What counts is what we learn after we know it all
I NO LONGER believe in coincidences! Last fall, when I had been sober almost twelve years, an AA friend dropped by just at a time when I needed help and didn’t know exactly what was going on inside of me. I had received two very disturbing letters from my son and his wife about a situation that I had thought I was handling well. I wasn’t.
As I discussed this with my AA friend, other feelings poured out. Summarized, they showed that while I had changed a great deal in sobriety and was accomplishing a lot with my life, I still could not internalize compliments. They bounced off my chest and never entered my gut. With that dumb smile of his, he said over and over again, “Work the Sixth and Seventh Steps.” Reading them over and over was not going to help until I worked them, he said. I knew these were the “defects of character” Steps, but what in the world did not accepting compliments have to do with these Steps? I had enough problems with my ego.
He patiently explained that everyone has God-given talents, the values of which get warped through alcoholic drinking and thinking. As one sobers up and begins on that adventure of getting to know oneself, it is the working of the Steps that sets one free and gives one that happy balance everyone looks for. If that was so, then the Fourth and Fifth Steps should show me not only the anger and resentments that I had been storing up over the years, but also the not-so-glaring defects of this inferiority complex that I seemed to have masked–even to this day.
I hurt badly enough that I did what he said. I read the Sixth and Seventh Steps daily for thirty days. I prayed that God let me feel good inside. It didn’t seem to work. I read the Steps for another thirty days, and this time, I included in my prayer: “If I can’t make it, please let me fake it.” After the sixty days had passed, I stopped reading the Steps. The prayers continued and still continue to this day.
It is now five months later, and the answers to my prayers have been–as usual–very subtle. I know I walk straighter. I listen to myself talk, and I seem more self-assured. I know the things I am not good at, but now seem to get good feelings more and more. I know one thing for sure: Length of sobriety–even with hard, constant working on myself–does not guarantee contented sobriety. As a member of the human race, I know there will be times when I hurt. The key to getting “unhurt” is to remain teachable and be willing to change. Once again, I learned that what counts is what I learn after I know it all.