Recently I became acquainted with a new sponsee. I realized early on that he had serious problems: unfaithfulness to his spouse, involvement with prostitutes, and other faults which I too had experienced before entering recovery and working the Steps.
I was sitting on my front porch yesterday, enjoying the beauty of God’s world around me. There are lots of trees, birds, squirrels, and even an occasional deer to help me focus on the serenity of nature.
For over thirty years, I was convinced I knew how to put first things first. I had my personal priorities, which usually involved me getting attention or getting ahead in some way. I knew that pleasing other people increased the odds that I would get what I wanted.
As I experience recovery, I’m finding that all the work I wanted countless others to do, I have to do myself. “The program is simple … keep the focus on myself … it works if I work it.” How many times have I heard those things! And it’s true! Over and over [I see that] simple works, and when I don’t keep it simple, I isolate and stay in my head and go nuts with resentments and anger, blocking what God is trying to tell me.
This is the first meeting of SA in a long time that I’ve been to that no one but myself has attended. It’s OK with me because I need to sit quietly and try to set a course for the day. I’ve been sober two years and two months now. I’ve been forced to attempt the Fourth Step again because I do not know how to live.
