Keep it simple. That statement, when I guess I first heard it, almost went right by me. Were they talking to me? I had never paid attention to the concept being an ego-centric. All I knew at the time I came in here was that I was fortunate to have stopped drinking alcohol. And I guess I believed the rest was up to me.
Today at the meeting we were talking about the Third Step and resentments. The Third Step was still not on my mind, when I stepped through these doors. Nothing relating to spirituality was. And resentments? I later discovered my life was full of these. I was just so soaked up with them that I really never paid attention.
So this was who I was when I came in. Someone, who like the BB stated, thought he was director. My ego, I discovered, was so huge that I was totally unaware of my insanity. Yet I was somehow slowly beginning to discover things, which would lead me to my being rescued from myself.
The first of these was the disease concept of alcoholism. I really had no idea that I was an alcoholic. All I knew was that no matter what I did I could not stop drinking alcohol. If I could have drunk it 24 hours a day I probably would have. Alcohol owned me and I finally decided, since I couldn’t stop drinking, that I needed to kill myself. It was driving me out of my mind and my life.
Given hope suddenly changed all of this and led to my finally saying a prayer to God, as I understood him, and surrendering to my being powerless. I hadn’t heard of AA or the Steps, but I later realized I had done that First Step without entering this program. And it worked. I was freed of alcohol and then came into this program.
After I got here I was finally cut down to size and began to listen to my sponsor and those old timers in here. And it all really started with that Second Step. I had not only found hope over and over again, now I slowly found faith and the door to this program. And that’s when I found the Third Step.
At first I did what I always did. I complicated everything. My head was filled with all these “thoughts” of what this was all about. However I found the answer in a very simple way. I heard someone tell another alcoholic that God’s will for them was the other nine Steps. I must have been desperate, because I bought that idea the minute I heard it.
And along the way through these Steps I found how soaked I was with resentments. After I did the Fourth and Fifth Steps I decided to enter into the Ninth. But the Eighth Step drove me back, because I found out how deep these resentments were and my inability to get rid of them or forgive others. And that pushed me back into the Second and Third Steps for the help I needed.
Eventually I reached a point of making amends. And it was while I was making an amend that I was finally freed of all of these. Hard to explain, except I hit a moment, when all of a sudden they disappeared. The restoration to sanity suddenly hit me. I read in the BB how this worked. I found I had stopped fighting everyone and everything including alcohol, for by this time sanity had returned. I actually had a spiritual awakening.
After a long time in here I also learned that the Tenth Step had a spiritual axiom, which told me that whenever I’m disturbed there is something wrong with me. Not someone else. Me. And that’s what I’m responsible for. And that applied to my resentments opening up again. It wasn’t about others, it was about me. My ego. My emotions. I had to learn to ask for the help to release me from their possession of me. And in time it began to work.
Anyway all of this once again reminded me of why I am here. To stay sober a day at a time. And hopefully growing along spiritual lines, which comes into my life in that Eleventh and Twelfth Steps. Makes me grateful for all I have been given in here.