my daily reflections…

when i came into the rooms ya can damn sure bet ya ass i was willin to change the life i had been livin. even as my spiritual malady and alcoholism were tryina help me find a bazillion reasons to leave the halfway house i was livin in, i didnt want to go back to the shitstorm i had walked away from. so, there was a willingness involved in wantin to stay sheltered from the chaos i have the ability to create. and just as this mornins readin eludes to, there was a 2nd part to that willingness as well. merely makin a change was sweet and nice n all, but there was that “unremittin willingness” to “shoulder” whatever “responsibility” it entailed. thats where i balked. i still wanted shit the way i wanted it, how i wanted it. not in Gods time, not in the programs time, but my time. yes, there was garden weedin i had to do. i learned that if i truly wanted change to happen in my life, it wasnt gonna happen the way i wanted it, or when i wanted it. i had to surrender my will, my spiritual malady, to my disease of alcoholism. this was hard to do, thinkin, justifyin, and rationalizin, every reason why i couldnt do this or couldnt do that unless this or that happened, only made the pain of surrender hurt more. man, acceptance is a mother fucker. i had to practice livin with dignity, bitin my tongue, damn near off, and doin shit i didnt want to do. i had to let others be who they were. as time passed, i found that when i did this, i could allow me to be who i was, i didnt have to live up to standards i expected others to, that i was never able to do myself. i learned that ultimately, only i can be responsible for me. this meant shoulderin whatever willingness the change i was seekin meant. that this alone could help me grow a personal dignity that others could see. what a personal breakthrough, treatin others with the dignity i desired in my own life, instead of demandin it. through the pain of change is a reality. but even more so, is the pain of no change, when change is called for. changin others will never be an option for me, whereas changin myself takes only a decision and is a choice always available. when i live the faith that the 3rd step promises, my life is put in my HPs care and my needs are attended to, not always my wants, but in every instance my needs. ive learned that mostly all of my struggles, today as in the past, are attached to persons and situations i am tryin to forcibly control. these are still realizations i must work on today. the wisdom to know the difference is mine. surrender, acceptance, tolerance, and faith has taught me that together, with my HP and the help of others like me, i can do what i could never do alone. 1 day @ a time...