“We tried” are words which are in the Twelfth Step. It’s talking about is our being able to carry the message to other alcoholics, and just as importantly to practice these principles in all of our affairs. But those words bring me back to the only Step we can do perfectly. And that is the First. The rest are based on our capabilities. We can try but we often are going to goof up someplace along the line. After all, we are only human.
But that brings me back to the First Step. How is it that we can and do work it perfectly? And that’s because we come into this program in pain. Or as that Step is covered in the 12&12 it talks about bottoms. I know that I found myself in a position, as is described in that Step, of hopelessness. That was where I was, or as the Step says, like a drowning person grasping at a life preserver. That described me, when in desperation I reached out to my God and begged him to relieve me of the bondage of alcohol and relieve me of the life I was living. I promised him that I would do anything he wanted me to do, if he did.
And what happened was that the next day I awoke and never thought of a drink that day. And five days later I came to this program, free of alcohol, and began to slowly forget what I had said. I reached that imperfection we often suffer from. Being human. And that’s where “we tried” comes in. My surrender was perfect. My finally finding what the program offered as a solution, the Twelve Steps, was going to need a lot of help in concentration and practicing, if I was going to be able to stay sober.
And that’s where the Second Step came into my life. I was going to have to have the support and power of a Higher Power, on whom I could depend. To grow in hope and faith that he would do for me what I could not do for myself. His help might have well been perfect. It was me who brought all the imperfection into my actions. My Higher Power was going to have to often work through my sponsor and those old timers to get my attention and to guide me and support me in putting this program into action. Of that I have no doubt as I now look back in that beginning time in this program.
One of the things I note in the First Step in that book is where it says that we have to listen as only the dying can listen. Again that’s where I was when I walked into this program. That first meeting was one where I desperately tried to listen and learn. And when I did, I began to get hope. However, as I look back now, what I had brought into these rooms was a chronic alcoholic, filled with immaturity and the insanity the alcohol had soaked into me.
Every once in a while, with the help of others in these meetings I need to go back and remind myself of what it was like, when I came to this program. To remind myself of why I am here. To grasp a comparison of where I was then and what I am like now. To get a handle on the sobriety I have been experiencing in this program. To be able to get a hold on the spiritual way of life I have found in here. The solution to my problem with the bondage of alcohol. And the spiritual awakening as a result of that commitment to my Higher Power. The restoration to sanity.
And, as I sat there in the meeting this morning, I looked up on the wall at the Twelfth Step and those two words “we tried” jumped out at me. Tried to do what? To put this program into action. Perfectly? Hardly. Here is this chronic alcoholic, who could only come up with perfection in that First Step due to my desperation with what alcohol was doing to me. And I got the freedom from the bondage of alcohol over time in here. I got enough freedom at the beginning. And that freedom grew as I progressed over time in here. I never wanted to ever drink again. Like so many in here I had reached a point of hatred for what alcohol was doing to me. But I also know that doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t drink again.
I have a disease for which there is no cure. It can be arrested and has been in me. I see the same arrest in so many of those around me. And what do we do? We go to meetings to be reminded of what is wrong with us and what the answer is to all of this.
I was thinking about that this morning. A friend of mine in another state where I got sober sent me a note telling me that a man I knew from a long time ago had just passed away. It was just the kind of example I needed. He had been sober for over 30 years, doing all the things we were taught and helped to do. He died sober. How much hope that always gives me, when I am able to be exposed to someone like myself, who continued to try to do what we needed to do. Through someone like him I can see clearly the spiritual solution. And it makes me grateful.