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Made a Decision

                          Character Defects

We all have them, those pesky character defects that bedevil us, especially when we're trying to be soooooooo good. 

In our Step Work we identify them and ask for them to be removed. We feel like they are. Then, to our shock, we suddenly find ourselves once again being resentful, or petty, or furious, or spitting out lies, or ...  so what's going on???

My theory - and it's only that - my theory is once we've identified our character defects and ask for their removal, our Higher Power does indeed do so, but in His own time. They only get removed once He's sure we mean it by our doing a lot of work in that area ourselves.That's how it has worked in my own recovery anyway.

The only problem I've ever had almost immediately lifted from me - and it was the Queen of them all - was my craving for alcohol and other mind-altering drugs.

All the rest of my identified character defects have been removed only as a cooperative effort between me and my Higher Power, with plenty of effort required from my end.

 They have taken time to be removed because all of them were well ingrained habits - some of them dating way back to my toddlerhood.

Here are just some that we might be wrestling with: resentment; anger; fear; cowardice; self pity; self justification; egotism; self condemnation (guilt); lying; dishonesty; evasiveness; impatience; hate; false pride; phoniness; denial; jealousy; envy; 'busy-ness'; being unreliable; laziness; procrastination; insincerity; negative thinking; immoral thinking; criticizing; gossip; greed ... it's pretty easy to see that probably none of these are up for a quick fix!

And sometimes - even after doing a thorough fourth and fifth step - we may still have not yet identified an ongoing problem that's keeping us from living our best life. This comes under the heading of "More will be revealed," BTW. ( And it will!) 

One of mine was "busy-ness." I lived my life on fast forward, never giving myself a moment for myself to contemplate what my Higher Power might want for me other than my working myself to death.

My Higher Power finally clued me in by sending me the word "balance." That word kept popping up everywhere for me for months.

If I turned on the radio I'd hear about living "a balanced life." If I sat on the loo there'd be a box of detergent nearby claiming it offered "a balanced washing." When I turned a page in a novel there would characters trying to balance their emotions. 

The ongoing bombardment of the word "balance" got so obvious even I couldn't miss it! Clearly my HP wanted me to get more balance in my life. I've been working to achieve it ever since.

There is a time for everything. We must learn to wait patiently until the right time comes. Easy does it. 

BALANCE.

We waste our energies trying to get things before we are ready to have them, before we have earned the right to receive them. A great lesson we have to learn is how to wait with patience. 

BALANCE.

All our life is a preparation for something better to come when we have earned the right to it. 

BALANCE.

 God has a plan for us that will work out in the fullness of time. I know this. I don't doubt this. I know that patience equals BALANCE, but I also remember my children used to say, "Mom has all the patience of a boiling tea kettle." 

Sadly, BALANCE (and patience) remain a struggle ... but little by slowly I'm getting better at it. 

(Feel free to remind me of all the above the next time you hear me whining about not getting something I want - when I want it.)

I'm not the only one who gets life-changing messages from our Higher Power. One of my sponsees was given the phrase "Mind your head." It was a life-changing moment for her. She heard it and recognized for the first time that it was not alcohol that got her in trouble. It was her thinking - that took her to alcohol - that got her in trouble. 

Another AA friend came to the sudden (and accurate) realization that if he didn't do service work to keep AA alive and healthy, who would? 

These kinds of life-changing "Aha moments" happen to us all in recovery. Over time we come to recognize them on arrival. But many of mine have arrived as something of a surprise. 

These have included:

           (1) Becoming aware - over and over and over - that today, this day, is really (really!) the only day we need to be concerned about. This awareness followed a long period of time when my thoughts were more: "One day at a time? Yeah, yeah, when I find the time."

            (2)  That people have, do, and will die from our disease when they give up on AA, and what I say and do can make a difference in someone staying or leaving. We learn this painful lesson by wishing we had followed through on a phone call we had thought about making to an AA friend (say Ralph R.) one Friday, but didn't. 

We will never forget how we felt when the following week someone asks us, "Did you know Ralph R. commited suicide over the weekend?" 

           (3) Kindness really matters. 

           (4) That every sober member in AA is a walking, talking miracle. We're not dealing with a headache here. We're being relieved - daily - of a chronic, terminal and fatal illness.

            (5) That I will never walk on water and can only hope for spiritual progress and never perfection. (My first sponsor once suggested it was time for me to back away from my pile of spiritual books for a bit and read a trashy novel.) 

BALANCE! 

           (6) That for much of my life I neither liked nor trusted women. And when you are a woman who doesn't like women, you're going to have some serious self-esteem issues. Happily, a Fourth and Fifth Step on this one huge issue changed everything. I wouldn't take a million diamonds for my relationship with any one of my female friends today.

As the wonderful writer Melody Beattie once wrote: "This process of growth and change takes us along an ever-changing road. Ever changing, always interesting, always leading someplace better, someplace good." 

In life we form habits and then these habits begin to form us. Staying sober requires us to develop new habits, and new patterns of living. We learn how to do it by doing it.

 Long-term happiness is not the by-product of short-term gratification.