Before I could truly work Step Eleven, I had to first find the God of my understanding. This was not easy for me. Even though I had worked the previous ten Steps with my sponsor, I realized that I still was not able to have conscious contact with God in any meaningful way.
In completing my Third Step, I followed a suggestion to write a letter to my Higher Power. I thought the suggestion a bit unusual until I realized that by taking Step Three, I would be in effect entering into a covenant of sorts with my Higher Power, and that a letter would be an effective way to document my side of the agreement.
In the Big Book story “Acceptance Was the Answer” (407), the author notes that his own home is the most difficult place to work his program (419), and that he eventually had to work the Steps a second time, focusing exclusively on his marriage. Following are two examples that show how specific Steps have helped me become the kind of spouse I want to be.
Our 2nd Annual Dublin Convention will take place at our beautiful and relaxing Emmaus Centre, located just 10 minutes from the Dublin Airport. We are especially grateful to be able to hold our convention at such a beautiful setting.
I’m David, a grateful recovering sexaholic from Toronto. My wife and I wrote the following song after the Denver SA/S-Anon International convention in July 2009, with the idea of singing it at the January convention in Nashville.
I get very uncomfortable when I hear: “These are my boundaries. I focus on my boundaries. If I don’t do a, b, c, x, y, and z—then I will be OK.”
It is important for me to understand the spiritual nature of my disease for several reasons. First, if it is truly spiritual, then it doesn’t matter what the drug is, and everything in the AA literature is also true for me.
When I first came to SA in December 1999, I had 15 years of AA sobriety, had sponsored many men, and had spoken at meetings and conferences. I felt arrogant in SA meetings.
The ancient Hebrews used a bag of rocks to cast lots and determine the will of God. Each rock was inscribed with Hebrew letters. Every time the lot was cast, one rock always had the correct answer. The priest did not have the power to pull out the correct rock every time. Only God had the power to bring the rock with the correct answer for that moment to the place where the priest’s hand could grab it.
Next week I will have surgery to remove some pre-cancerous cells from my nose. I was okay until I got a little pamphlet entitled “You’ve Been Diagnosed with Skin Cancer—What Now?”
