I needed
direction and to do that I found that I had to ask others how they did it. It
was a humbling experience to come before other people and admit I had no idea
how to get out of the mess I was in. I knew that a good job… a perfect wife and
family… a nice car and perhaps a happy dog… that these things wouldn’t do it
for me. The only solace I could find was in a bottle of Jack Daniels or can of
Budweiser… and that was now denied me. That meant I could no longer rely on the
good advice of my family and friends too. None of them seemed to have the same
problem I had with alcohol. All the philosophy, a change in my diet, perhaps
exercise, sitting in meditation, and churchy preaching… none of these would have done it for me either. I needed to sit down
with people like me… people who had it all and lost it… some who had been on
the same sidewalks and alleys… people who found peace and joy in sobriety. How did
they do that? That was what I desperately needed to know!
One day
I was humiliated enough to get humble before the Heart of Compassion and go
where I could sit in fellowship… sit with others without judgment… without the
superiority… the one-upmanship of preachers or psychiatrists… without finger
pointing and blame. I needed to empty my heart where others would simply hear
me and say, “That has happened to me too.” That was the first, second and third
step out of the miasma I had been driven to. When I entered the rooms of AA I
was no longer in a thicket without direction. The direction was a suggestion, and not an order, to make an
honest appraisal of myself and repair those bridges… but that is another story now isn't it?
geo 4,708
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