Last night I was reading in the book The Language of the Heart, a collection of essays by Bill W. I opened it at random and started reading and found that he was talking about those of us, who from time to time, including himself, who found they were in a state of stagnation. Though, working the steps, they felt stuck and bored.
As I read this, I was reminded of an old song from the 40s, Chasing the Blues Away. Because, Bill said, from his own inventory, that he found what was missing and the cause of this condition. Going back and reading the 12&12 carefully, he opened it to the 11th step and there it was; the answer.
In applying the steps to his daily life, he found he was doing everything he could to avoid meditation and doing it only infrequently.
I talked about this today with a couple of people in the program. I found that I wasn’t the only one doing this on an occasional basis. And I and they were getting the same results. Things were okay, but, also, not okay. That essential element of deep peace and abiding serenity isn’t always available. Going to meetings is sometimes a ho hum affair.
There was a time, when I meditated on a regular basis. Last night Bill reminded me of something I was missing and I know now, what it is I had to do in a consistent way, if I want to live and think in a sober manner. After all, the reason I know I need to apply myself to this spiritual way of life is that I was desperate to achieve sobriety when I came in. This was the answer AA offered me. I had to come to believe in a higher power and rely on it, or die an alcoholic death. I then was told that I was going to have begin to live a way of life, which would lead me to a spiritual awakening and that there were twelve steps to lead me through this process. Twelve, not eleven.
I was thinking about this today and this led me to the process of renewing my resolve to do the eleventh step. This is a beginning.