Made a Decision

Letting God In

I arrived in AA with all my insanity intact. I had no idea who I was or what my life was supposed to look like. Recovery has been all about my staying sober while being given the tools to get those answers.

I was told right away to turn my life over to "the God of my understanding." I was so miserable and so desperate I was willing to do that, but what did that mean? It took a long old time for me to even have a concept of God take root in my head.

In earlier blogs I have outlined my search for God has taken me down many paths - from Goddess worship to Christianity and to many other concepts in between. I went to various places of worship. I read a lot of stuff. I prayed a lot. And I tried hard to meditate, even though I was pretty crap at it for a very long time. 

And meditation, is still not my superpower. I do it and I know that I benefit from it, but my mind on most days remains more restless than not.

Alcoholics in general, and I am no exception, tend to want to know what life is all about. We want to know if there is a system of cosmic justice, and, if there really is a God, does that God truly care about us? All the spiritual books assure us of that truth. Even so, we want to KNOW for sure!

Getting that assurance is up to us. We have to do the seeking and the finding. We have to reach our own conclusions based on the results we find in our own prayers and meditative times. And we have to find it by giving AA our service to help other alcoholics find and keep sobriety.

As our Big Book states:  We try not to indulge in cynicism over the state of the nations, nor do we carry the world's troubles on our shoulders. When we see a man sinking into the mire that is alcoholism, we give him first aid and place what we have at his disposal.

I've come to the conclusion I needed every bit of that exploration to find a God of my understanding, one I can hang out with, believe in, and trust that He/She is looking out for me. I have absolute faith in that God of mine today, but it sure didn't happen overnight.

What did happen was I stayed sober and I believe my willingness to keep looking for my personal God had a big part in that. That's my story and I sticking to it, but it's not everyone's story. Some in AA never find a personal God, yet they stay sober by living the principles of our program.

I take no one's inventory about these things. The winners we're supposed to hang out with in AA are those we see living lives that are joyous, happy and free. They're the ones who smile a lot and I enjoy their company. I don't care if they have a personal God or not, or what their God looks like if they do. It's none of my business anyway. I stay busy enough trying to decipher my own God's guidance for me.

Here's what prayer alone can do for us, according to an article in the AA Grapevine: As the doubter tries the process of prayer, he should begin to add up the results. If he persists, he will almost surely find more serenity, more tolerance, less fear, and less anger. He will acquire a quiet courage, the kind that isn't tension-ridden. He can look at "failure" and "success" for what these really are. Problems and calamity will begin to mean his instruction, instead of his destruction. 

He will feel freer and saner. The idea that he may have been hypnotizing himself by auto-suggestion will become laughable.

 His sense of purpose and of direction will increase. His anxieties will commence to fade. His physical health will be likely to improve.

Wonderful and unaccountable things will start to happen. Twisted relations in his family and on the outside will improve surprisingly.

One of the things I had to learn first was about my dark side. When I could do that, when I started to see myself more clearly, I was then (with my HP's help) able to stop my darker impulses before they get me into trouble - again!

(As my first sponsor often advised me, "When in doubt - don't.")

My learning to be more honest has been a help, too. The more honest we are with others, and with ourselves, the healthier we become.

When we first start our walk along the spiritual path we often want to just stay there, up in the spiritual treetops, where it feels safe and protected. Over time we learn, while we can get a pink cloud ride anytime we really need one, our proper place is right here at ground zero helping other suffering alcoholics. 

As long as we keep on doing-that-doing God will be right there with us. 

I've come to believe our trying to carry out God's guidance as best we can is the secret of personal power. We do our best to follow the directions and then we leave the results to Him.

I spend a lot more time these days thinking about my Higher Power maybe because I expect to meet Him in person in the not too distant future. I'm trying to think, act and live (to the best of my very limited ability) as if we are already in one another's presence.

Today I know for sure that the God of my understanding knows my circumstances better than I do and always comes up with far more creative solutions to my problems than I can. My God often appears disguised in amazing "gifts," or as "luck" or "happenstance" or "coincidence." He knows all my needs, wants, strengths and weaknesses and, when I let Him, always takes me along a smoother path to a better outcome.

We have to remember the God who calls us into the unknown is right there traveling with us to make the way easier. Getting to know Him is our job, all the rest is up to Him. The key - as we learn in AA - is to pray for guidance, look for its arrival, and then to just keep it simple and be grateful.  

Can I get an Amen?

 

Made a Decision

                           The Rules of AA

There are none. 

There are no rules in AA. 

There are only "suggestions" and long-established expectations for members that boil down to: Be considerate, attentive and don't disrupt meetings.

Alcoholics, by temperament, don't respond well to orders. Were we told we MUST do the steps, MUST do AA service work, MUST believe in God, MUST behave in a certain way in meetings, our program of recovery would have died long ago. 

Our Founders knew their audience. They didn't tell us to turn our will and our lives over to the care of GOD. The gave us a Higher Power of our own understanding. No dogma, just an open door leading to an ever-expanding spiritual path.

It is traditional for AA members to gently teach newcomers through a time-tested method of using  "I" messages that convey all those important things newcomers need to know.

 Instead of saying "YOU need to do all the steps in order," we say things like, "My sponsor suggested our steps are laid out and numbered in order for a reason. She said I didn't need to fear Step Nine, because after I had done the first eight steps I would be ready to do Step Nine. And she was right."

We never tell fellow members what they should do to get well. We don't "should" on our fellow members, we tell them what we did, and do, to get better. 

When well used, "I" messages aren't about ego. They're instead an effective and proper use of the word "I".

Newcomers have no idea how to behave when they first arrive in AA. How could they? We learn these things over time. Many newcomers say very little and study the behavior of others before doing much participation. Others try to dominate meetings with interruptions and their own interpretation of how others need to behave. 

Those who study first and participate later are no problem. They'll soon find their way. Those who wish to dominate must sometimes be confronted by their sponsor, or more seasoned members (if they haven't yet found a sponsor) to show them a better way.

I was an AA "two stepper" at the start of my own recovery - I'd taken the first step and wanted to go straight to number 12 and carry a message of recovery to others I didn't yet have. Fortunately I found a sponsor who knew how to reign me in.

No one is unique in AA and the two most dangerous words in a recovering alcoholic's vocabulary are, "I'm different."  

Our stories may run the gamut from highly dramatic adventures involving police, jails, car wrecks, domestic violence, and blackout crimes. Or we may have just have quietly sat at home drinking ourselves into oblivion. Either way, the root cause of our misery was alcoholism.

 Fortunately our disease eventually makes us willing to jump into the AA lifeboat. Once there we must learn to row together to save ourselves from further disaster. So in meetings we don't talk down to fellow members.

Nor do we use phrases like "you alcoholics." 

When we speak in a meeting it is customary to give our name, followed by "and I am an alcoholic." But we don't label anyone else there an alcoholic, especially newcomers. That is for them to discover.

We don't cross talk - meaning we don't interrupt or comment aloud when another member is speaking. Their need to share without anyone derailing their thoughts is sacrosanct in AA.

But we can cross share, in fact our entire program is built on a foundation of one alcoholic sharing experience, strength and hope with another. 

Here's how that works: 

When a member is sharing about a problem they're having that we have personal experience in overcoming by using the tools of AA recovery we can say so when it is our turn to share.

We share on topic first - and then can add something like, "When J. shared earlier about that problem with his boss I was reminded I once had that same problem. My sponsor told me to pray for her. And even though I didn't want to, I did. And it worked, because ... 

 "I learned my boss had a kid in the hospital and was cross from worry and not mad at me  ... "

or ... "my boss and I were actually soon able to have a good talk about her expectations from me ... "

or ... "the company soon moved my boss to another office ... "

or whatever the prayerful solution turned out to be.

Part of a sponsor's job is to teach us about AA. My first sponsor taught me to arrive at meetings 10 minutes early and leave 10 minutes afterwards. I was told to use those 20 minutes to help others set up the room, make coffee and hot water for tea, and to clean up afterwards while chatting with other AA worker bees.

(We can come early to Zoom meetings, too, and get better acquainted with those there.)

She also taught me to: apologize if I was late; to not whisper to those nearby during a meeting; get my cuppa before the meeting started and, unless I had a sudden below-decks problem, to wait until after the meeting to visit the toilet.

 I was taught to share and read when asked; watch for and greet newcomers warmly; become active in group service, and much more. Today I would add no texting or playing online games during a meeting  (I've seen both); Turn off phones when entering any meeting; and in Zoom - no cooking, eating or otherwise wandering around the house during meetings.

If there is an emergency situation in your life where you might have to take a call, set your phone on silent alert. If you then must leave you can turn off your audio and video and do so quietly.

When we attend religious services, weddings, funerals, public hearings  or the theater, we don't indulge in wandering around disturbing others. We certainly can control ourselves for the length of time it takes to sit through a meeting. 

We show respect for our program by listening to the beginning readings and to others when they share (even those we think talk too much). We can be around AA a long time and then suddenly identify with something we've heard read many times. The same is true of hearing something said that can forever enhance our own recovery.

I believe my Higher Power speaks to me through the people in my meetings. Or, as I've heard said, "My Higher Power has to wear skin for me to hear my answers."

Some people, even groups, have a problem with members who use swear words to express themselves. I'm not one of them. A little blue language won't hurt us, whereas a pious and judgmental attitude will.

Gossip can kill. Don't do it. We need to always remember we alcoholics are highly sensitive people dealing with a deadly disease. Even one thoughtless comment to-or-about someone might drive them out of AA  - and that could be their death sentence. 

AA is our safe place. We need to keep it safe for everyone.

Once we learn, and put AA's "suggestions" into practice, we become active contributing members of AA and not just uninvolved visitors.

 

Made a Decision

                    Alcoholism Never Goes Away

There's no vaccine, no pill, no medical treatment to permanently cure our illness of alcoholism. There may be one in the future, but there's never been one throughout history, and there's not one now.

We alcoholics have a chronic, progressive, terminal illness for which there is no cure! We can have a daily reprieve from our illness by not drinking during that 24 hour period, but that's not a cure. That's a gift.

We talk a lot about our Higher Power in AA, how using the "tools of AA" give us a good sober life, but I have come to believe there is a lower power busy in the world, too, and it looks to me like addiction is one of the best tools in its own tool kit.

When we were drunk we were said to be wasted, smashed, polluted, destroyed, fucked up, tanked, hammered, soaked, wrecked, pissed, blind drunk, boozed, fried, loaded - and the list goes on. There are actually nearly 200 historical words used to describe someone who is drunk. None of them I've found are complimentary.

But when we arrived in AA and heard the word "alcoholism," it was no longer a judgement, it was a diagnosis. We weren't crazy when we kept on drinking when we didn't want to after all, we were sick.

 What a relief it was to learn that.

The long-established picture of the broken down drunk living in a cardboard box beneath a railroad bridge seems to be branded on the brains of everyone in a drinking society. Young alcoholics use that image to reassure themselves every time they pick up a drink that they're obviously not an alcoholic. 

What isn't common knowledge is that image of the drunk in the cardboard palace is actually living out the final stages of our disease. Ours is a progressive disease. We don't start out as late stage alcoholics. 

We start out looking like social drinkers, although drinking a bit on the heavier side of that description. We soon progress to having sporadic problems from our drinking (social embarrassments, run-ins with the law, family problems), but unless we die in a traffic accident or domestic "incident," or speed up our progression by using other drugs in addition to alcohol, we can continue our "social drinking" for quite awhile.That's life in Stage One Alcoholism.

Stage Two gets uglier. That's when our "hangovers" become actual alcohol poisoning. That's when we start to reek of booze. No one wants us around anymore, so we isolate from family and society. That's when we might try to stop drinking and find that we can't. That's when suicide starts to look like a viable solution for our problems.

Stage Three is the short one. It ends in 

(a) "wet brain," where we drool in our soup, wear adult diapers and get locked away in a mental institution for whatever length of life is left to us.

 Or (b) death. 

An alcoholic death is an ugly death to have - or to witness. 

But it's the outcome for an alcoholic who continues to drink. 

Our disease wants to isolate us, take away everything we hold dear, and then kill us. If I'm right about a "lower power" being at work in the world, booze is a great tool for that nefarious purpose.

Sadly, after a while in AA, we can so easily resort to our pre-sobriety thinking about drinking. And we can start to place conditions on our priceless sobriety like "I'll stay sober as long as ... "

Yes. I've actually heard people in the program say that, basically telling their Higher Power not to allow anything bad to happen in their lives - "or else."  

Such thoughts totally ignore the unchangeable nature of our illness, our biochemical predisposition to abusing alcohol once it's in our systems. 

As our Big Book states:

We know that while the alcoholic keeps away from drink, as he may do for months or years, he reacts much like other men. We are equally positive that once he takes any alcohol whatever into his system, something happens, both in the bodily and mental sense, which makes it virtually impossible for him to stop. The experience of any alcoholic will abundantly confirm this. 

All of our AA's literature stresses that above point. And we'll hear it in meetings, too, in statements like: 

Once you've soaked a cucumber in vinegar long enough it changes and becomes a pickle and will never be a cucumber again. I soaked me in alcohol long enough to become a pickle. I can't go back and become a non-alcoholic again ... 

The very first time I drank I had an alcoholic blackout, so because I now know that not all alcoholics have alcoholic blackouts, but NO non-alcoholics have them, I clearly was born with my disease just waiting for me to prime the pump.

For the next twenty-plus years of my life I kept on priming it and earned all the rewards for that behavior - divorce, single-parenthood, driving drunk, wrecked car, court, etc. - but like most of us I believed I could eventually learn to manage my drinking. 

I couldn't, didn't, and now know for sure there's no hope for any alcoholic to ever "learn" control over their addiction. 

Oh sure, we might experience one night at an important occasion of being able to white-knuckle our hand around only one drink that evening, but that's not control. That's an obligation to that one event. And even then, with the boss in attendance or an angry spouse eyeballing our glass - there's no guarantee we'll be able to keep it to one drink until that occasion is over. 

Over time, after a diet of endless defeat, we seldom bother to try.

I've seen dozens of people come to AA, get sober, make huge progress in gaining good and productive lives, and then start to grumble and gripe a bit in meetings. Life isn't perfect. Their dog died. They lost their job. Their partner left them. 

Soon, because life isn't perfect, they began to show up infrequently in meetings (including their home group). They then no longer showed up in meetings where they were formerly regulars. Silence about them follows for awhile. Then the dreaded news on the AA grapevine confirms they have picked up a drink and are off and running with it once again. 

The pattern is a familiar one and it always ends badly, often fatally. The lucky ones return to AA and I've never heard one of them come back raving about how great it was to be out there drinking again. How happy their families were to see them back knee-walking drunk. How their boss said it was great seeing them back enjoying their hard drinking lunch hours once again.

 Nope. Not a one of them. 

But here's your good news  - once alcohol is our of our systems our decision to pick up a drink is just that, a decision, and it's one we never ever again have to make. 

We can, instead, hang on to our decision to remain sober.

Keep Coming Back! 

This AA thing works - when we work it!

 

 

Made a Decision.

Are We Having Fun Yet?

Recovery is a serious business. Staying away from alcohol (and all other drugs) requires a daily commitment. It is the most important thing we can do, because without our sobriety we stand to lose everything ...  family, job, health, life.

But, as our book tells us, "We are not a grim lot." Nor are we meant to be. In addition to being serious business, recovery is also meant to be joyful. 

We wouldn't let our car chug along burning oil, thumping forward on a flat tire or with banging noises in the engine. Just so, we need to pay attention when recovery feels like it is all work and no play.

If we're sober, but depressed. 

Sober, but unhappy. 

Sober, but feeling like it's all a bit boring ... 

It's time for an AA tune up.

Freedom from alcohol and drugs also frees us to enjoy our recovery and every other aspect of our lives. 

We find the fun! 

We find those things that make us happy. 

In my first year in sobriety, a friend of mine with the same amount of sober time decided sobriety wasn't much fun - and I agreed. 

So on the following Friday night we got all dolled up and went out looking for fun. 

We ate at a nice restaurant, which was nice, but at that point we drew a blank. Our “fun” had always involved barroom drinking, dancing, and flirting. 

We discovered we had no idea what to do next. 

What we eventually did was end up at the kitchen table of another friend in early recovery. 

There we drank pots of coffee, gossiped happily about every other member of AA, told each other more of our drinking war stories, and laughed hysterically into the wee hours of the morning. 

For many of us finding fun things to add to our lives means going back in time to our childhood to remember what fun looked like then: 

Roller skating? Football? A doll house? Jumping rope? Bike riding? Drawing pictures? Reading? Building a tree house or snow fort? Hiking in the woods?

 Playing with our friends?

Once we've scoured memory lane for those tidbits we can consider doing some of those things again. We'll probably find we have outgrown many childhood pleasures, but a few might surprise us by still being quite a nice fit.

We can even invite our children or grandchildren to share in our rediscoveries ... or not.  

We can always opt to share our fun, but we also have the right to be joyous, happy and free on our own

 if we so choose.  

Sad to say, our years of substance abuse took away our simple delight in just being alive, 

but recovery can restore it. 

 

Many alcoholics are also workaholics. When we find ourselves forced into having some down time we use it sit

around worrying. Where's the fun in that?

Discovering the ability to leave the job at quitting time, to rest when we're tired, to discover what we most enjoy - from building a house to just pottering around in the one we have - is the best part of having a sober life.

We must always remember we have a disease of perception. How we view our activities can brighten them with glitter or turn them gunmetal grey.

Prayer and meditation lift our spirits, center us, educate us, provide companionship, and offer us a journey of adventure - 

and/or - 

prayer and meditation are just something we do hurriedly (if done at all) as just one more recovery box to tick.  

Perception!

Service work is where we can grow our recovery by leaps and bounds. Becoming active in our home group, taking a turn chairing, serving as a greeter, helping plan and deliver special events can turn out to be some of the most fun we've ever had ... 

and/or ... 

Service work can be a drudgery to nourish our resentments: 

"THEY expect ME to do everything. 

Wah, Wah, Wah."  

Perception!

FYI - If "they" aren't doing-the-doing, "they" aren't reaping all the benefits recovery has to offer either. 

It's their loss! 

And they also put themselves at risk for relapse by not doing-the-doing. 

Learning the steps, learning how to use them as tools for living a balanced life, offers us the opportunity to get to know who we really are, to discover our strengths, to experience our talents to the full. 

To not do the steps, to not work them, use them, treasure them - all of them - is to deny ourselves all the benefits of a joyful recovery.

Meetings are our ongoing medicine for treating our disease. 

And getting to our meetings is one of the best parts of being a member of AA. Knowing we'll see our friends there, getting to laugh with one another, getting to help one another through our bad patches, and celebrate our good times together, is hugely important to our recovery.

It's a good idea to ask ourselves from time to time, 

"Am I having fun yet?" 

 

If our answer is "no," we may be taking ourselves far too seriously. 

Our lives didn't end when we got sober, that's when it truly began. 

Find your fun today!

 

Made a Decision

                   The Courage to Change

                    Courage is the willingness to accept fear and act anyway.

It takes courage to face the harsh fact that we are powerless over alcohol and that our lives have become unmanageable. 

Facing the truth about our addiction wasn't easy, nor is the process of embracing a new way of life without alcohol, but once we've made that decision a new and better way of living can begin.

The best news is that our Higher Power hands out courage like gumdrops to those who actively ask for it - and then apply it. We don't have to face any of the changes required of us in sobriety alone. 

Alcohol is a depressant. Our drinking life became a life of depression. Today we are too blessed to be depressed. And it was/is being willing to change that sets us free.

As  Bill W. said way back in 1965: 

Let us never fear needed change ... once a need becomes clearly apparent in an individual, in a group, or in A.A. as a whole, it has long since been found out that we cannot stand still and look the other way. The essence of all growth is a willingness to change for the better and then an unremitting willingness to shoulder whatever responsibility this entails.

And what does changing to get and stay sober entail?  At its most basic it means we make a daily commitment to remaining sober. 

For some that means asking our Higher Power for sobriety each morning upon awakening, and thanking Him that night for our having had another sober day.

Many AA members devote a considerable amount of time to prayer and meditation to get their day started right. Others just check in with their Higher Power throughout the day as needed. 

Meetings become a priority and we list in our daily planner which ones we'll be attending that day. We'll list our AA service commitments there, too. 

Hanging out with our friends in recovery is also important. They need our support after all ... and we need theirs! Our AA friendships -  formed on the anvil of learning how to actually be a good friend - are a vital component of staying sober in our early sobriety. It is where we learn (quite possibly for the first time ever) that friends are not required to be our clones. It is where we begin to learn to appreciate our differences or at least to begin embracing the concept of acceptance!

We all have different opinions, different ways of living, and different ways of working our program. But as long as we're staying sober and doing our best to help others, all of that is OK. 

In fact, it's as it should be. 

      As Bill W. himself also said - 

        Our very first problem is to accept our present circumstances as they are, ourselves as we are, and the people about us as they are. This is to adopt a realistic humility without which no genuine advance can even begin. Again and again, we shall need to return to that unflattering point of departure. 

This is an exercise in acceptance that we can profitably practice every day of our lives. Provided we strenuously avoid turning these realistic surveys of the facts of life into unrealistic alibis for apathy or defeatism, they can be the sure foundation upon which increased emotional health and therefore spiritual progress can be built.

A drinking life is not a normal life. When we drink heavily our bodies take real punishment. Drunks don't eat properly, sleep well, and we live in continual mental turmoil. Excessive alcohol intake physically causes our brains to actually swell, so we go through our drinking life "thinking" with a swollen brain. No wonder we used to make some pretty bad decisions! 

A few weeks into sobriety we will begin to  notice the difference as our minds clear up and our bodies start to relax. By the time we approach our second sober anniversary we'll probably have more mental and physical energy than we've ever had before.

Progressing in sobriety has been compared to building a house. First the foundation is poured by quitting drinking. Then rooms are added one by one as we begin to work the steps and practice the program.  Over time our building skills vastly improve and we are able to furnish our homes comfortably.

 I also like the analogy of living sober being a lot like baking a cake. We read a recipe, add the ingredients in order, mix it thoroughly, bake it for a period of time and - voila - we get a cake.

 In recovery we read the Big Book (recipe), do what it suggests in order, stir it around though every experience life offers us, and then "bake" it one sober day at a time until - voila - we find ourselves living our sober life, that one "beyond our wildest dreams." 

When we arrived in AA a sober life seemed like an impossible dream. It felt unnatural. But as our sober journey progresses we marvel that we ever sought escape in a bottle - or anything else.

Fact - No comfort can be found in "what was" once "what was" has became a death sentence.

Fact - We can't make any progress without making decisions.

Fact - Our program of recovery gives us a blueprint on How to Change for the better.

 

Fact -  Change offers us power.

Fact - Life is about movement. It is meant to be exciting and adventurous.

So go now and live yourself a factual sober life! 

Because all this works - when we work it!

 

Made A Decision

                                            Turn It Over

AA is all a bit confusing at first.

There's all that friendliness to deal with: "Hi, I'm Bill, Welcome!"

Encouragement: "You are the most important person in this room" ... "Keep coming back!"

Instructions: "You'll need to find a sponsor to take you through the Steps" ... "Read the Big Book" ... "Take it One Day at a Time."

Most of us respond with wariness or relief, fear or hope, confusion or willingness ... or something in between. But as long as we keep coming back, it soon all falls comfortably into place.

That first powerless-over-alcohol-step was the big one. The one we had to accept 100 percent, even though many of us weren't yet even sure we were alcoholics. (I was one of those). Coming to understand our powerlessness can take us a bit of time. 

And that's OK, as long as we keep attending meetings to listen and learn. 

The second step immediately gave us a loophole, in that "came to believe" wording. 

"Whew," past tense, we won't have to "come to believe" right away, we thought. 

Then - right on its heels - that Third Step arrived, instructing us to turn our will and our life over to that Higher Power, the one we weren't even sure we believed in yet!

How in the Hell are we supposed to be able to do that???

It's was easier than we could believe at first. As it says in our wonderful 12 & 12 book:

No matter how one wishes to try, exactly how can he turn his own will and his own life over to the care of whatever God he thinks there is? A beginning, even the smallest, is all that is needed.

Once we have placed the key of willingness in the lock and have the door ever so slightly open, we find that we can always open it some more.

Though self-will may slam it shut again, as it frequently does, it will always respond the moment we again pick up the key of willingness.

Many of us arrive in AA with a belly full of fed up about God. And our program makes it clear there is no need to have a personal deity to stay sober. There are many agnostics and atheists in AA with long term sobriety.

The only requirement for any of us is to acknowledge our inability to "control" our drinking and accept there may be something more powerful than us for help with that. 

Recovery is a journey, not a destination. The spiritual path is our never-ending story. We learn as we go and we never stop learning. That's why you'll find old farts like me still attending meetings after decades of sober living. "More will be revealed" - remains absolutely true. 

"Wanting what we want when we want it" is part of our alcoholic wiring. Our early superiority complex (hiding our second inferiority one) tells us, "I've got this sobriety thing," even when we have just barely begun our spiritual journey.

And if we are staying sober, we have indeed "got this" - but we've got this for today only. 

Learning that, internalising it, is part of the spiritual rewiring that takes place in recovery OVER TIME. Our lifetime of self-centeredness can't be reversed all at once. There are many things to be learned and rebellion can dog our every step at first.

 Newsflash - that's normal!

There's a funeral involved on our graduation day from AA, so I'm personally in no hurry to get there! Recovery is an adventure. It's interesting, challenging, and much of it (but not all) is downright fun. And the more we turn things over to our Higher Power for higher guidance, the easier it becomes!

An alcoholic can never get well, if by "well" we mean being able to safely drink again. But can we stay sober? Absolutely. We can stay sober every day for the rest of our lives - as long as we do it in manageable one-day-at-a-time chunks.

We first turn our drinking problem (and eventually every other problem) over to a Power greater than us. Millions ask that Power every morning to keep us sober and thank that Power at bedtime for another sober day. It never fails us when we do it, or at least that has been my own experience. You can easily make it your experience, too.

Our Big Book states:

When we became alcoholics, crushed by a self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or evade, we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing. God either is or He isn't.

Our spiritual path is an individual one, lived collectively. We get guidance from our literature, our sponsor, and our AA friends, but we don't find God by reading or word of mouth. We learn - and earn - our faith by living it in our own individual way, although honesty and carrying the message is always involved. 

AA eventually brought me to a personal God, a companion for my life journey that I can trust to look out for me. It didn't happen overnight.

It didn't happen quickly. I traveled up and down many spiritual by-paths before becoming comfortable with my own quirky, humorous, tough-love, ever-present God.

I am gradually learning to want God's will for me above all else. This requires prayer and meditation on my part to - little by slowly - gain more spiritual understandings.

 I block God's communication with me when I allow my inherent selfishness, dishonesty, fear or resentment to reappear and settle in. Steps 10 and 11 protect me from that.

 I'll never reach spiritual perfection (damnit), but I can work on improving.

Letting go of our pride allows our Higher Power to get hands-on in dealing with any problems we may face. We can learn to upload our problems on to broader shoulders. Serenity then becomes part of our daily bread. And joy butters it.

Does God speak to me? Yes, but seldom directly. (He did once, very early in my sobriety, and it - literally - scared the Hell out of me.) Instead I get nudges, whispers in the wind, conversations with AA friends and my sponsor, many magnificent displays from nature, and in songs and books that clearly address my own issues. 

God’s subtle ways of communication are surely true for each of us. We only need to pay attention, and life is our school.

The Big Big Book (Bible) gives us the tale of the son who tired of living the life of a wastrel and returned to his family. At the end of the story, the father of that Prodigal Son says: "He was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found."  We alcoholics who have found sobriety in A.A. were certainly in that same category, and it is God - "the Father" - who restores us to our real, sober selves.

All of us have surely felt the Divine Presence at the seaside, under a spectacular night sky, hiking in breathtaking mountain scenery or planting in our own gardens? I know that I have.

I've also felt God in a handful of meetings over the years, present as a Force so powerful it changed the hearts and minds of everyone there, including mine.

Keep coming back.