The meeting today opened the door on resentments, and being accused of something by the person, who became the one they felt guilty of tearing them down. They wanted to know how to get over this and stay sober.
There were a lot of thoughts going around in the meeting, but one kept jumping into my head from what I learned in here. And that was the Tenth Step in the 12&12. When it came my turn I didn’t tell the group of what that chapter said about this, but did recommend they should go and read this.
I know what it said and have had to put it into action in my life. It tells us that we have to let go of our resentment and to see what it is that’s wrong with us. I learned that on several events in the time I have been sober. I think one of them was going back and seeing why this was so important to me to begin with.
The first ones were those two men I grew to know, when I came into this program. Both were ten years sober and both drank again and died, since they were drinking on resentments. That woke me up and helped me to begin to listen to old timers at last. And they were able to not only introduce me to the spiritual life and my Higher Power in the Second Step, but to begin to try to cut what had been running my life, while I was drinking, but the same thing had come in with me in this program. They were talking about my negative emotions running my thinking. I had to change.
And what a number of us were talking about today was the fact that we all had come to learn that in all those years out there, while we were drinking, we had never learned to grow up. We really weren’t that mature. We now had to become open minded and step back with humility and begin to grow up. It made all of us begin to laugh as we admitted this to each other.
Anyway, I am so grateful that we all were able to face the truth and to do what we said we would do for our Higher Power, the AA program, and all those old timers, who had helped us…and that was to make the changes we needed to become mature, and to give thanks to all. And once again I had to think about the prayer to my Higher Power, which states: “Relieve me of the bondage of self, so that I can serve Thee well. Take away my difficulties so that those who witness this, may become aware of Thy power, Thy love, and Thy way of life. May I do Thy will always.”