{"id":4441,"date":"2013-09-21T20:25:17","date_gmt":"2013-09-22T00:25:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nedsnotebook.com\/?p=4441"},"modified":"2013-09-21T20:25:17","modified_gmt":"2013-09-22T00:25:17","slug":"doubts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nedsnotebook.com\/wp\/2013\/09\/21\/doubts\/","title":{"rendered":"Doubts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today I was reminded of something my old sponsor made me pay attention to. That was the statement, when in doubt don&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>I can remember way back then that I failed to follow this advice and ran into difficulties I needn&#8217;t have. And all I had to do was listen and do what I was told. Hard for a hard head like myself.<\/p>\n<p>Eventually I began to practice, when in doubt don&#8217;t. That didn&#8217;t mean that I had to just blow things off. There was always an alternative. And that was sharing my doubts with my sponsor or others I had come to trust. I learned that I could depend on their recommendations. Their logic, which I didn&#8217;t have when I ran into these doubts.<\/p>\n<p>This kind of activity opened doors for me. I came to trust, which in the beginning was a long time coming. I began to have faith in others than myself. It also taught me to open my ears and listen. It also made me aware that I really had a lot to learn, something I had failed to do for years, because of my huge ego. But it also helped me to begin to grow up and mature, something else I had failed to do over those same years.<\/p>\n<p>The reason I thought about this today was because it has a lot to do with my staying sober a day at a time. I know from witnessing some slips in here, which came as a result of others making up their minds to go ahead, in spite of being questionable about taking action. And, of course it turned out to not be the correct answer. I have looked back and am grateful that I started to listen to my sponsor.<\/p>\n<p>One of the gifts I know I have received in here from learning what I needed to from my old sponsor and others is that I have been able to do what they did for me. I had such a call today and what was being said opened myself and my friend to what I had learned in here. Besides I have learned to trust my Higher Power, especially in these matters. I had to learn to put my own interest aside and listen and then reach back and bring out what was offered to me by so many trusted individuals.<\/p>\n<p>Again I found it was time that I stopped and thought about my staying sober once again. And the call was a reminder. A gift to me. And I hope it was the same for the individual who called. I know that I was grateful to them for placing their trust in someone like me. It was a reminder to me of exactly why I am here to begin with.<\/p>\n<p>All this I know I owe to my old sponsor and a lot of those old timers, who helped me to stay sober and begin to live this way of life. Their knowledge and examples were the kind of gifts I never ever thought I would receive from anyone. And here I was exposed to all of these people who seemed to have cared enough for me to assist me to live this way of life. I am so thankful for all of this. I hope that I can return the favors by passing them along to others. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today I was reminded of something my old sponsor made me pay attention to. That was the statement, when in doubt don&#8217;t. I can remember way back then that I failed to follow this advice and ran into difficulties I needn&#8217;t have. And all I had to do was listen and do what I was &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nedsnotebook.com\/wp\/2013\/09\/21\/doubts\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Doubts&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nedsnotebook.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4441"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nedsnotebook.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nedsnotebook.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nedsnotebook.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nedsnotebook.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nedsnotebook.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4441\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nedsnotebook.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nedsnotebook.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nedsnotebook.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}