Sometimes it stops me to hear others talk and not refer to the BB. Amazing. I wonder if and when others read this book. I know how important that has been for me. It taught me what I needed to know about what was wrong with me and what it was I had to do, if I wanted to stay sober. Very clear. All I had to do was read and study the BB.
I remember my old sponsor having me read the introductions to this book and asking me, if I understood what it was saying. I think I told him yes. Then he asked me now that I had understood what I had read that he didn’t want me to just read this book. He told me that if I wanted to stay sober I was going to have to study this book. Looking back I guess that’s what I was doing. Studying. Getting what I needed.
Today some wanted to talk about the “insanity” of our disease. The talks wandered all over the map. That made me wonder if anyone had actually done what my sponsor told me to do. Because it obviously had worked, when I look at my life today. And what am I talking about? The restoration to sanity. The Second Step, which was part of the discussion today.
I have never forgotten what the BB said about this. It’s at the end of the Ninth Step and the beginning of the Tenth in here. I definitely remembered it because when it happened to me I went back and read it. During the Ninth Step I was stopped one day, when the anger I felt during one of these melted away. Not only that I remember all the resentments I had had suddenly melted away. It took my breath away.
I went back to the BB after and found that it stated that we had stopped fighting everyone and everything, including alcohol, for by this time sanity had returned. Then it tells us that we have been put in a position of neutrality as far as alcohol is concerned. We’re told we will recoil from a drink of alcohol. For me it was the spiritual awakening again. What had happened when I finally was given the gift of sobriety, as a result of my surrender.
I do know what they were “arguing” about, thinking insanity. And that is talked about in the BB, back in How It Works, where it tells us that we are not saints. We’re imperfect. We’re still human. Our faults, our defects are going to come and trip us up. I have learned that through experience. I may think I’m doing this program, but every once in a while up pops my old stuff. That’s when my sponsor told me I was to pick myself up, dust myself off, and keep on keeping on.
Sometimes I know I need to start my day over, as I was told I should. I need to do that from time to time to regain a positive attitude in here instead of a negative attitude filled with emotions.
But what I must look at is the gift I was given at that moment of restoration to sanity. Although the disease of alcoholism is still present and will be for the rest of my life, I have been relieved of having to think about a drink. The physical side has been neutralized. It’s the human side, the mental and emotional which is active. And that’s where the rest of that Second Step and the Third come into action. The spiritual life.
And that’s in the Ninth Step. The spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it. Amazing. And that’s what those early days way back when helped us all. We went to meetings and they would read the BB and discuss what was in it and how it applied to us. There was no talk about anything else. If someone would go off track they would be told to be quiet and discuss whatever it was with their sponsor or another alcoholic after the meeting. But never during.
Anyway I could not help but think about this when I got home. Not really, because I talked about it all the way home, with some members who were there today. It’s just that I needed to sit down and think about why I am here. To stay sober a day at a time.
Just being grateful for what I have been given. Thanks..