Thinking and reading led me back to what my old sponsor once told me. He said that when I got my insides to match my outsides, I would find myself more comfortable. Or maybe it was my outsides matching up to what was inside.
In any event, I knew what he meant. I had to work the program. I had to change. What I brought in here with me had no place in this way of life. I had to have that psychic change the doctor talked about in the Doctor’s Opinion. His description of the man, whom he treated a year before, who showed up and he didn’t recognize him in any way, was an example of that. The man I hoped I would one day be able to be just like.
We talk or read about the spiritual life in this program. The BB is full of our life in the spirit. The spiritual awakening we have as a result of these steps. But, if I believe I have had a change, such as the changes I witness in those around me, even though I don’t always see it in myself, I have to begin to live like my life within. If I don’t, whatever I think I may have gained may be in danger of being lost. Maybe even my sobriety.
This change is all about sobriety. I keep saying I’m sober in spite of myself. That’s what I mean. What is a mystery to me. The spiritual life. I definitely believe in it. The evidence is quite clear. I wouldn’t or couldn’t be sober without it. I know from my life before coming here that there was no way I could get sober and stay sober. Yet here I am.
Part of that mystery is that I really can say that the longer I have been sober, the less I know how this program works. I just know that it does. I know it takes acceptance, surrender, willingness on my part. I have to somehow practice the spiritual principles I have learned through these Steps in order do my part to sustain my sobriety. But it’s so imperfect, as I am, that it’s a wonder to me at times that I’m still sober. With all my character defects, my faults, my unmanageability. Yet here I am.
What a miracle this program has been for me. And all those in this fellowship, who share their sobriety with me. I am so grateful to them and my higher power.
Anyway, I was thinking about getting my outsides to match the inside of me.
My sponsor promised me that if I followed these simply set of principals, worked these steps precisely as they are outlined in the AA Big Book, my life would be transformed, that a physic change would occur and I wouldn’t want what he or anyone else had, I’d want what I have. It is true in my life today I say with humilty and gratitude. .