In the course of my life in sobriety I have found that there were an awful lot of bumps along the way. Both good and bad. Or what “seems” to be bad. I remember one old timer had a prayer, similar to our Serenity Prayer. It went: “Oh, God, grant me the serenity to accept the good things in my life, as well as the seemingly bad things, as necessary for my growth. Amen.”
The seemingly bad things. I remember when I first heard those words, it really stopped me in my tracks. I thought all bad things are just bad. Illnesses, accidents, financial set backs, and on and on. What was “seemingly” about these things? Bad was bad wasn’t it? But his story of how this prayer came about in his life and my own experiences have led me to change my mind, to where I not only understand what he was saying, but I can make that my prayer, too.
He had a beautiful daughter, who was a fashion model. One night, drinking with her boyfriend, she was in a motorcycle accident and she was thrown into a skid across the pavement of the highway, which took half her face off and part of the side she was skidding on. Now she was no longer beautiful and scarred and crippled. And she was still drinking, when he told us this.
He said he went to meetings and didn’t drink and learned to accept what had happened, with the help of others. That’s when he began to turn his attitude around and to see things in a different light. And that’s when he began to say that prayer.
In a sense, I guess, it became a part of his spiritual awakening. His story and that prayer began to open my eyes and my mind. The old ideas I had in my head about what was tragic and what was not began to change. I began to understand, with the help and support of so many in this program, that what happens in my life, whether to me or others, may not always be the way it appears to be. That down the line I may begin to understand what I may not understand at the moment of these occurrences.
One thing I know, is that these things have changed me, not for the worse, but for the better. They helped me grow in ways I could never have imagined. And the best is that I never had to take a drink despite some pretty hard bumps. The seemingly bad.
As long as I apply these spiritual principles to my daily life, I find that I will get over these bumps in the road just fine. I have learned that the joy of living, which the 12th Step talks about, is always in my life no matter what. Because, no matter what, I still enjoy being sober and being among others just like myself. And it all started with the 2nd Step, when I discovered the solution.