Tonight, I'm speaking at a small meeting I attended for the first time last week. I'm really not nerovus... yet!! I'm really looking forward to the opportunity to share my experience, strength and hope, to tell how it was, what happened, and what it's like now. I am very grateful to be almost a year and a half sober and recovering, and I need to tell my story, not only in the hope that it helps another alcoholic, but to keep me focused on my journey in recovery as well.
Besides, it will be good practice, because I'm sharing at another meeting this coming Saturday evening. When it rains, it pours, and I'm being deluged with blessings.
It hasn't been easy, particularly these last 8 to 9 months. I started working in January, and quickly became obsessed with work. Yes, I am an addict in all respects, and now that drinking is not an option, my addictive behavior and attitude still strives to prevail and take over, to take the control back from my Higher Power. Because, after all, I run my life so much better than my HP possibly can, right?
This addictive controlling nature is what will take me out if I let anything come between me and my Higher Power, if I let something else become my Higher Power. I become, irritable, restless and discontent, and quickly fall into my "victim" role, wondering why everyone is against me and why my life sucks, and why God has deserted me, and WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME???!!!!
The only thing that has happened is me. I've gotten in the way again. I've become disconnected from my Higher Power because I'm not making any effort to connect. My recovery and continued sobriety is but a daily reprieve, contingent upon my spiritual condition, and if I'm not pursuing my recovery, my relationship with my Higher Power, my relationships with others, and if I'm not using the tools I have learned to use in this program, I WILL fail. And, eventually, for me, that failure will result in drinking again.
This program works, but only if I work it. If I forget that, I will relapse, and the relapse is the shift in my thinking, attitudes, behaviors, and eventually, my beliefs. Picking up a drink is merely the final plunge off the cliff.
Telling my story, whether to a group or to a woman crying to me on the phone or after a meeting keeps ME sober. It is a powerful part of my recovery because it reminds me of where my drinking took me, it's consequences and impact on myself and those I love, and how amazing the life I have now is.
I don't want to lose what God and AA have so freely given me, and the only way to keep it is to give it away to other alcoholics.
2 comments:
For me, drinking is ALWAYS an option. I must do whatever it takes not to exercise that option.
am Deepak from India and i was an alcoholic for 14 years and my lives had became unmanageable.And i lost my eye in an accident when i was drunk driving.I am not shammed to tell tehese because, i diserve it.I discontinued my education in the tenth class.After 14 years and hurting my parents i accepted and wanted to join in AA group in India.I understood the programme and now i am sober and i have a blog about Addiction,De-addiction,Abuse,Rehab info.And i also want to place a link in your site and help the addicted ones.
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