The Third and Eleventh Steps opened the door for me today. It forced me to go back and think about the practices I have attempted from time to time. And then I came up with what it is that works for me.
I know that for me it wasn’t easy to accept the Third Step. It was one thing to become willing to begin to practice a spiritual way of life. I had to do that, since I learned if I didn’t I might just end up drinking again and dying an alcoholic death. I didn’t want to go there, so I backed off and became willing to accept a Higher Power and to come to depend on it to help me stay sober. But that was the Second Step. And then there was the next Step.
This is where I really ran into a problem. My complicated way of thinking drove me into a lot of confusion. Too much intellectualizing. This went on until I heard two women talking in a Third Step meeting. The one woman asked her sponsor what God’s will was for her. Her sponsor replied, “The other nine Steps.” And that opened the door for me. Don’t ask me why. Just did.
Finally the Eleventh. Prayer is something I can handle on a short basis. One I repeat over and over is, Oh, God, come into my heart. Lord, make haste to help me. There are other brief prayers, such as the Serenity Prayer, the Third Step Prayer, the Lord’s Prayer, and a couple of others, on a regular basis. Oh, and the St. Francis Prayer.
But then there comes meditation. One form of it, because my mind wanders off, is to sit down and write it out. That way I can stay focused. And then there’s the statement that prayer is talking to God. Meditation is listening to God. And listening means to stay silent. My writing is not so much listening, as it is thinking about the spirituality in this program. Staying sober.
However I do try to practice “listening”. That is to stay silent for a time, “to listen”. What I learned is called Contemplative Prayer. Sitting in silence for a period of time. Not easy to say the least. My mind wants to wander off and I don’t even know it until I trip over it. But I do attempt to focus and just be quiet. Sometimes I can get ten to even more minutes. But I think it’s the willingness to try to do this that makes sense to someone like me.
Anyway I needed to stop and think about this, after it came up in the meeting today. Heard a lot of things, which helped me to stop and think. Mainly it was the willingness of so many in the room today, to stop and put these Steps into action. Gave me a lot of pictures of what each of us is willing to do to exercise them in their daily lives. The main thing is that spelled out for me how willing we all are to put this program on the road we’re on.
So, one more time, I’m stopping to concentrate on why I am here. To stay sober a day at a time. To put the spiritual way of life into how I live my sober life. Makes me grateful that I have so much help from so many around me, whom like me are staying sober. That and my dependency on my Higher Power. Even though I am absolutely not a saint, but a human being, an alcoholic who stumbles and keeps on keeping on. I need to say thanks for all the help I get from my Higher Power and all those alcoholics I have met over the years, who have supported me.