One of the things, which comes clear, when we’re working with “new” people, is how difficult it is to try to help them to listen. I know that from my own experience, when I was early on in this program. And I know it from my experience working with people early on in recovery. And that’s where old timers got in the habit of telling the newcomers to take the cotton out of their ears and putting it in their mouths. To stop talking and learn to listen.
I found it difficult to listen. The truth is that I had never really learned to do that growing up, in school, in the military, and no matter where I worked. I think I assumed that I knew everything I needed to and that I could do whatever it was I wanted to. No wonder the First Step included unmanageable as part of what I had to accept. That’s exactly what I dragged through these doors a totally unmanageable life.
And it’s what got my sponsor to point out to me that I really didn’t know. I only thought I did. Not hard to accept, when I realized that I had no place to hide my lifetime faults. However it wasn’t easy to shut my mind off from running this way and that and blocking out what was being said to me. Especially if what they said made me angry, which sometimes it did. I still thought I knew better.
What began to change my mind and got me to spend more time in learning how to listen came when my sponsor knew I wasn’t paying attention. He’d let me go off on my own and find myself stumbling and falling flat on my face. That began to teach me to stop thinking I knew better and that I had to begin to listen. That these old timers did know what they were talking about. They were right and I was wrong.
I can remember being told that I had to learn how to empty my head, get an open mind and an open heart, and start to pay attention and learn to listen. I think by the time I finally heard that I had found how to open that Second Step and begin to believe in a Power greater than myself. My Higher Power. The start of my stepping into the spiritual way of life in here.
Why am I going into all of this? Because in going back and thinking what it is that the new comers and those coming back have to go through to get past themselves and begin to do what we need to do, I know from my own experience what that’s like. It’s a good reminder to me about what it is we suffer from coming in here and trying to begin to get sober and trying to learn what it is we have to do to stay sober. Not easy for the sick and suffering alcoholics like myself.
When I stop and go back and review what it was like, it makes me so grateful for all that I have been given. How much my old sponsor and those old timers gave to me. Sometimes it was definitely a matter of ego deflation in depth. They seemed to know just the right moment when they would say or do something which got my attention and knocked me off my high horse. Just what I needed, I definitely recognize today. A wake up call to my over magnified ego. A hard way to learn a little humility, but it always would get my attention and then I could hear what was being said to me that I needed to learn to know.
Overtime, and after talking to so many people in here, I learned that I was not alone. I finally learned that I have this over wandering mind within in me. I had to learn how to focus on the person speaking. Took a lot of practicing discipline to begin to do this. I had to do exactly what my sponsor and some others would point out to me that I needed to do, like stare at the speaker. And this was difficult I learned because my mind would want to wander away from where I was and what was being said.
I had to learn to write things down because when I didn’t I wouldn’t be able to focus on what I was trying to think or meditate about. I had to begin to write in journals. When I would do that I could see what I was doing and have a better contact with my thoughts and where they were going. I could actually see what it was that I had learned in here. A big change for this alcoholic, who had never really grown up. To this day I still go there, if I want to focus and practice this program.
Anyway I can’t help but think about this sometimes. Especially when I find myself with quite a few new people and some coming back. I can’t help but think about what it was like when I was where they are right now. Makes me wish I could reach out and tell them.
I’ll stop here. I know it has done what I wished. It has drawn my attention to why I am here. I’m here to stay sober a day at a time and to practice this program. I know that I always need to be reminded by myself and others how important it is for me to do a quick inventory and see where I am at this moment. To be reminded of just how grateful I am for all that I have been given by this program and my Higher Power. And how much I owe all those who have participated in my sobriety. Glad I am here. It’s actually amazing. A miracle. Thanks to all.