Having watched my downward spiral for some time, the pastor of the church where I was sleeping, called me in to talk to me. The protective walls snapped up around me and I was ready to repel any assault upon my little insane realm. Slowly, deliberately, lovingly the pastor poked holes in all my defenses. For every ‘yeah but’, he had an answer.
I was introduced to honesty. Not the cash register kind, but how to accept truths about myself. He also got me to look at my own involvement in bringing myself down. What hit me right between the eyes, was the observation the pastor made in where he thought that my faith would have brought me through my troubles. I realized that I had no faith in anything…not God, others, or myself. I didn’t drink because I had no faith; I drank because I had no way to cope with life. It was a form of running away. I had always run away when it came time to face reality.
The pastor put me in touch with someone from A. A., and I went to my first meeting. I don’t remember a lot from the first meeting other than the fact that these people seemed to know what was wrong with me.
The people told that I needed to find my “Higher Power” that most of them called God. I didn’t feel quite ready for that.
Never in my life had I ever felt so alone. When I was at my lowest I felt that God had forsaken me. I had thought that I was not worthy of His love. Nor did I think I could be saved because I had done some things in my life that that He could not forgive. I was also angry with God. He didn’t live up to my expectations. I cursed Him for allowing me to fall from grace.
A part of me said that I wasn’t sure that God existed. My prayers, it seemed, had gone unanswered for a long time hadn’t they? I had said that there was no God, but inside I had hoped that there was. I decided to take one last shot. I had nowhere else to turn. If I didn’t get anywhere this time, that was it. I was out of here! I didn’t know how, but I going to pull the plug. I was going to put an end to my life.
Dropping to my knees, I prayed. For the very first time in my life, there were no deals, bargains, or ‘if only - I’ll never’, I asked for help from God without trying to bargain. I just sought forgiveness without expectation.
Beaten down, finally admitting that there were problems in my life, I had to acknowledge that I had caused most of them. I had to decide to reach out for help while convincing myself that I wanted it. Once convinced, I also had to go to someone else for the help I sought. That took a lot of doing. For all of my life I had been on my own, relying on no one but myself. I had been abused, lied to and hurt by others; even those closest to me. I was afraid to open up, to risk that inner part of me no one else had ever seen. I was astonished at the quick response I got from others. There was no judgment from these souls. Their only concern was to help me by passing along their wisdom and experience to me. They gave me hope by their very act of sharing. They carried me when I could not go on. They gave me tools to use so I could begin to rebuild my life as a Spiritual individual. They drug me at times, kicking and screaming into the light of truth.
It took some time to heal the old wounds. Some of the things I needed to do, were the very things that I had been running away from.
The one constant that kept me going in my quest was that I wanted to change and make a better life for myself. I never wanted to return to the terror I had experienced when I was at my lowest. To that end, I was willing to do whatever it took to find the peace I sought, including asking for the outside help. That small act of humility was the first step necessary to begin the journey to a higher plane of self-awareness and existence
To Conclusion |
