A power greater than me
I came into Alcoholics Anonymous completely bent out of shape. Couldn’t make sense of my life in all departments. Would grant I was drinking too much and had been for a while, but the thought of being alcoholic? No chance! “Just going through a rough patch,” I told myself. “It’ll all come good.”
On the day of my final surrender, I didn’t know it was to be the day of my final surrender. Events had brought me to my knees. There was nowhere to go, nobody to turn to. I was running my own business at the time and screwed up massively.
As I came to and started to recall the most recent debacle, I poured myself a curer, decided it couldn’t be that bad, and put myself out again.
At around 12:30 that day, I came to – again. From somewhere deep inside, the overwhelming sense came that I was done. I couldn’t go on like this. Whatever life I had been living up till then was over, and truthfully, I didn’t fully understand what that meant, still didn’t even fully appreciate that I was alcoholic.
Through a course of events, that evening I found myself at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, completely baffled, confused and scared witless. Me? An alcoholic?
I sensed I was in the right place, just from the atmosphere and the vibe in the room, and the example of the people at that meeting: friendly, relaxed, helpful.
That was over 28 years ago and I haven’t had a drink since. The only thing that I have done too, was something I never thought I’d do, take suggestions and do what I was told, against every rebellious attitude I had.
I followed what these good people told me to do, get to lots of meetings, find a sponsor, get a home group and go through the Programme with a view to giving back what was being freely given to me. That was it, nothing more.
It didn’t make sense, but then again AA doesn’t make sense – a ‘Group of Drunks’ helping others to stay sober and get back into life?
As I went through the Steps, I came to the bit which seemed to be the stumbling block for alcoholics, Step Three: ‘Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him’. ‘The God bit’ as some of our more resistant alcoholics refer to it.
It always and probably always will confuse, baffle, anger, fire every emotion up in the alcoholic, yet as time has gone on for me, it has been made simpler by my experience, good sponsorship, prayer and meditation, even though I don’t know who or what I’m praying to.
I’ve discovered Step Three has nothing to do with working things out or demanding to know if there’s a God and what ‘it’ is. It’s a simple logical step based on my First and Second Step experience. One of the best bits of information I picked up from people I trust is that if I am ever struggling or have a problem with a step, it’s not that Step that is the problem, it’s probably the Step before.
For example, if I’m struggling to ‘make a decision’ in Step Three, the problem is usually, I haven’t come to believe a ‘Higher Power could restore me to sanity’ not just around the first drink, but in all areas of my life.
Following that, if I cannot or will not come to believe a power greater than me could restore me to sanity, then I’m in really big trouble. Why? Because to me, the whole Programme is based on a conscious awareness and admission of powerlessness, i.e, having no power – nichts, nada – over if, or when, the obsession will overwhelm me and whether I take a drink or not.
There’s a simple logic to the Steps following the first Step. As AA tells me, Step One is the only Step that I need to do 100%. If that’s the case, then I get clear that my ‘alcohol is a symptom’, and my real problem is ‘Lack of Power, that was our dilemma. We had to find a Power greater than ourselves. Obviously. But where and how were we to find this Power? Well, that’s exactly what this book is about. Its main object is to find a Power greater than yourself that will solve your problem.’ (Alcoholics Anonymous page 45).
Simple, but maybe not easy. Though I practise conscious contact imperfectly, it’s worked for me a day at a time.
Go well fellow trudgers.
Stuart
Bowling
