Years ago, my sponsor told me that AA was a way of life. He told me that in my time with alcohol that it wasn’t just the drinking I had to give up, but a way of life that I had been living. He said that I had to learn a new way of living. And that wasn’t easy in the beginning. It was really confusing and took a long time.
I was to learn over time that my new way of life was in the steps and eventually in the traditions. I had to let go of all my old ways and ideas. In the Doctor’s opinion I was to run across one of the first “musts” in the program. It says that the alcoholic must believe that he is as abnormal physically as he is mentally. There was a lot of physical stuff that had to go; first the booze and then a lot of other things. Then the mental stuff.
For instance, everyday after work I would automatically walk across the street to a bar in which I drank. After stopping drinking, I would find that the pull to go there was as much physical as it was mental. It was like a hand grabbing me by the back of the neck and trying to pull me out into the street. I would break out into a sweat and try to remind myself that there was a meeting I could go to that night, which would save me. That went on for quite a while.
As I proceeded through the steps, I found that I was almost automatically beginning to shed some of this stuff. Then more and more, as I went on. What was happening to me was that I was going through an inner transformation, which I now realize is truly the spiritual life to which I had been introduced. It changed me both inwardly and outwardly.
A few friends of mine and I were talking about this today…this way of life we now find ourselves in. Our thinking, our attitudes, our whole beings have been changed and, despite our former way of life, we are comfortable in our present state of living. We are sober and have a new relationship with a God each of us has come to a new understanding.
Anyway, I was thinking about this, when I came home this afternoon and being grateful for this second chance at life. Just being sober would have been enough for me, but I found that there was more and more, as I have gone forward.