance. The same thing discussed in the First Step in the 12&12. The need for the alcoholic to hit bottom and give up the resistance to enter the program and do what is required of us, if we want to stay sober. The same thing all of us have done, who are sober today.
I know that when I find myself questioning the idea of spirituality the first thing I have to do is to go to another sober alcoholic and tell them what is going on and then get out of my head. Just sharing is a beginning. And the next thing is to look for someone who needs help and offer to help them. Getting out of myself is always the answer for this stuff.
Throughout my time in here I have run into pain and desperation, which have caused me to have to one more time surrender and accept. I’m still human despite the fact that I have gone through a lot of changes which have brought me peace of mind and a new happiness and a new freedom. But I still have my ego and self centered alcoholic nature, which wants to take over and control whatever is in front of me. So when the question of spirituality arises there I am in over intellectualizing and self arguing. Going nowhere but down hill.
The very fact that I’m sober today ought to end all of this. The greatest gift I was ever given. Beyond my wildest dreams. Can’t argue with that. I need to stop and backup, as my sponsor would tell me. And remember that I often don’t know that I don’t know. I just think I do. Going to meetings on a regular basis is part of the answer. The other part is practicing discipline and doing what I can do in the Eleventh Step in prayer and meditation.
Anyway, when I got home I sat down and thought about this. Out of negative and into the positive. Practicing gratitude for all that I have received in this program and thinking about staying sober.