This became a day for refreshment. From time to time I may awake on any given day and come to realize that the best thing I can do for my sobriety is to open it up to refreshment. By that I mean that I can get caught up in finding my self getting stale, often forgetting things I need to do.
Once again, on those kinds of days, I am reminded of the truth. I need to go to meetings, because I can’t stay sober by myself. I need all the help I can get from others just like myself. Alcoholics. I need to be in those meetings and to open my mind and my heart and listen. Just like I tried to do in the beginning. I need to hear what others have to say and hear what I discover I have forgotten and need to put it into action in my life.
Now that I’m thinking about this I realize that each and everyday is a day I need to add refreshment. It’s something my sponsor and those old timers used to tell us. That we can’t stay sober on yesterday’s sobriety. Today is always a new day. Yesterday is gone. It’s over so I have to start over again.
Like so many I have learned from and heard over and over again is that I need to start each day with prayer. And that first prayer is always the same. For me it’s the Third Step prayer. Going way back. To begin each day asking for the help I need from my Higher Power. Because, no matter what I may think, my sobriety is dependent on him doing for me what I cannot do for myself. Which is a whole lot, when I come to think about it.
And today for me was perfect, when it came to renewal. A new person was sitting in the group and our members were doing what it says in the Fifth Tradition. Carrying the message of the program to the alcoholic who still suffers. And if this new person wants what we have it’s because pain and suffering put them in that chair. So I, like everyone else in the room got exactly what I needed. Every ones story of what they went through to get here and what happened and how they got sober and stay sober. My only hope for the new person is that they hopefully heard what they needed to in order to continue to come back and put this program into action as we all did, who are still here and sober.
This evening I got another reminder from a friend in this program, who called to talk about prayer and meditation. Very heartening and helpful to go back over so much familiar knowledge and information. We both talked about what we do and what we fail to do or make mistakes in doing. Sometimes difficult and sometimes humorous. But ever spiritual. A reminder to never stop trying no matter how often we stumble. Always at this kind of sharing I’m reminded of the statement in the BB that the spiritual is not a theory. We have to live it. To continue to practice these principles in all of our affairs.
Anyway I knew that I had to stop at some point and think about all of this. I have to remember why I am here. It’s all about sobriety. It’s about my Higher Power, the program, and the people in it, who like myself are trying to stay sober one day at a time. And it’s about practicing gratitude. Never want to forget that and one of the reasons I go to meetings. Not just to practice it, but to be reminded of it.