There’s a huge difference!
The definition of Alcoholic that I like the most is: If once you pick up that first drink you can not guarantee your actions you are an alcoholic. That one fits me perfectly.
I would be driving home from work and call ahead telling my family that I was coming and that I was going to stop “for a drink.” I was telling the truth as I knew it, really believing that I was going to have “a drink” and leave the bar.
The truth was that I may only have one drink and go home. I may have several drinks and go home. I may start drinking and close the bar and then go home.
Then again, I may have several drinks, close the bar, and go to a blind pig and not get home. But, when I said I was going to have “a drink,” that was what I really believed.
Once I had that drink, I could not guarantee my thoughts and actions. Choices no longer had any meaning to me because I would have no choices after drinking the first one. I had to continue drinking once starting.
After entering the AA Program and really working it by starting out by asking my Higher Power for help in all decisions, I finally, for maybe the first time in my life, had choices.
I could choose the direction to go whenever I came to a fork in my life’s road. Early on in my program, I tuned out people who told me I had to do anything at all, just as I had before coming into AA.
Since I have been working in the program, I relish the fact that I can choose now everything and that brings out the Freedom mentioned in Happy, Joyous, and Free.
I bristled at the thought that I have GOT to do anything. Since I now have the freedom of choice, I don’t have to GOTs to do anything. I GETs to do something. How? By choosing to either do it or not.
Once I got the feeling of GETs to not GOTs to, I became even more comfortable with the program as a whole. If I choose to GETs to do something like pray or read the Big Book, I seem to get so much more from the results.
More than I would have had before I had to GOTs to do it. Only words but this is why I believe in the power of thoughts and words. They may be the most powerful thing that we have in our heads.
Remember, it all starts with the 3rd Step, or the shortened version that I use daily by simply saying “God Help Me.” Then getting out of His way and letting Him.
Today I GETs to do anything that I choose to do. I don’t GOTs to do anything. Why! Because I did not drink or drug today and this allows me to CHOOSE.
I can CHOOSE to put Life in Living if I simply don’t drink or drug today! I love the concept. So will you if you give it a shot. Thank you, God!
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