There are times when I stop and go back and think about how I have changed for the better. What I really think about is a miracle I know I have gone through, which accomplished this change in me. I know I am not alone, there are so many I really know and a whole lot I have never met, but I know we all went through the same thing.
And, of course, that was our surrender to what we call a Higher Power, whatever that may be. And all of that was the result of our being held hostage by our drinking alcohol, and the damage it was doing to us. We couldn’t stop no matter what. I remember how I tried over and over and over again. And nothing worked.
And then one day, when I was going to kill myself, someone told me something I had never heard of before. That there was a group of people, who were sober alcoholics, and had meetings to help people like us. And that gave me hope I had never felt before.
So, I went home, and prayed for the first time in a long, long time. I begged my concept of God, to help me stop drinking alcohol ever again. I told this God that I would do anything he wanted me to do and I would surrender to him. The next day I awoke and for the first time in years I didn’t want to drink alcohol. And the miracle is that I haven’t had a drink of alcohol since.
A few days later I went to my first meeting of Alcohol Anonymous and was welcomed and helped by the men and women in that meeting. Some of them called old timers, who had been sober a long time. And that’s what I wanted.
But the truth was that I wasn’t honest and hadn’t been for years. I was a liar and didn’t know it. I was filled with negative emotions, which ran my mind and my life. And I was convinced I knew the truth. And that’s where these old timers in here were able to begin to change me from the kind of alcoholic individual I was.
They firmly helped me to begin to understand my total dishonesty, and to begin to give up my thinking I knew anything. They not only began to teach me what I lacked, but also gave me what they called the “Big Book”, which began to help me to slowly know what it was I needed to know. And the first thing I discovered was that I needed to grow up. And that growing up was an introduction to a spiritual way of life.
Anyway I felt a need to stop and think of why I am here. I’m here this day to stay sober one day at a time. To renew my commitment to never drink alcohol ever again. To express my gratitude to my Higher Power for all the blessings and good he had given to me. To remember to re-thank my old sponsor and all those old timers, who stopped and helped me. And to also gives thanks to all those in here, who have continued to help me grow up.