One of the gifts I was given was hope. It’s still there. But it led to faith and eventually compassion and love for others. It also played a big part in the Second and Third Steps in here. That’s because it opened the door to filling up that black hole within me, which I brought into the program.
I have never forgotten that awful ache within. It was that hole, which I eventually learned was called the “God hole”. I had that internal emptiness all through my drinking. It just grew in size. I felt that if I could get my hands on something it would fill that empty ache within me. A new car. A new this or new that. Whatever. Always things on the outside of me.
When I came into the program, with the hope I had been given, which helped me to begin to bring a Higher Power into myself, I began to sense something was starting to quiet what was wrong with me. It took some time for me to begin to recognize that what I needed was right there in that Second Step. The beginning of the spiritual life. The entrance of a God of my understanding.
That dark hole, the God hole, I discovered had to be filled from within. And it meant exactly what I was given to start the process with hope, and then the beginning of faith.
We were talking about the Second and Third Steps in the meeting today. Lot of good things I heard today from people just like myself. The chronic alcoholic. The person I talked about with others, who had an oversized ego and wanted to be in charge and control. The person who had never really grown up and thought he knew it all. That was me. I showed up in a number of those who spoke today. It was all about how we all had to learn humility and letting go of ourselves.
I never want to forget the gift of hope. Like I said, it changed my life. It opened the door to a new way of life for me. A life often filled with peace and happiness. The serenity in the Serenity prayer. Learning to leave others alone and how to change myself, with the help of my Higher Power and so many in here, who have cared enough to reach out and help me to grow along spiritual lines.
After all of this it became clear to me why I am here. Again, to stay sober a day at a time. And having received this wonderful way of life and how it works, I realize that it’s my job to give away what was so freely given to me. This way of life. And despite my personal stumbling, due to the fact that I’m human and not a saint, I know I have been restored to sanity. The spiritual awakening. This always makes me grateful.