Surviving
STEP Two implies I’m insane. To say that Step Two offended me is an understatement, I was outraged! Mind you, I was equally outraged at the notion of being an alcoholic. I was so insane at the start of my recovery that I did not even realise how insane I was. Indeed, to this very day I am grateful for this Step which allows me almost daily to realise when my thinking is off and to ask a Power greater than myself to return me to sanity. I confess to needing this Step a lot more often than I’d like to admit.
I am 16 years sober and used to equate years with sanity, serenity and a peaceful existence. I used to think the older I got the more I would know, the safer and surer I would feel of myself and the world around me. In fact, the opposite is true for me. I’m over half a century and can honestly say I know less than I ever did, the world around me baffles me, I’m not sure I’m living the life I want to, even though I have attained everything I thought was necessary for happiness to flower.
Asking myself, “Why?” does not help me at all. Yes, there are valid reasons in my home life which would test the serenity of spiritual gurus, I have a partner who may or may not be terminally ill. But I feel shortchanged most by a notion I have laboured under most of my life: if I just reach such and such age, or get such and such person, or place or thing then my life would all be sorted, and I could enjoy a happy, peaceful existence for evermore. Unfortunately, life is not like that.
In recovery I have had many, many gifts in my 16 years. My circumstances have vastly improved since I first crawled into AA. Then, just when I thought I had everything I ever wanted, my partner found out that he might die. No one can predict something like this, and certainly no one can predict the outcome.
To be honest, sometimes I do not know how I feel about the situation. Yet somehow, we have both survived one year of this sentence. When we were told he might not have long, I remember realising it was sink or swim time for me. Whilst it has been excruciatingly painful living at times, I have somehow managed one full year of it, without a drink or a drug or a homicide! And strangely enough without losing my sanity. Thank you, AA.
FORYST