A blessing of long-term sobriety is perspective. Charting my growth through the lens of recovery. There are many instances where I sputtered and stalled but my life is certainly better than I ever dreamed possible. Without a doubt, getting sober when I did, saved my life. It took me too long to understand the gift of sobriety. I still don’t see the entirety of it all. I feel blessed catching only glimpses of possibilities, which range from the mundane to the spectacular. I am convinced AA is but a start to a greater life. But I have to stay centered on the principles of the program to get there. The Steps are not a one-time exercise taking me from misery to serenity. They are living guidelines that can take me as far I want to go. Practicing the AA principles in my life has brought about a dramatic transformation of being.
In the beginning, AA granted the means to get sober. It offers me a safe place to go for community and support. Most of it all it gave me hope. Times have changed, but it used to be that smoke-filled church basements were my favorite place to be every night. The folding metal chair, a pack of smokes, and a cup of black coffee were the perfect complement to a sober evening.
As the years rolled by, I grew antsy. I needed more. It was a dangerous and scary time where my depression and anxiety returned with full force. Sometime after the 20-year mark, I reached a plateau where I was no longer growing. I suspect there were others like me that had reached a certain point where their sobriety wasn't what it was earlier. I should have discussed this with others, but I kept my mouth shut. I made things worse when I used my problems other than alcohol as an excuse to stop going to meetings.
Intentionally not going to meetings is stupid! It is a surefire way to derail your serenity and sobriety. It makes life much harder than it needs to be. If you are thinking about it, don't do it! Talk to your sponsor or bring it up in a meeting. Not attending meetings is the number one cause of relapse for those with long-term sobriety. Ask around if you don't believe me. This is the terrifying reality when we go it alone. When I first got sober I was normally the youngest person in the room. Now when I go to meetings, I am usually the one with the longest sobriety. Often this is by a wide margin. I don’t say this to toot my horn, but I am asking where all the other people who have long-term sobriety are.
I don’t want to be another statistic. There is nothing in my experience to suggest that drinking today is going to be any different than it was in the 80s. I see now that the discomfort I felt was meant to shake me into action, instead, it made me lazy. The Big Book states that recovery is a daily reprieve contingent upon maintenance of our spiritual condition *. My problem was not that I needed more meetings, although I certainly needed to go. But that I needed to immerse myself in the steps. Not only for my alcoholism but for my entire life.
My spiritual condition is not an adherence to any religious tradition. It is a way of being achieved by working through the Steps. They apply to all areas of my life. They provide the framework for self-discovery and self-actualization. By working the Steps (10, 11 and 12), I am able to maintain my spiritual fitness and transcend my old self. The Steps are transformative. They bring about the spiritual experience described in the 2nd appendix of the Big Book ɟ. And they change the way I viewed and lived life. It’s of vital importance that I don’t rest on my laurels and allow my recovery to stagnate. There is no finish line. I will never graduate. I keep growing because the alternative is an unhappy unfulfilled life and death.
I returned to the moral inventory to uncover what was holding me back. Resentments are resentments and there is plenty of talk in the rooms about how to deal with them. Discussions of sexual misconduct can lead meetings astray. That topic is best talked about with a sponsor. But what about fear? I don’t recall my original 4th Step. I was not exactly a self-aware 20 years old, but I did the best I could. I jotted down a few fears, mainly about loneliness. Sharing them in my 5th Step was easy. And moved onward to having those fears and other character defects removed with the 6th and 7th Step. I was completely oblivious to the fact that fear ruled my life.
A few years ago I became aware that I lived most of my life in fear. I spent the majority of my adulthood avoiding the things that made me afraid. I spent almost 9 years in the US Navy and visited many countries. I have been blessed to have lived in London and Hawaii and had opportunities most people never get. Yet I experienced so little because fear got in the way.
All my dreams and ambitions were dampened by fear. Social situations and new people were my were my biggest obstacle. Hence I spent a lot of time alone. I loved learning and wanted desperately to return to college, but fear stopped me. I couldn't do it. Dating caused me to panic and sex terrified me. Was I afraid of looking foolish or stupid? Not being good enough or smart enough? Not being perfect? All those things and more. My biggest fear was anxiety. I hated it. I would do anything to avoid feeling it. All situations caused me anxiety so I would avoid as many things as I could. This was not a happy or effective way to live.
Through a great deal of hard work both with my sponsor and a therapist I have been able to manage my anxiety. Which brings me to the 10th Step. It’s vital for my recovery not only from alcoholism but of self, to take a daily inventory. This is not a list of all the people who angered me, but a review of my day with loving kindness toward myself. I cannot underscore that importance of self-kindness. There is one harder on me than myself. I am my own worst enemy. I use the 10th Step not only to see where I could have done better but too also to see my growth. I acknowledge my best rather than castigate my faults. As humans, we have the tendency to focus on everything that is wrong in our lives. We bemoan our lack and cling to fallacies of what can make us whole. We spend precious little time on the good in our lives. We overlook the blessings and take for granted all that we do have. The 10th step is a gratitude list I keep for all that I appreciated throughout the day. It shines a light on what was once darkness. Today I embrace my best while striving to be a better man than I was yesterday.
* Page 85 of Alcoholics Anonymous
ɟ Pages 567 and 568 of Alcoholics Anonymous
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