Today we all got into talking about one of those ways of thinking, which always gave me trouble. At one time they drove me to over drinking alcohol. Almost each and everyday. And, as we talked today, you could hear some, who said it could take them back to drinking again.
And, what was that? And the word was “projection”. I mean here we are where we’re supposed to be living a day at a time. Yet, because our minds are such, particularly the alcoholic, which has us not staying where we’re at, but running off to the future. And that’s the problem.
I mean I was told that I needed to stay where my feet are, and not go into the future. I may think that I know what I’m supposed to be doing, but that might not be true. After all I came into this program full of dishonesty. My old way of thinking. Thinking I know what I should be doing. Not what this program and my sponsor and those old timers knew was best for me. He told me that I didn’t know that I didn’t know. I only thought I did. I see that in so many, often around me.
And yet, when I get up and pray and decide to spend my day staying sober, I can sometimes find my mind wandering off into the future. As my mind starts wandering, I forget what’s going to happen. For, if I think I know what’s going on, because reality is not there, my mind goes back to the past and brings up things I find I don’t want. And what’s that? Awful things, which happened in the past. Things, which can cause me to suffer anxiety, fear, anger, resentments, and on and on. Things, which, as they said today, could very well drag me back into drinking alcohol again.
Yet, as my sponsor and others pointed out, I have to learn to stop and ask my Higher Power for help. I have to learn to step back and start my day over. I need to get myself, hopefully, back into a positive attitude. I have to give up that negative attitude, which pulls me down into darkness. I have to remind myself why I am here. I’m here to stay sober a day at a time.
That tells me what I have to do. Often it’s the last three Steps. Ten, Eleven, and Twelve. To assess what is going on inside. Like the spiritual axiom states, that whenever I’m disturbed there’s something wrong with me. No one else. And then I need to pray and even stop and meditate. To think. And, if possible, to go to a meeting and hopefully work with another alcoholic. Freely giving what was freely given to me.
Anyway, what we talked about and shared made me stop and be grateful for what has been given to me over time in here. Peace and comfort I have been able to grow and adopt to. Like my sponsor and those old timers told me, I had to learn not to project, but to stay in the day. However I also have to know that something else is true. I’m not a saint, as the BB and the program points out to me, I’m not a saint. I’m a human being and subject to my faults and defects up to the end of my life.
There’s no cure for this disease of alcoholism. It may be arrested within me, and I know, if I put this program into action in my life, I can stay sober a day at a time. But it’s still deep within me. I need to know that and remain active in this program. Like the Ninth Step tells us, the spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it.