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A spiritual awakening

ADDICTION starts with pain and ends with pain - this is something I have reflected on during my first year of sobriety.

ADDICTION starts with pain and ends with pain - this is something I have reflected on during my first year of sobriety. However, since joining the Fellowship and working the Programme, I came to realise that I no longer had to live my life in the chaos of the past, I no longer needed to remain buried under the weight of my own unmanageable emotions. Anxiety and loneliness were common themes for me in active addiction.  Upon entering AA, I was greeted with support, I found a sponsor and worked the Programme, and over time those once common negative characteristics lessened. I began to see life through a new lens. 

Step Twelve reminds us to be there for others as a result of a “spiritual awakening”. I remember initially feeling confused by this term as a newcomer, “Spiritual awakening?” As a result of working Steps One through Nine, I came to understand that “spiritual awakening” did not mean waiting around in the hope that a bolt of lightning would beam down and hit me from the sky, but rather that it concerned a change of mindset, a change of perspective which became apparent to me through working the Programme. “…the personality change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism has manifested itself among us in many different forms” (BB p.567). The Big Book also mentions undergoing “…a profound alteration in his reaction to life…” My outlook on situations is quite different in the present day to what it was when I first came into the Rooms. It is this outlook, change of perspective, “spiritual awakening”, that gets me through each day sober, one day at a time. A fondly remembered fellow AA said to me (at the start of my journey), “You can’t give away what you don’t have yourself” and I now understand this to refer to not only sobriety but also to a new perspective (or reaction to life). That piece of advice was invaluable and I will always be grateful for that.  

Not all days are easy, life still happens and some situations can be challenging, but AA has given me the tools for living and the support to live again (as opposed to exist). By the same token I always seek to give back what I have so gratefully received. The practice of passing on the AA message is a vitally important one and essential in maintaining our own individual sobriety, as well as helping those who seek it. Service is an important part of this, as is the social support within each AA group. In AA meetings I always find identification and hope, listening to the shares of others. As a newcomer I was told to listen to the similarities and not the differences. Each time I hear a fellow AA share, the identification reminds me that while alcoholics are not unique, in the Fellowship we need never feel alone again.  

SYLVIE, Northampton.