How sober am I? Today we were talking about the First and Fourth Steps. Interesting. A lot of what was said led me to thinking about my sobriety and a talk with a friend later made me think even more about how I’m doing.
Basically it had to do with our split personalities. The one, who goes to the meetings and is charming and open, funny, sociable, helpful. The other goes to work and home and is just the opposite. Jekyll and Hyde. Or, as one woman said, that here she got along and at home she can be a real bitch.
That spiritual awakening, which brings about a change in personality, can be crippled by my character defects. How easy and at ease I can be with alcoholics like myself. But put me in my home territory with friends and relatives and it becomes work to get along with everyone. Something I’m reminded of in The Doctor’s Opinion about not being able to distinguish between the true and the false. And I thought that was only involved with my drinking.
Nevertheless, I know that living outside of the rooms of AA has to do with the discipline of surrender. It’s the third part of our Twelfth Step, to try to practice these principles in all of my affairs. How quickly my selfishness and self centered ego comes back to light. I’m reminded of what some of the old timers used to talk about. They would say how shocked and angry they were after getting sober and no one gave them a medal for doing that. Especially their family members. Wonder why that was?
Familiarity breeds contempt they say. And there are people who know us only too well. They remember us as we were at one time and probably bear a lot of resentments. Even after years of being sober they don’t see us as the rock star of AA, as maybe some of the people in those rooms do. To me they are often irritating, controlling, and just plain hard to get along with. And that just stirs up a lot of my character defects. Yet I know what I’ve learned in the rooms of AA and from my sponsor. That love and tolerance are our code.
For me, as I think about it, the spiritual awakening should be about a unity of character. A wholeness of personality. I know that it is possible, as I struggle to maintain the same attitude at home that I have in the rooms of AA. I know it’s possible, because I learned that in the Second Step, as I read it in the Fourth Chapter of the BB. That I have to get a power greater than myself, who can empower me to live this life. The answer to my insanity and my unmanageable life. Between God’s power and the help I receive from the group I am once again reminded of what’s really important. That, if I want to stay sober, it’s important that I live a sober life.
Anyway, I was thinking about this after I got home today. Unifying that split personality of mine into one of wholesomeness and goodness, as this program directs me to do.