My Higher Power

Audio Version

When I was a patient in my local mental hospital in Inverness as a result of my powerlessness over alcohol, I was given a ‘Who Me’ pack and I remember looking at the 12 Steps on an enclosed card. I saw in Step 2, the words ‘Restore us to sanity’ and I thought “What a cheek” - to be restored to sanity you had to be insane first of all. Without giving any thought to the predicament I was in, I still considered myself a great guy who would soon be running the show again.

On my release from hospital, I stayed off alcohol and was taken to meetings regularly, but being free from alcohol simply enabled me to become better at doing things I shouldn’t have been doing. Now that I could remember what I was doing it was more difficult for others to catch me out. As in the drinking days, I was once more running the show my way, scheming and wheeling and dealing, which are great and exciting until you get caught - and of course it happened to the great ‘I’. Realising I was in serious trouble and the hurt I had caused others, the great ‘I’ had to look at life as it really was and I decided I wanted what you had and became willing to go to any lengths to get it. In other words, I was ready to try the 12 Step Programme in the hope that my life could be manageable again.

People in AA were talking about God and a Higher Power, which I hadn’t needed previously – as I was ‘it’. A friend helped me with the early Steps and readings in the Big Book, but I still carried a lot of resentment and hate. I could surrender my life to God when things were going well, but I still struggled to cope when things weren’t going my way and this took years to overcome. In the midst of my struggle, the 
Inverness 12 x 12 group started up and I joined it to learn about living sober with the 12 Step Programme. It took me years to ‘Let go and Let God’ and accept that there is one – and I’m not it.

Today, through trying to live the way I believe God wants me to live, I accept that there has always been a power looking after me and that is confirmed when I look back at all the God incidents in my life that I thought were only coincidences. As it says in Step 11, I could no more do without prayer and meditation today than I could do without food or sunshine. May your God go with you.

Douglas
Inverness Steps and Traditions