OKaysez

 

Made a Decision - early days!

(18) 

                       Here You Are - SOBER!

       

Sober and happy. You've made it over all those early-days hurdles and are feeling fantastic.

You've learned that miracles happen and that you're one of them.

Marvelous! 

You are enjoying living every single sober day ...

And then ...

(music from the movie "Jaws" here).

Complacency can set in. 

And then - gasp - even a bit of boredom. 

We start to wonder, "Is that all there is?" 

The answer is "No." That is NOT all there is. 

As it says in our Big Book:  "... he has struck something better than gold. For a time he may try to hug the new treasure to himself. He may not see at once that he has barely scratched a limitless lode which will pay dividends only if he mines it for the rest of his life and insists on giving away the entire product."  

So what does that mean? 

 It means we don't hoard the treasures for living a good life that we find in AA, we share them far and wide. 

We do it through service work in AA. 

We do it by always showing up for our home group. 

We share our experience, strength and hope when asked.

We encourage our friends when they hit a rough patch. 

We study our literature, either in AA study groups, with AA friends, or on our own.

 We pray and we meditate (in prayer we talk with God, in meditation we listen). 

We work the steps by doing them as thoroughly as possible the first time and then by continuing to always apply them to our life situations.

Daily Doing-the-Doing means not only that we keep our own sobriety, it means we continue to add to it in ways we can't begin to fathom in the early days of our recovery. 

The more we dig to find that golden "Mother Lode," the more treasures we will find. It just keeps on getting better!

We really will become able to "intuitively know how to handle situations that used to baffle us." 

We will laugh more and worry less. 

We will discover that all our needs are always met. (Not always our "wants," but definitely our needs!) 

We will start viewing people through God's eyes and not through our own limited vision. 

We ultimately become the people our Higher Power actually designed us to be before we got derailed by alcohol.

But to discover more on how to have an expanded life we need to do more than just read AA literature. We must study it and there are Big Book and 12&12 study groups now available online in Zoom meetings across the world. Take advantage of them!  In them we learn how to apply AA's teachings to our own lives - and how to reap ALL the benefits.

After all, "we don't know what we don't know," but our program offers us the opportunity to learn, to go beyond our limited life view all the way to infinity - and beyond. I urge you to grab everything it offers with both hands and hold on to it tightly. Living a life of full recovery is a magic carpet ride for those willing to hop on!

Just don't ever forget our Big Book also warns us alcohol is "cunning, baffling and powerful." 

It's also "patient." 

The disease that wants us dead is still alive and well inside our brains. It still has our name on its list as a "possible candidate for relapse." 

Here are some warning signs to watch our for that indicate sobriety may be at risk:  

1. Watch out when complacency lowers your guard and allows anger and resentment to reappear in your life.

2. Watch out when you find yourself being dishonest with your friends, your family, your doctor, your sponsor, or most importantly, with yourself.

3. Watch out when you start to feel cocky about your sobriety.

4. Watch out when you cut back on your meetings because you feel like you don't need them anymore.

5. Watch out when you seek praise for staying sober.

6. Watch out when you become bored in meetings. 

(Change it up a bit if you need to by getting to some different meetings and then tune in and really listen.)

7. Watch out when thoughts about drinking remind you only of the fun you once had and don't point out the horror of the end game.

8.  Watch out when any part of your life takes priority over your recovery. Nothing - absolutely nothing - is more important than staying sober. Without it, we stand to lose everything. 

9.  Watch out when you stop identifying with fellow AA members and start thinking "that never happened to me when I was drinking. I didn't lose my job/family/friends/home/car/etc." 

(All our "yets" are still out there waiting for us if we pick up a drink.)

10. Watch out when you start avoiding your sponsor. 

Watch Out, period! Stay alert for any threats to your sobriety. 

To sum up:

AA offers us three important ongoing benefits: fellowship, faith and service. And while the fellowship we find in AA is lovely, the delight we first feel in finding it only lasts until - being human - we allow a bit of disillusionment, gossip, and finally boredom to creep in. We then become dismayed to discover fear and worry have returned to our lives, too.

The good news is - that is the exact moment when we learn that AA fellowship - lovely as it can be - isn't our solution. Faith is our solution.

Whenever we find ourselves feeling alone, misunderstood, troubled, fearful, anxious or bewildered, our Higher Power is standing by to help. He's got our back. That's when we hit our knees. That's when our relationship with God will ratchet up a notch.

                     Because that's when we learn to say, "Thy will be done" - and mean it.