Until Only God and I are left.

I started this 12 Step program from the bottom after committing adultery. What was left was me saying, “I know a solution. I’m going to commit suicide, and then I’ll blame everybody else. That it’s all their fault.”

Somebody pointed me towards the 12 Steps in 1992. I knew nothing about the process, the 12 traditions, or the 12 concepts. It took me another four years of destroying all the different false gods that I had addictions to: food, being a victim, fear, my SA issues … the list is long.

What is grieving all about?

Normal grief is a process of growing up and facing reality. It usually starts with shock, anger, bargaining, sadness, acceptance, and eventually growing and integrating whatever I’ve learned. Or it can happen all at once, and that can be quite overwhelming.

Grieving is never finished.

It’s always modified. It always makes me grow, and it gives me better maturity. Pain and suffering are the absence of wanting to grieve. Why? Because I would buck reality. Facing the reality of life was the thing that I was shown to avoid the most. When I avoid grief, I suffer instead. I remember saying to my sponsors, “No, I’m not going to make amends. They have to make amends to me before I make amends to them.” One of my sponsors told me, “What would you rather have? Would you rather be right or would you rather be at peace?” I was shown not to be at peace with change. Doing grief work is about accepting change.

How important is grieving for sobriety?

Anything that I used to replace God was a hindrance to any kind of sobriety and recovery that I needed–in other words, growing up. A lack of sobriety was my maturity because I was facing life on my terms, and I was god.

The only consistent things, for example, are birth, death, and taxes–in other words, change. That’s what I didn’t like. That’s what I avoided. That’s what I was shown to avoid because I wanted stability, no problems, and happiness. Every time I resisted grieving, I was unhappy. Asking for that continual happiness and joy was an illusion.

The only thing I am left with is facing reality. I started facing reality. It was very painful, but pain became my friend. Every time I faced my pain and my suffering, I was getting closer and closer to gratitude. I had to fake gratitude and pretend I was grateful. However, I saw a change, and that was important. Pain became my friend. It was showing me what I needed to work on. I found out that even good things needed to be grieved. I didn’t want it to end.

Facing grief is the key.

As I face reality, I can move through emotions quite quickly. The joy is living in reality and acceptance. The joy is in integrating and growing up. I can get the happiness and joy much quicker, and the joy is in facing the next lesson. The Steps helped me do that. Every time I did inventory, especially Steps Four, Five, Eight, and made amends in Step Nine, I was handing over my life one step at a time.

After many years, my sponsees and I experimented. How long does it take to work the Steps on an issue that’s bothering us today? Thirty seconds. They found out that it doesn’t take long to work these Steps. What takes long is me resisting working the Steps.

I remember being in a SA/S-Anon Conference in Newark in 1998. That’s when the miracle happened. I was in the middle of a lobby, and I was sharing my SA and S-Anon inventory with a group of five men. Many people were coming and going in the lobby, and I didn’t care who heard. That’s where the miracle happened. That’s when God removed my desire to entertain resentments and lust. From that point on, I had no desire whatsoever to entertain any kind of anger, impatience, or intolerance. I went straight to God, and I said, “Ok, I’ve got to work the Steps.”