In my experience I have realized that SA is like a flowing river. When a new member joins, the river wants to sweep him into recovery. But nobody has pure reasons when one joins, as it says in the White Book. And so sometimes the newcomer resists the current. Whether it’s with the sobriety definition, or with the married couple who as they see it, have it “easier,” or with the old-timer who suggests one get a sponsor, or even with meetings, in short, with anything that crops up that goes against what “I know.” It is as if one attempts to swim against the flow of that mighty current. Sometimes you can even be sober for a while resisting, but it often ends in relapse.

Over time one may start to let go of control, to trust the river, but it still happens, as it happened with me, while I still resisted. Although one accepts sponsorship, one does not do the Steps, they call whenever they fancy and not consistently, and one somehow remains sober because the program their way “works” for them. In other words, they’re still resisting the current. You can even have a long period of “sobriety”, and then relapse. What a surprise! What did I do wrong? One almost always focuses on lust temptations, and forgets that the problem is so much deeper. The wild beast of the ego that longs for peace and at the same time (how contradictory!) resists surrendering to the Steps and to the sponsor’s suggestions, fighting every day against the current of the river.

I was also one of those who wanted to mold the program to my personal needs, guided by my illness. It’s not that the program seeks uniformity, but it does ask that I be willing to go to any lengths for sobriety.

So my Higher Power will give me the sponsor that I need according to my personal idiosyncrasies that He knows so very well. This is how it happened with me. At some point I stopped demanding that the current of the river run in the direction that I wanted, and I let go of my resistance, and I had many. Often I will re-examine if I have any new resistances, and I see that many times I do.

How is it possible that I was able to let go of my resistance and let the current of the river take me? I don’t really know. I had to realize how absurd it was to fight against the current, to argue, to carry that enormous weight on my shoulders and at the same time to be sober, with a sobriety that is nothing but pride and willpower. The river is not against me, I am the one who resists recovery and fights with the stones of the river and with the same current. I fight against my recovery. The river takes me to the sea of recovery, where the promises are fulfilled. Why continue to resist it with the deceiving thoughts of my controlling intellect, oh so cunning when trying to invent justifications? Judging by my self-centered natural tendencies, proud and full of pride, it’s hard to say that it was a Miracle. Yet it is a miracle that is renewed in these 24 hours, if I have the right attitude, and I am willing to do whatever it takes.

I ask my Higher Power to give me for these twenty-four hours the blessing to abandon myself in the river of his grace as it is expressed in this program, because I myself cannot. Thank you to all my fellows for being a part of this miracle.