Sharing and Caring

[MajestyJo]

Acceptance is the key to Serenity. The answer to all chaos and when I can accept that things are as they should be in the moment, then I can live a much more peaceful life.

I didn't think I was an alcoholic because I compared instead of indentifying. I didn't pass out, and I could walk a straight line, and I didn't have black outs, and I didn't drink beer (didn't like the taste), and then I asked myself, if I am not an alcoholic, what am I? As I went to meetings, I stayed sober and I opened my mind and listened and slowly but surely, I recognized old thinking and action patterns. I was glad that I went to AA first before I went to Adult Children of Alcoholics because I would have stayed in my denial longer and continued to play the blame game. It was always someone or something else that I blamed for my problems instead of taking responsibility for myself and my choices.

I had a lot of high expectations which stood in the way of my total acceptance of my disease. A lot of them were projected onto me, and when I couldn't live up to them, which was often because they were so high, I used. I always felt less than and thought I was a failure and the lowest of the low and figured that God didn't accept me. Like everything else, it had to come from within me. Today I am grateful to be an alcoholic because it led me to the 12 Steps of recovery.

I learned to accept the fact that I couldn't handle life and that I used people, places and things to validate me, to give me courage, to help me escape my reality and when I focused on something or someone else then I didn't have to look at me.

When I accept that nothing happens in the world by mistake, I can be at peace. As a friend use to say, "That's not odd, that's God." I had to go through what I had to go through to get to the doors of recovery and once there, I could share my experience, strength and hope with others. I have a story to tell, and to keep my sobriety, to continue to grow, I must share it. What is important is that I have something to give, and in order to obtain that I had to work the Step and continue to work them as I grew in awareness because life is forever changing.

I needed to accept the fact that my disease is in remission one day at a time, and when I stop doing the do things, it will make itself known to me. I will always be an alcoholic, and can't drink safely. This is a progressive disease and it is really scarey to think what would happen to me if I picked up after 13 years and where I would end up. I have no doubt that I would die.

We admitted we were powerless over (fill in the blank) that our lives had become unmanageable.

There is a lesson that I learned a long time ago, when I was still in school. Learning the meaning of the words lets you understand and incorporate this knowledge.

The first word that I would like to look at in this Step is Power.

As defined by Webster's Dictionary
2 a : possession of control, authority, or influence over others

The next word that I would like to examine is - unmanageable. To understand what unmanageable is we must first look at the antonym manage.

Which is defined by Webster's as:-
1 : to handle or direct with a degree of skill: as a : to make and keep compliant ( b) : to treat with care : (c) : to exercise executive, administrative, and supervisory direction of.