One of the most difficult things I had to deal with in this program, were the changes I had to go through. I think some of this was due to the pain I had to go through to do this. And then some of this was due to ignorance. Things I didn’t know that I needed to change.
The first change I went through was the biggest relief. And that was letting go of my drinking alcohol. I mean, here I was ready to end my life because of my despair and depression, and then I had been handed the relief of hope, which helped me to surrender to my Higher Power and give up alcohol. I have never ever forgotten that. Don’t want to.
But then came my dishonesty. Some of this I was entirely unaware of. But I got hit with this in here, when my old sponsor told me that I didn’t know that I didn’t know. I only thought I did. That really had a startling effect on me. For some reason it woke me up. I wanted his help and I suddenly realized that I was going to have to learn to listen and accept, rather than thinking I knew what to do. Not an easy way. Time took time in here.
Then came my need to accept spirituality. Learning to commit and live it. That included faith in my Higher Power and being willing to do his will for me. I had learned some of this before alcohol had taken over my life, but I wasn’t really living that way. And then came love and compassion, which I never really knew anything about. Thought I did, but learned I didn’t. I had to come to know how to freely give to others what I had learned in here.
Learning to forgive and forget, making up to others for the injuries I gave, learning to put my mind in charge of my negative emotions, were not easy things to learn and practice. Again time took time. And one of those was what I had been doing, hopefully sharing this with others like myself.
There is a lot more I know, but, again, time takes time. I was told by my sponsor and those other old timers in here, and the AA literature, that we alcoholics are not saints. We are human. And that means, they said, that, along with the rest of us, we will be stumbling, and tumbling, again and again, until the end of our lives. I was going to have to learn to pick myself up, dust myself off, and keep on keeping on. Asking my Higher Power and others to help me, and staying sober one day at a time. And, as my sponsor pointed out, to stay in the day and not project into the future. And I need to be grateful to my Higher Power and all those, who help me to stay sober.