Discipline?

Today I was given a gift by a friend of mine in here. It was a reminder of what my old sponsor’s widow gave to a number of us a long time ago. It was a reminder of who is number one in here. Might shock some, but it’s me. It’s each and everyone of us. If I forget I’m the one who has to get sober and remain sober, I may help someone else, but I can also lose my own sobriety and my life.

I was thinking earlier, during the meeting, how often I have seen others, who seemed to be working this program and suddenly become aware that they have gone back out and drank again. What happened to them? For one thing I discovered from my sponsor and other old timers that they lacked one thing they desperately needed. Something I had to learn and begin to practice, if I wanted to stay here and stay sober. And that was the word “discipline”. Something I was not used to and really not familiar with.

I think the problem with me was that I had learned the wrong thing early on that discipline was a form of punishment. In essence it really means to me that I needed to learn how to do what is right and stop doing what is wrong or damaging to an alcoholic like myself. If I believe that I’m “number one”, in order to stay sober, not drink alcohol, and change for the better so that I won’t drink again, I’m going to have to learn how to practice the right things in my life to do that. And that requires that I learn how to follow directions and do the right things for myself. In other words, discipline.

Of course it required of a self centered alcoholic like myself that I was going to have to pay attention and stop being lazy and self centered. Trying to ignore and put off what is going to help me grow along spiritual lines and build up the strength I need to continue to do the right thing each and every day I am in here. I had to learn that there is no cure for this disease of alcoholism. I’m going to have it the rest of my life. That means to me that I have to remember that I still have a lot to learn in here. If I want to stay sober I’m going to have to remind myself that there are still things I have to do each and everyday, if I really want to continue to be happy and live a sober life. I have to change.

Today we were talking about being powerless and the word “complacent”. I know from experience and my sponsor that if I became complacent that I would end up leaving this program and go back to drinking again and probably die. The complacent person was me. I thought I knew what I was doing and that I didn’t have to do what others were doing to stay sober. The result was that I was becoming bored because I was not doing or learning things I needed to do. I thought I was all right and others weren’t.

Fortunately for me I was told that I really didn’t know that I didn’t know. I only thought I did and I had to be called out for that and come to realize how ignorant my alcoholism had made me. The truth was, I came to realize, that I had to put my immature thinking aside and begin to learn to grow up and do what was necessary to live a sober life. I had to learn to discipline myself. I had to learn how to train myself to do what I needed to do. Not an easy task for a person like me, who had lived a drunken life out there and was convinced he knew everything.

Anyway I was glad that I was given this gift today and was able through the meeting to listen to what I needed to hear. A great reminder for someone like me, who needs to be reminded each and every day in here what it is I need to still do. To remember to take the number one place in my life, so that I can learn how to put my sobriety first in my daily life. Then I can still be around and available to help the new…and sometimes older, like myself…alcoholic get and stay sober. A gift given to me by my Higher Power and my sponsor and those old timers in here. Makes me grateful to be so gifted by so many others in here.