Had a great topic today which helped me to focus on what’s important. Staying sober.
One of the things which often comes to mind, when thinking about this, is where I am from day to day. I mean I wake up and the day starts out at the beginning for me. And that’s where I am each and everyday. At the beginning.
I know that I have been around here for a long time. So how can I be a beginner? I often look at where I am on any given day and realize that though I have been practicing this program for a long time, each and everyday is new. Whatever it was that has kept me sober in the past is gone. I have to be able to start over where I am at the moment. Right now. This moment. Today.
I often go back and think about what my sponsor told me, when I finally woke up in here and decided I needed to put this program into action in my life. He knew exactly where I was at the time. That’s when he told me that I didn’t know that I didn’t know. I only thought I knew. That was my swollen ego trying to build myself up and to do things my way. I have to always think how much I owe my old sponsor for the way he opened my mind and my eyes and helped get me on track.
He’s the one who opened my mind and helped me to put this Second Step into action for the first time. And that got me through the door to this program. It was the introduction to this spiritual way of life which provided me with what I so desperately needed. The faith in a Power greater than myself, which would give me the power and strength I lacked to stay sober and live this way of life. It opened the door to hope that maybe I could be like all those around me who were sober and living a happy and free life. Free of alcohol and contented with what they had. More than that actually, but it was a beginning for me.
One of the things which struck me today, actually everyday, is that I go back and think of what my sponsor said to me: that I didn’t know, I only thought I did. Every once in a while I will suddenly realize that there is still a lot I really don’t know. At that point I will realize that I’m still doing what I did a long time ago. I think I do.
What I fail to know is not in what the BB tells me or what I hear others with experience saying. What I still fail to grasp is what this spiritual way of life holds for me and others in here. Sometimes I will find myself surprised at something “new” which seems to be revealed to me. I often go back to that moment in the Ninth Step, when I suddenly knew that I had been restored to sanity, as stated in the Second Step. I was amazed when it became clear that I had stopped fighting everyone and everything, including alcohol. It was crystal clear at that moment that I was having a spiritual awakening. All my resentments had vanished. They were gone and haven’t returned.
It is clear to me over time that I’m far from finished in the learning process. Each and every time I find myself stumbling over my character defects and I’m forced to look at my Tenth Step I will wake up along the line to the fact that I’ve probably learned something new. And that’s where the spiritual awakening takes place along the line. It’s not anything definite but I do know that one of the reasons I am sober today is that whatever it is it has contributed to my sobriety. It may seem familiar, but there’s something a shade different.
I guess what I’m thinking today sounds vague, but it is what it is. I just know today that I’m still walking this path that the Fifth Chapter talks about and the reason is that I found that I’m always in process. Not done. Far from it. I have a disease which will be with me until the end and I will be continuing along this road to recovery. I haven’t recovered in a sense, because I am still in the process of moving through recovery. There’s no cure for this disease. It’s arrested, as long as I’m willing to commit myself and continue to do what I need to do.
So each day is really brand new in this program to me. The alcohol part of this disease, the physical aspect, has been arrested. The restoration to sanity, the spiritual awakening. What’s always going to get in my way and trip me up is what is wrong with me. The mental and emotional part of this disease. I’m always going to be learning about myself and what I have to do this day to change whatever it is I’m going to trip and fall over today. My self centered nature, my inflated ego which seems always to pop up and get in my way. And that’s exactly what this spiritual program is about with me. The courage, the strength, the hope which comes into my life since I have begun to practice this Second Step and what followed in the rest of these Steps. But it began back then.
I realize that I’ve become a better person as the result of what I have been given in here and what my commitment and actions have led me to. I really don’t believe I’m that same person who walked through these doors back then. But I do know that person is still just below the surface and what keeps it out of the way is my commitment to this program. That’s why the subject staying sober is so helpful. It reminded me of where I am and where I am committed to go each and every day.
Anyway I had to stop and think about all of this for now. It’s about sobriety. And I am grateful for all I have been given. Amazing. I’m not a saint that’s for sure. Just a human being. An alcoholic. I need to thank my Higher Power and my old sponsor and all those in here who have given me so much help and hope.