When I hit the bottom and crawled into the rooms in February 1990, I was a crawling contradiction. On the one hand, I was — as I learned painfully in the following months — spiritually bankrupt. However, I believed I was spiritually put together. Didn’t I know all about God? Couldn’t I teach others about Him? Hadn’t I established an identity as a religious person? The sad truth was that I knew a lot and understood nothing.

Spiritual growth for me has been, since then, a slow and sometimes painful process of learning bit by bit the truth about me and the truth about God. Some catalysts have been the Steps, connections with recovering people, the Steps, meetings, the Steps, service in the program and in my church, the Steps, serving as a sponsor, the Steps, program literature, sacred literature, the Steps, good teaching, staying sober, the Steps, experiencing true intimacy, the Steps, having spiritual mentors and sponsors, the Steps, the Steps and the Steps.

For all of that, I understand only a little, certainly nowhere near as much as I thought I did back in February of 1990. But I found out that a little bit of something real is a million times better than a lot of spiritual bull. And I found out that the journey is worth taking, one day at a time.