When I first arrived at the program of AA, I didn’t hardly know what hope was. Let alone hearing about Happiness, Joy, and Freedom. Guess I had a “guess I’ll give it a try because I’ve tried everything else” attitude. But to no avail. The only thing that I felt after trying all by myself for so long was frustration, anger, and utter hopelessness and despair. Nothing seemed to ease the emotional pain. It was as much of my everyday existence as breathing. Churches didn’t seem to work. They appeared to me to be only interested in my donations to help the church. Not how the church could help me.
God seemed to be a Being in human form sitting on a golden throne “up there” somewhere. There He only judged and punished and condemned people like me to eternal damnation. He transitioned my father at the early age of 54. He gave me a marriage of 16 years. One that was more like a divorce of almost 16 years only waiting to happen. He took my son away and sent him to prison for a long term. Then he transitioned my only birth son soon after birth. He gave me a beautiful daughter who he emotionally took from me. She listened to her mother and avoided me. This was totally for what ended up lasting for over 40 years. I truly believed “Who wouldn’t drink if you had my problems?” There was very little happiness in my life at this time.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered inside the Program of AA that this was not what God was all about at all. I saw people in the program who I had known when they were as hard drinking, hard fighting, hard everything as I was. Now they were seemingly Happy, Joyous, and Free. I wanted some of the joy and happiness they had. Wanted so badly that I would cry just thinking about what had passed me by. It seemed that it was too late for me to get on with it. “That train has left the station!” I was completely ready to go to any lengths to get what they had. I told them so.
These formerly rough, tough, amoral, sad creatures told me to COD (Come on down) to the Program and surrender totally to it. They had an air of contentment that I wanted badly. They told me to “Fake it ‘till I made it” so I did and it didn’t take very long before I didn’t seem to be faking it any more. The goodness seemed to be coming originally from me instead of me copying others and faking it. I was told and shown to come to know that there was a Power that I could tap into and use. It would work for me just as it had for many others before me, including the people that I was talking with.
I soon noticed that I had gone for lengths of time without even thinking of drinking. Was going for lengths of time without wanting to stretch someone’s neck because of something they had said or done. I was going for lengths of time adding positive thoughts to my mind. Adding happiness to my life. I soon realized that I was not the total loser that I had feared that I had become. When I was “white knuckling it” over something, I was told to say The Serenity Prayer or the 3rd Step Prayer. When I told them that I had and it hadn’t worked, they suggested the shortened version of the 3rd Step. Simply say “God Help Me.” I tried it and almost immediately discovered positive results.
Having the addictive personality that I do, I wanted more, much more, so I started using the shortened version of the 3rd Step, “God help me,” regularly for everything. The results were increasingly better. So, to this day, that is what I do to keep this initial feeling of Happiness, Joy, and Freedom that I was beginning to feel. Whenever I come to a fork in my road of life, I simply say “God Help Me” and move on. Nowadays, I also add “God, Thank You” to my day a lot. Every time that I see a beautiful sight or instance, I thank my Higher Power who I now call God.
If it works for this formerly very angry, very violent, very abusive, very foul mouthed, well armed creature it could work for you, too. I firmly believe that it will if only you surrender to this Higher Power and ask for help. It says in The Promises that these things will ALWAYS materialize if we work for them. The key is working for them. How do we work for them? We simply ASK HIM FOR HELP. It says in How It Works, “God could and would if He were sought!” The key here is we must seek and ask. It could not be any simpler, not always easy, but simple.
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