I don’t know how long it takes to get rid of them, probably never, but problems are part of being human. I should know, because I have run into them time and time again. The question is always, how do we handle them?
The first thing, of course, is no matter what I am to stay sober. Never want to drink alcohol ever again. I didn’t come in here to go back out there. I hated that way of life and what alcohol was doing to me. I was ready to kill myself in order to get free of alcohol. Thank God I was given hope by a friend. That opened the door for me to surrender totally. Never want to forget that moment. I often go back there, because it’s encouraging. Also it’s part of my Twelfth Step.
Once I know that I have to stay sober a day at a time, I’m often encouraged to go to a meeting. And just as often, while I’m in there at the meeting, I seem to always get that return of hope within. And that leads to faith in my Higher Power and this program. That I will be able to deal with whatever it is I’m facing at the moment.
Just another lesson to this alcoholic that I learned in here. That I can’t do this by myself. I need all the help I can get. And often, especially when I’m knocked back inside by a problem, I begin to pray and ask for the help I need. Maybe not immediately, but after a meeting, and often during, I can find myself saying a prayer. And when the meeting is over, I often feel lighthearted. I’m not sure that’s true of everyone, but I have heard others say the same thing.
Probably the things which have helped me the most, when I found myself buried in a problem, is to discover someone I can help, who needs it. Being able to do for them, what was freely given to me. The assistance of my old sponsor and those old timers in here. To reach out and give assistance to someone else, who needs my help. At that point I have often found whatever I felt was burying me begins to lighten up. Often opening the door for me to find a way to deal with my problems.
I often go back to that moment in my life, when I was suddenly, without warning, discharged from a job I had been working for a few years, when I was definitely near the age of retirement. I became so angry that it was difficult for me to stop and pray and ask for help. I had been sober many years by this time. And then the phone rang. It was my younger, practicing alcoholic brother. He informed me that he had been told he only had three months to live and could I come back to my home city and help him.
That took whatever was eating me up out of within me. I did, and it changed me. Both he and my mother died about a week apart in the same house. I never ever want to forget that, because it taught me that, if I had to, I could handle anything. Took a long time in this program for me to learn that. But it did change me.
It once again reminded me of what I had learned in here fairly early on. And that was I needed to learn perseverance. And I was to learn to persevere first in hope. Next I needed to learn to grow in faith and persevere in faith. Never to give up in either hope or faith. And then to learn the fourth thing. Love. To grow in all of these and to continue to persevere in hope, faith, and love. To practice these in my life always.
In other words to do what I learned in that Second Step, to grow along spiritual lines. Never to forget that. It changed my life and helped me to stay sober. I need to always remember why I am here. I’m here to stay sober a day at a time.
Life is not always easy, but it is what it is. Like I learned that the spiritual life is not a theory. I have to live it. I never think of myself as a spiritual being, but I know I need to never give up and keep on keeping on, as my sponsor pointed out to me. I pray that I will keep on doing what I have learned in here, no matter what. And I am grateful for all I have been given. Amazing.