Always have been interested in the 12&12’s version of the 11th Step, because it reminds me of what I heard in here a long time ago. And that was what alcoholics of all sorts, who came up with a version of a spiritual life and a higher power, if any. Agnostics over time in here were no surprise, even though many of them changed and became willing to grow along spiritual lines.
I was early on in the 11th Step today in the book, when I had to stop and go back and go over my own life in here, because of what it was that I kept running into. I know that I ran into things which changed me fairly early on in my alcoholism. I was in a religious school, after high school, for a few years, going forward, when I read something which threw me off balance. And because I didn’t really want to talk about it, I pushed it down within, and never really spoke to any experts about it. I made up my own mind.
I walked out of that school after five years, and went on in the same religion in two schools, until I got my degree. But the minute I left the seminary I was in, I went back to drinking again. And that went on for over thirty years, until I hit my bottom.
There I was, just escaping committing suicide over the effect alcohol had on me, and turning my life over to God for the first time in many years, and totally surrendering my drinking alcohol, and being willing to do whatever he would want me to do. And it worked. I totally stopped drinking for the first time in all those years, after school and up until this point in my life. An awfully long and terrible time in drinking, which had ripped my whole life up.
The truth was, as I learned from my old sponsor in our beginning, that I really didn’t know that I didn’t know. I only thought I did. That was what was the beginning of a new way of to go back and start to learn, not just about what I needed to do in the Steps, but also a spiritual way of life I had lost over the years. As my sponsor had pointed out, I needed to begin to listen and learn and stop thinking I knew anything, which could help me to stay sober and change my whole life over.
I know I have gotten help from my Higher Power, this program, and the people in it, who have reached out and helped me. Like I was aware of today, I still am learning, and often in the process of changing and growing, but never done yet. It just woke me up this day and made me stop and think about it. Still reminds me of how stubborn and foolish I was back when I came in. I need to stop and thank my Higher Power, and the literature, and the people who have freely given to me. But it has always helped me to stay sober a day at a time, and to help others, whom I have been able to talk to along the way.