We were talking to a few fairly new people today and it reminded me of a key word in my sobriety. That word changed my life. It was “hope”.
I can never forget how it was in the beginning for me. There I was suffering from blackness within. Total despair. Suicide was my next move. I couldn’t stop drinking no matter what I tried. And then something happened. The bartender stopped me by asking me if he could help. Then the man, who came over to help told me about a place where men and women met and stayed sober together and that he would take me there. All of a sudden a light went off within me and I was filled with hope for the first time in all those years of slavery to alcohol.
But hope came up again at the first meeting he took me to. I remember walking into the room and the feeling of coming home for the first time in my life. Hard to describe. And then listening to all those people in the room telling their stories and once again I was filled with hope.
But what about hope? Hope is a feeling. I know it helped kick off this journey into a sober life. I never want to forget that. But is hope enough? It’s nice and it’s helpful. But hope in itself is transient. It comes, but it goes. What was it I needed after the hope? And the truth was that I was going to have to take the next step. And that’s true each and every day I find the hope I need to continue on this path in sobriety.
That next step came in the Second Step in this program. When I surrendered to a new way of life. And that life is the spiritual life. And what was it I learned from my sponsor and those old timers? First comes hope and then it has to be followed by action. Not an easy lesson to learn. And what I learned was that the actions I had to take must lead to faith.
That was something I learned early on. First come perseverance, then comes hope, then comes faith, and that is followed by love. In that order. Stop doing one, when I arrive at the last one and I lose all of them. I learned over time that I had to persist. To hang in and not quit. Not to take that next drink no matter what. Then to acquire hope and then come to continue to have faith in my Higher Power, followed by the practice of sharing and working with others.
All of this I discovered with help through the practice of these Twelve Steps. Not just in the beginning. I learned I had to be ready to practice these Steps every day. I know that what has helped me through the years is waking up each day and renewing that hope in my life, followed by contacting my Higher Power and asking for the help I need because I have learned to have faith. Then following that with going to meetings, because I know now that I can’t stay sober by myself. How do I know that? Because I have watched what has happened to others, who stopped attending meetings.
Anyway, after the meeting a fellow member and I sat and talked about all of this. A great reminder. It made me sit down, when I came home and meditate on hope and the faith, which must follow. The hope and faith in this program. What it has done for me and all my fellow alcoholics. Amazing. I am so grateful for being able to live this sober way of life.