Sometimes my mind goes back to what it was like early on in this program. Much of this is the result of talking and listening to “newer” people. Not just the people, who have just come in, but those who have been around for a few years. Just recalling that sobriety is not an overnight event.
Men and women I know have reminded me of things they are going through, which I experienced also. Family matters, rough times at work, and, yes, thoughts and feelings, emotions, which keep coming back, or just haven’t gone away. Anger, resentments, fear, worry, disappointments, self pity, and the list could be longer. I know it was for me. Talk about confusions.
What struck me today, as I was thinking about this, is the solutions. I know that we all would like “long term” answers, but this I have grown to know is just a day at a time. Not that the changes I have experienced are temporary, but I had to learn that the twenty-four hours I have at the moment are what they are. Right now. I had to learn how to stay in the present and change my attitude toward life. The attitude I came in with was twisted as I was to learn.
My mind was about as negative as any mind could get. I was so used to getting into trouble that it was present all the time, whether I was aware of it or not. No wonder I drank the way I did. Not that my drinking wasn’t the result of this disease, but the disease itself must have put me into negative situations. My relations with my family for instance. Talk about negative. That was it.
And when I came into these rooms, I dragged that stuff right in with me. I can remember going to meetings and beginning to feel that maybe I was beginning to recover and then going home and walking into one explosion after another with my wife and children. Not that I was looking for this, but I had to come to learn how much damage I had done. I was exposed to a pool of hostility I had dug and put into my home from my drunkenness.
I often have to laugh at what happened when I would come to a meeting and run into my sponsor. He would always ask me how I was doing and my dishonest response was “good”. And he would put this Popeye smile on his face and tell me that I was full of you-know-what. And of course he was right.
Over time things began to lighten up within me and with those around me, as I began to learn how to have patience and understanding. Things I never had in all those years in my being soaked in alcohol. Things which became more and more apparent as I went through these Steps and I was to learn from listening to others and witnessing their examples.
One thing I became aware of over time was that I had built great walls within myself to protect me from those outside of me. I hardly ever let anyone within these walls and it took time to begin to take them down and let my sponsor and others I grew to know and love to come in and begin to know who I am. I began to learn how to open up but to have different reserves between myself and others, depending on the relationships I had formed.
All this of course grew through the help I received to help me grow along spiritual lines. Being able to practice what I had learned in here about putting these Twelve Steps into action in my life and growing in hope and faith in my Higher Power. Asking for the help I needed to stay and live a sober life.
We are told that this is not an overnight event. That time takes time. I learned that by learning to start my day with prayer and eventually meditation. To practice that Eleventh Step and then to move into and open myself up to the Twelfth. To have the ability to give this program away to others in order for me to keep it. But to also gradually begin to grow in compassion and love.
After having thought all of this, the truth is that I am not, I don’t think, what might be called a spiritual person. I am still a human being with all the faults and weaknesses of humans. An alcoholic. So, from time to time I bump into and find myself being tripped up from my faults. My character defects. Not that they are any place close to what they were, but enough to get in my way. And that’s when I need to ask for help, when I have put that Tenth Step into action.
Anyway I needed to stop and think about my life in this program. What it was that I needed to do and what it is I need to share with others like myself. I can look back and know how grateful I am for all I have been given, which has helped me to stay sober and live a sober life.