Submitted by CharlieG on May 26, 2009
I started writing because I wanted to show other people suffering from alcohol and addiction, that there WAS hope. We don’t have to be miserable our entire lives, smiling on the outside and crying,
no…
Sobbing,
Pleading,
Begging,
For help,
For peace,
For mercy,
On the inside.
I knew from speaking at different meetings that through the trials in my life, I gave others hope that if this guy can do it, I can do it.
Treatment centers are a love of mine. In most they have you do a ‘life story’, kind of a miniaturized 4th and 5th step. You do a moral inventory of yourself, writing down EVERYTHING. You cannot leave ANYTHING out.
We are as sick as our secrets. You might say, “OK, I’m going to write and then tell my sponsor, or my group, everything.
Well….except for ‘THAT’.
‘THAT’ isn’t really necessary.
Nobody wants to hear about ‘THAT’.
Nobody would understand ‘THAT’.
‘THAT’ is the most important one you have to tell.
We alcoholics and addicts drink and use not to feel good, but to not feel.
Not to feel the stuff that has hurt us. Shamed us. Embarrassed us. Angered us. Humiliated us.
Not to feel the things we are afraid of.
And we are so full of fear.
Afraid people will find out about ‘THAT’.
We try push it down. We try ignore it. We try to go around it.
It never works.
It just builds in us, like simmering water roiling to a boil.
And leaving ‘THAT’ in ?
It will whisper in your ear at your weakest moment, “Think it’s bad now? Wait till everyone knows about ‘THAT’.”
It will tap you on your shoulder when you are feeling good, “What are you so happy about? Remember ‘THAT’?”
We have a emptiness in our hearts, a black hole in our chest. It is our soul’s homesickness for contact with God. And until we walk through whatever personal demons we’ve packed down inside ourselves, we block that contact..
After writing your life story (even about ‘THAT’), you read it to your group or sponsor. Afterwards, they give you feedback, telling you what they think, and how it compares to what happened to them. And you start to realize that you’re not alone.
You start to walk through it.
And you start to come out the other side
Think of it as going to a really scary movie. In the beginning your frozen in your seat, scared to death of what’s to come. You want to run away, but you can’t. Later, you tell a friend and they ask you to go see it again with them. As it starts, your still scared, but not as much. You know what’s coming.
Still later another friend hears about it and wants you to take them.
“Hey! I thought we were dogs? I thought we were down like 4 flat tires?”
What are ya going to do, they’re your friend. So you go and see the movie yet again. But this time the fear is minimal. You know what’s coming and now you know it can’t hurt you. Where THAT terrified you before, it now have no power over you.
And if you do it THOROUGHLY and HONESTLY, as your secrets become no longer secret, as you peel them away like layers of an onion, something happens.
In AA/NA the 12th step begins with; Having had a spiritual awakening…
You start to have an awareness of God and His spirit within you. When faced with a situation, you intuitively know right from wrong. What God wants of you.
It happened to me.
peace
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CharlieG is the Editor-In-Chief of It’s All in The Journey Magazine, and is a member of InTheRooms. You can find his profile here.
