Well here I am at 3 years, maybe the best 3 years of my life! I have been looking forward to this with caution, but not fear. I call the 3rd year my “banana peel birthday” because I have had 2-3 years two times in the past. However this feels different. I am older and I would like to think a lot wiser. Unlike the past failed attempts, this time I am doing a lot of service work and being a sponsor! This have given me such great joys of sobriety. My one sponsee celebrated 2 years and after he was drinking for 40 years is quite a feat but I love it because I take no credit for it! I gave to him what was so freely given to me! I pray for the other 6 or so that I tried to help but I think they were not ready. I think I gained more wisdom from them then with the successful one. I get to see the lying, manipulation, appeasement, pleas, compromises, anger, fear, and all the problems that come with trying to get sober which reinforces that I do not want to go back. I remember what I was like trying to get sober. I was the guy that was turned away from the liquor store at 9 am for being drunk. I had the shakes so bad that when I rolled over on the bed on top of my arms it was moving my whole body. The cold sweats, mental and auditory delusions no more.
What a year also. I got married for my first time to a wonderful, loving, young woman from the Philippines. She does not drink and understands what I am going through. We have been blessed with conception of our first child and with God’s blessing the expected due date in August. I have been going to a lot of meetings before & after my anniversary and have heard some great things. Many told me to enjoy our “sober baby”. WOW, that is so cool. I will get to be there for the entire baby’s “first’s” and remember them all. I will get a chance to raise a child in a house with no alcohol in it. Another thing that I heard was what a great sobriety birthday before the 4th of July. “Independence Day” not only for our country but for me from alcohol!
I hope to be back next year to tell more about the wonderful life I get to live. For the grace of God and the program of Alcoholics Anonymous I am sober! Take care all and God bless.
In ending I usually like to quote the big book however I would like to print something I found on the internet. I do not know this man but that he was dying sober in Phoenix AZ. and had this to say and a poem he would read:
As we travel the path of recovery, we are sometimes overwhelmed by a feeling of how much we lack. It rises within us as a feeling of inadequacy, emptiness, or loneliness. We are in pain because we feel like such beginners. Now we need to discard our competitive thinking, our drive to be on top, and accept another, wiser, way of seeing. The big difference is in being on the path of recovery rather than lost on some diversion, as we have been in the past. It is not important how far along we are or who is ahead of whom. The important thing is that we are on the path and experiencing the process.
In recovery, wisdom comes with staying a beginner. Then we remain open to further learning. In some sense this program and our mutual powerlessness are the great levelers. Once on the path, we are all equals.
Today, I will appreicate my vulnerability. It keeps me spiritually alive and growing.
"Touchstones"
took one step, began to moan
I can't do this on my own
I took two steps, began to pray,
Restore me, GOD today
I took three steps, gave up my will
Maybe GOD loves me still
I took a fourth, I looked inside
Nothing more would I hide
And on the fifth, I said aloud
I've done some wrong, and I'm not proud
I took six steps, and got prepard
To lose the defects, I was scared
Now I'm at seven, take them away
GOD, for this I do pray
And on eight, the list was long
Amends to make for all the wrong
I took nine steps, put down my pride
Forgiveness asked, I will not hide
Ten steps I take, each day I pray
Make amends, along the way
And on eleven, I pray to know
Each day his will, which way to go
I took twelve steps, I'm like a bird
To others now, I spread the word......
