What are alcoholics like us supposed to do, when we can’t figure out what is going on? I have been talking to people like myself for a while now.
Fear, anger, resentment, and a whole lot more seems to have taken hold of some of us. I had to go back and see what I have done to turn this kind of stuff around within me. I know that it begins with hope and dependence on my Higher Power. I have memories of the past in here, where I literally turned things over and got answers I desperately needed. And, as time went on, I continued to change as a result of my reliance on the God of my understanding. And none of this happened over night.
Of course a lot of this was based on my way through these Steps. And then the reminder in the Ninth Step in the BB. The spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it. And that requires prayer and action on my part. What am I willing to do? Sometimes I have to fight myself in order to get willing to do what I need to do. Particularly when it comes to prayer and meditation. For me it takes discipline. To continue to practice, practice, practice on a daily basis.
Part of that was one of the subjects today. The Prayer of St. Francis, which I go to on a twice a day basis in the Eleventh Step in the 12&12. Morning and night for me. It is a way for me to stabilize myself, by taking in what it says we need to do to change ourselves. At least to begin to think about that. The themes of that prayer often is what settles my mind down.
I also have to go to the Serenity Prayer to remind myself of the fact that I have very little control over anything. And yet I think to myself, here I am sober and life goes on in spite of me. I think about the rewards, another subject today. How I have not only been able to get sober, free of the bondage of alcohol, the spiritual awakening, but also have been gifted with a new happiness and a new freedom. All that along with being able to experience peace of mind and serenity. The promises in the Ninth Step.
Not only that, but I have also been gifted with my life. I know that had I continued to drink alcohol I would have been gone a long time ago. I have had others from way back relate how this program not only restored them to sanity, but also their lives. The gratitude we all need to express for the gifts we have been given.
To top it all off, I have had so much help from my sponsor and those old timers and others through the course of my sobriety who taught and helped me to start to live this way of life, so that I could have a sense of reality and a grasp on how I should live my life, that I owe them all a lot of gratitude.
Anyway I shared my thoughts with them with the hope that they might help them to begin to let go and let God do for them what they seem unable to do for themselves. I know that has worked for me. I felt that I was given another gift from my Higher Power. The chance to reach out and take their hands and hopefully to begin to turn their lives around. To let go of all this negative thinking. To establish a positive attitude instead of the negative, which they seemed to weighted down with. And to never forget why they came here. Like me, to stay sober.
Once again I had to stop and think about my staying sober another day.