Some things I’ve learned. Step one. The powerlessness referred to in any 12 step program is just a starting point. The big lesson I’ve learned is the powerlessness over people, places and things. The insanity that is referred to in the second step is also more then the insanity connected with what ever specific symptom we struggle with. IE. Drugs, sex, gambling, shopping, eating, cutting, and binging. For me it’s the insanity that I experience when I forget the first step. Being powerless over peoples, places and things. I try to change these things with no hope of doing so, I become INSAIN. It’s not important that I believe in your HP, GOD, or what ever you call that power that you turn to when you figured out that you can’t do it your self. And it’s not important that you believe in my HP or GOD that I turn to when I figured out that I can’t do it myself. What important is figuring out that I can’t do it with out some help. Giving up on that that self centered ego that tells me ”I can do it myself” “I can handle it” “I don’t need help” “I’m different”. I know I’m not alone when I say that my life has proven that when I have tried to be totally self reliant I eventually hit a wall. I need you and YOU need me. That’s just the way it is.
Self centeredness is far more powerful then I give it credit. Self centeredness is at play when I tell you how bad you’re screwing up like I possess the wisdom of someone who has lived a thousand years and has lost my humanness of making mistakes. Its thinking that I should be speared physical or emotional pain because I’ve been though enough. I don’t agree that life’s not fair. This would be true if I and ONLY I have felt pain, physical or emotional. Lost someone I cared about. Gotten sick. Been homeless. Been abused mentally or physically. We all get a turn. That’s only fair. What still blows me away is the ability that is in all of us to survive and thrive regardless of our struggles. This is for when I KNOW that I’m in some way connected to a power that I may or may not understand. I’ll end with this. I helped put on a house meeting tonight for a good friend that is dying from cancer. He has been clean for 23 years and has always said “I’m not going to pick-up NO MATTER WHAT” This is his second time facing cancer in his 23 years. He beat it last time. He’s beginning to see that unless a miracle happen he’s not going to beat it this time. And yet in all his pain, physical and emotional, in all his anger and sadness he is still grateful that he is clean. We sheared our pain, our hope, our struggles, our fears, and our gratitude. We sheared the miracle and blessing that we few have been speared the painful and fatal existence of active addiction.
I had a good day today. How about you?
