Had to laugh at myself today. Couldn’t get to a meeting so I decided to have a meeting myself. Like I was thinking, I was laughing. But then on the other hand I almost have a by myself meeting every evening. So, there’s really no difference.
The truth is that I take time during the day for myself to think about staying sober a day at a time. In those moments I never go any further than the moment I’m in at the time. I don’t go back to the past and I never go into the future. I know at that moment where I am. Right here.
That’s not always the case in the rest of the day. I have this mind which wants to wander all over the place without any help from me. It’s one of the reasons I have to stop and write down my thoughts, if I want to focus. Otherwise it seems like a thousand thoughts a day are running every which way within me.
However I do recognize the fact that, if I really am committed to staying sober a day at a time, that it’s really important that I concentrate on that. I learned that from my old sponsor and those old timers back then. To be committed also to attempt to spend some time with my Higher Power, as well as the people in this program.
The people in this program are really important to my sobriety. Like I said I can find my mind wandering and I know they are the ones who bring me back to where I need to be. Their sharing is what reminds me of what I’m liable to forget. Or they help me learn something I never knew. I know that I’m still here to learn no matter how long I have been sober.
I’m often reminded that I have a disease for which there is no cure. I will have it until the day I die. And that means that, if I want to stay away from alcohol, there are probably a lot of things I failed to learn along the way in here. I realize that when my sponsor pointed out to me, that I didn’t know that I didn’t know and only thought I did, he was telling me what I needed to hear. That I had a lot to learn in here.
I have no doubt about this need to learn. How often I can find myself stumbling back over some fault of mine and having to pick myself up and dust myself off. Why do I keep doing that? Not only that, but when I find myself disturbed I come to realize that there is something wrong with me. And that often surprises me, when I find out what that is. And I still have to learn not to take the other person’s inventory and only take my own. None of this, plus a lot more, is easy for a chronic alcoholic like myself.
Anyway I had to sit down and think about where I am at the moment I missed the meeting. Whenever I run across something like this which reminds me I have to think about the restoration to sanity I have been given along with my spiritual awakening. In other words I do believe that it has something to do with my Higher Power. That plus my thoughts about those around me. Especially my long time friends in here. Yet the current people in my life are important as well. I am so grateful for all I have been given. I need to say thanks.