One of those things I had to learn in here did change me for the better. Didn’t happen overnight. Again, time took time. And that was compassion. What my old sponsor and others taught me. What was in the BB. I had to learn how to love. And I did.
It all began with meeting these people in here and beginning to be friends. And over time, as I knew them I did begin to love them. And it was this, which led to compassion. Willingness to love and care for them. It began to change me like I could never imagine.
Way back it began with some of these old timers in here, who began to die off. I was given an opportunity to go and sit with them as they were dying. Haven’t actually forgotten. What it did was to teach me to care for others. All that taught me to not just think about them, but to begin to pray for them. It gave me the opportunity to open my heart to the God of my understanding and to begin to practice compassion.
Over time in here I began to learn to be loving and caring of others. But again, time took time. Especially as I and others grew older in sobriety, and as I grew closer with others. Hopefully learning to console them, if they had problems with family or friends. And, of course, if they themselves became ill and suffering. Not just to think about and pray for them, but willing to reach out and care.
Anyway, enough. Just thinking. Amazing what I have begun to learn in here. All this because I was given the gift of sobriety and then learning what to do, as I began to live one day at a time, in order to stay sober. Learning, as I was shown, what it is I needed to do to help myself and others to live this way of life. We all had to learn how to grow in hope, faith, and love of our Higher Power and ourselves. It did teach me how to be grateful and to give thanks.