Here we were at a meeting today celebrating another day free from a drink of alcohol. We came into this meeting to remind each other of why we are here. Here to stay sober. And then we talked about how that works in our lives. We talked about who it is that carries us through each day.
I often go back to what I was told by my sponsor many years ago. He told me that I was not responsible for being sober and in this program. Having said that he then told me that I was responsible for maintaining my sobriety and putting this program into action. That was to be my job. All the rest was in the hands of what I came to know as my Higher Power, the God of my understanding.
Back then I began to do what I should have been doing with my life a long time ago. I started to live a spiritual way of life. My sponsor helped me to open the door to this program by taking the Second Step. Coming to believe in a Power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. I had no argument with my insanity. That was more than obvious. What I failed to recognize was where that insanity was often trying to drag me back to. Alcohol.
I started to do what I was often told to do. To start my day with prayer and eventually a meditation of some kind. And that’s what I began to do. I never wanted to ever drink again. I realized what that chapter had told me. That if I didn’t begin to lead a spiritual life I would go back and drink and die an alcoholic death. As startled as I was by that I knew it was the truth for me. So this was the beginning of changing my life for the better, as I came to discover.
Then came the next stumbling block for me. The Third Step. Here I was analyzing and complicating the concept of a God of my understanding. The request of that step was to turn my will and my life over to this God. The longer I did this, the more confused I became. Of course I wasn’t sharing this with anyone and there I was hiding behind the walls of my mind from those around me. That was until that night, which I so often go back to because of it’s significance for me. When one woman’s sponsor told her that God’s will for her were the other nine Steps. All of a sudden the clouds within me lifted and I was ready to proceed.
I realize today that I had to go through all that I went through back then. For me it was the beginning of this restoration to sanity. I had to come to a point where I began to believe and have hope and faith in what had freed me from the bondage of alcohol. Little by little I gained the respect for my Higher Power and slowly began to turn my will and my life over to him. I realized the truth of what my sponsor had told me. I should have known that from the beginning, when I begged God to stop me from drinking and he did. How could I ever have forgotten that? But I did. Talk about insanity.
Today I can look back and see what has been happening through my time in here. Like the Promises in here, I have found a new freedom and a new happiness. Peace of mind and serenity. That all happened while I was making amends. I can remember the restoration to sanity, when I stopped fighting everyone and everything, including alcohol. I had had that spiritual awakening. I was placed in a position of neutrality as far as alcohol was concerned. Amazing.
Yet I have to sometimes laugh at myself. Like one deeply spiritual man pointed out that we are not saints. We’re still human beings, subject to all our faults and defects. Of course not as bad as they once were. But still enough to trip someone like me up into stumbling and bumbling and having to pick myself up and dust myself off. The Tenth Step. Followed by the Eleventh and the Twelfth. Gratitude. Like that one spiritual man said, For all that has happened, thanks. For all that will happen, yes.
Anyway I needed to once again stop and think about sobriety. And to think about and give thanks to the one whom I owe so much, my Higher Power.