How about thinking? I mean that’s what I know alcoholics like myself find themselves tied up in. We had a fairly new man asking this to be a topic today. And it certainly got a lot of us up and running in the meeting.
I know from my own experience in here how much trouble my thinking caused me, when I walked through these doors. For one thing I came in here totally immature. I had never really grown up and alcohol certainly kept me from any kind of maturity. And my thinking was all about the junk I had been living. Thousands of thoughts it seemed each and everyday.
I also knew how risky this was. I saw others like myself falling back into alcohol by following their thoughts. That scared me, but I still had too many thoughts and slowly became desperate to do something about that.
One man mentioned something I forgot. He talked about writing his thoughts down. In fact that was one of the tools I used in here to help me stay sober. I kept a kind of “diary”. I wrote journals on a regular basis for years. I would write my thoughts down. Things I had learned in here. Things I had read. Things which helped me. And over time these were to help me to begin to change.
However we all knew where that man was when he brought this up, because of how many of us had been right where he was at the moment. Funny, as one man pointed out to me earlier today. How we can think we’re the only one thinking like the way we do. But when we are open and willing to share we begin to hear ourselves in others.
Of course one of the dangers of our being crowded with our thinking stuff is how emotions can control our thinking. I’ve seen what this has done to too many. One of those is what the BB talks about. It’s about resentments. How these cut us off from the sunlight of the spirit and we drink again and for us to drink is to die, the book said. And I witnessed that over and over again in here. My first sponsor did that. Never forgot it. It kind of woke me up.
Over time in here, I learned to shut up and listen and pay attention and not get caught up in my own thoughts. That was because I learned discipline. I learned to practice paying attention. Not just with my head but over time within my heart as well. Changed me for the better.
Anyway, as I stopped to think about this, it reminded me of just how much I learned to listen and learn. At first this was something I tended to rebel against, but over time I did change. And it’s this which constantly reminds me of why I am here. I am here to stay sober a day at a time. I never want to ever forget that. I never want to drink alcohol ever again.
And, of course, that’s exactly where the Second Step came into my life. It turned my sobriety over to a Power greater than myself. What I came to understand as my Higher Power, whom I hope and believe in that keeps my sobriety growing within me. It opened the door to this whole program and I am so grateful for all of this. The very fact that I can think this way spells out how much I have changed. Thanks.