It always amazes me at meetings when we talk about meditations. Or better yet, the spiritual way of life. Mainly because, when we get down to it, we begin to find out just how human we really are.
I know one thing which saved my life and got me sober was surrender through prayer to the God of my understanding. Not that I understand God. I certainly can stop and go back and think about how studies may have spelled out spirituality. But reality in my life sure doesn’t.
I can look around the room and realize what I’m looking at is definitely a spiritual solution. I mean here is a roomful of alcoholics, who have quite a period of sobriety. Not a drink in a long time for many there. Yet like myself they were such drunks that they could not stop drinking on their own. And here they are in this program and they are sober. Amazing.
Almost everyone in the program that I know can tell you that if it wasn’t for the spiritual aspect of this program they might all have been dead a long time ago. Ask anyone of them what got them sober and they will all point out the Twelve Steps and daily attempts to put this program into action. And of course the spiritual aspect of this program. And when pressed to talk about their spiritual way of life it all comes out so imperfect.
And I can understand all of this. It’s because I am a human being. I have my imperfections which keep coming up. Yet I know that if I don’t try to do what I was told to do a long time ago by my sponsor and those old timers I could very well be back out there where I came from. Drinking and drunk. And probably not even alive.
I always go back to Bill W. and what he wrote about, when he had gone back and read the Eleventh Step he had written for the 12&12 years before. He said he discovered how poorly he had worked this Step and how many he knew who were the same way. And I felt like he was talking about me.
What has helped me with all of this through the years was my old sponsor, my friends I have know over the years in here, alcoholics like myself who have helped me and continue to live this way of life. And of course my being willing to maintain faith, hope, compassion for others, and being willing to continue to practice perseverance despite my faults.
I learned a long time ago that I could not do this program and stay sober by myself. I need to practice gratitude and go to meetings and being willing to share and to try to work the Twelfth Step at meetings and elsewhere when it’s available to me. Each and everyday to stop and think about staying sober a day at a time. To pray and meditate the best I can and dedicate myself to this program. The result has been I am still sober and still here. To me amazing.