My Higher Power is still listening
 

Audio Version

I have gradually come to understand more fully, the expectations I had when I undertook the Twelve Steps with my sponsor. In taking a moral inventory, examining the exact nature of my wrongs and making amends, I had a much dreamed of goal - that I would eventually be FORGIVEN. Not only for being drunk, falling down, being sick, being put to bed, but for the continuing actions and consequences of my drinking lifestyle, particularly the deceit and the double life of concealment. However, I had proved I could not be trusted and so being able to atone, re-establish trust and be welcomed back into a less conditional relationship, proved far more complicated than I had ever imagined and has indeed eluded me for many years.

It was not lack of willingness that stood in the way and early on I thought I had made headway. However, the pain I had caused my immediate family, my offspring, was so severe and far reaching in their lives, that my efforts to make amends seemed to bounce back. They were brushed aside, or disguised as unnecessary which was the more seductive, as I had an artificial, unreal, yet hopeful sense of where I stood. Our interactions became stilted because I was nervous and unsure, always trying hard to demonstrate the NEW and IMPROVED sober me. The climate in which this display was received was often cool and resistant, hiding what I silently dreaded - much more deep-seated resentments and misery. Far from improving harmony, my membership of AA, my occasional references to new friends and my new upbeat life in sobriety, all seemed to make things worse. The hurt inflicted was too deep to be removed by inconsequential good deeds because I appeared to have done no real PENANCE. This distancing continued because my good intentions were misconstrued. There was also no real understanding of the chain of events which preceded and formed the basis of my drinking behaviour. In trying to empathise, I could see that it had been almost impossible, given the previous history of loving early memories, to truly free the anger and hurt and clear the air. I have always known deep down, that so much was unresolved and I began to move it to the 'accept the things we cannot change’ part of the Serenity Prayer. Would I take it all to the grave? THEN they’d be sorry!!

You can see from this, the less pious, angry me that remained, but communication HAS at last begun. It will be a painful but much embraced, part of my journey. It would seem too, that my Higher Power has been listening all this time. My message in writing this is two-fold: it is NEVER too late to get sober and NEVER too late to hope for and actually experience FORGIVENESS.

Anonymous, on the occasion of my 8th sober birthday