and it leaves only good, things behind!
What about you? Do you have choices? I‘ve had reminders recently of all that I have to be grateful for. I was reminded that, since I joined AA and began working on the Program to the best of my ability, I now have choices.
Looking back, I don’t think that I had choices before. Then the Program showed me that there was a better way. The way of sobriety. Sobriety is a lot more than just not picking up that drink or drug. That is just being dry.
Sobriety means feeling truly Happy, Joyous, and Free almost every moment of my life since being introduced to this amazing program. When entering, I heard How it Works read before almost every AA meeting.
The 2nd paragraph jumped out and grabbed me by the throat almost from the very first time that I heard it. It says “If you want what we have and are willing to go to any lengths to get it, then COD.” Come On Down!
I wanted what I was seeing and hearing from the other members of AA regularly. I wanted it bad! I knew that I was willing to go to any lengths to get it, whatever these lengths consisted of.
I was raised in the streets where it would cost me whatever I had in my pockets to just come down off of my porch. If I told Recob that I had a dime, he told me it would cost a dime to come down.
If I said a nickel, and gave him a nickel and continued on up to the corner store and got an ice cream cone with a hidden nickel, I would take a thumping when I came out.
My mother could never understand why I was elated when he was killed in a motorcycle accident. But it was what it was.
Fear dogged me. I learned that alcohol would numb the fearful feelings for a short time and so I dove head first into drinking. Even though I blacked out most times that I drank. I didn’t drink for the taste. I drank for the effect.
I had many different types of friends growing up, some just like me and many just waiting until they got older to go to prison. My first job when I got out of the Army was as a bouncer at a red neck joint in Muskegon, while supplementing it with foundry work in the daytime.
This is where I met my first wife, with who I went through, not a 16-year marriage but a 16-year divorce waiting to happen. We were both practicing alcoholics and so the divorce kinda bore this out, huh?
Afew months ago, while working at the St. Andrews Soup Kitchen on the East side of Flint, I heard that we lost another regular patron of our services. She was not a so-called “nice” person.
She was a person who made her living, or I probably should say existence, by turning tricks as a street walker. She was a drug addict who finally robbed her dealer and was paid back, along with another lady, with a severe beating.
Word is that one died and the other was close. Was she one who I would invite over for dinner? No, but she was someone’s daughter or sister. And my friend! The people who come to the Soup Kitchen are like my extended family. I love them all!
I hear these stories with increasing regularity and the 1st thought is “Thank you God for guiding me to and keeping me on track with Alcoholics Anonymous. There, but for your grace, go I!”
There was someone who attended our meetings here for a while who told another that I was really intense. I plead guilty as charged. I learned a long time ago that I can’t take myself seriously and I don’t.
I do take my AA Program as seriously as a heart attack, though. Sorry for the rant but I had to get it out and thank God you are here. Don’t be afraid of living. Be happy with the fact that you can now truly live and enjoy life.
Acouple of weeks ago, my wife suffered a medical attack. She started to pass out and I had to call EMS. She sped to the hospital and stayed for almost a week.
A couple of days after returning home, she was rushed back to the hospital. Much pain and unable to walk. This time it was Congestive Heart Failure. She is now a couple of days away from getting released to physical therapy. We are blessed that she is doing better, now.
We have talked a lot before about the shortened version of the 3rd Step. This is saying “God, help me.” Then getting out of His way and letting Him. Beautiful things start to happen. Formerly self-centered me turned into one who has so much gratitude that I have become too blessed to be stressed.
If you have been following and doing this so far, now may be the time to start or increase your newly discovered feelings of Serenity. Simply start to sprinkle in some “Thank you, Gods” and reap even more benefits.
If this is done, I promise you that things will only get better. When the “thank yous” start outnumbering the “help me” there will be no holding you back.
I know that, for me, I started feeling so good that I started looking for reasons to say “thank you.” Sometimes it must look like I am mumbling to myself with that big smile on my face.
We can’t keep love unless we give it away. Why not show our loving Higher Power our love and hang on? The rewards can seem to overwhelm us.
I discovered a long time ago that, when I am counting my blessings, I don’t have time to complain. When I was new to the program, I didn’t even know if I had anything to be grateful for.
I thought that when I would mention a problem someone would probably say “This too will pass.” When I heard this, I only wanted to pass my five knuckles across their lips.
“If you had my problems, you would be upset too and want to drink!” “I don’t have anything to be grateful for!” “My life is a mess — everyone hates me and what does this leave to be grateful for?”
I was advised by wiser heads that, when I couldn’t think of anything to be grateful for, to simply reach down and take my pulse or breathe into a mirror to see if it still steams. When I did this, I was then advised to say “Thank you, God” and move on.
So I did and life immediately started getting better. To this day, I still pepper my day with “Thank you, Gods” and reap the rewards. I have people around me that not only love me, but like me, and there is a difference.
A value could not be placed on the blessings that I get today because of following these few simple steps that AA provides for me. Just like a roadmap of life.
By starting out my program with many God Help Me’s to living today with even more God Thank You’s I have discovered that my life has been and is still truly blessed. In fact, I am too blessed to be stressed.
I can’t nor do I even wish to work your program for you but this is how I have become truly Happy, Joyous, and Free. I invite you to take whatever you wish from this and use it. What do you have to lose other than a good case of depression, woe, and misery with a pile of Poor Me’s added?
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