“Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.”
Copyright © 1939, 1955, 1976, Alcoholics Anonymous World Service®, All rights reserved.
By the time I got to this step I had a pretty good handle on what I was doing right and wrong on a daily basis.
The rub was; that if I let myself, I could idle along without a meeting for a few days and not be any the worse for wear. Soon I was being totally lazy; and almost too late, I found myself in trouble again. I didn’t drink, but I was sooooooo close.
How did I get that bad off? Several things happened over a period of six years. My Mother and several other family members, friends, and co-workers died. My wife’s health had seriously deteriorated. As a result we were under a severe financial hardship. I rebelled at the management changes going on where I worked. It was a very stressful environment. I took it all personally. Somewhere somehow I had stopped taking care of my spirit.
What had been habit was no longer a part of my life. I moved farther and farther away from what I did on a daily basis to maintain my sobriety. Gradually I stopped going to meetings, making that contact with other sober alcoholics, and talking to God on a regular basis. I grew stressed out because I was focusing on problems rather than solutions.
I had learned earlier in my life how to deal with stress, but like they say, when you are up to your butt in alligators, you forget how to drain the swamp.
I needed to get back to the basics of daily sober living. It was like trying to get off a bike going downhill too fast. I know that you can’t make the turns at so fast a clip. There’s a cliff on one side, a wall on the other and a bunch of bushes ahead at the turn. I hope to hit the bushes, but I'm too scared and unsure how to get off the bike. The fear takes over and I lock up while I hold on for dear life while those around me are shouting at me to jump off and roll.
Then I knew what I needed to do. Go back to Step One.
The Tenth Step is about Reality. The Tenth Step is about forming good habits. The Tenth Step is about Maintenance.
Step Eleven |
