Working the 12 steps is not an easy feat.  Most of us have a hard time with the God steps: 2. “Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity” and 3.” Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.”  As hard as they are, the process is gradual.  We do not come to believe instantly.   I’ve been working my 12 step program since the year 2000.  I still have to make a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God every day.  It is not natural for me.  I want to control, so I have to make the conscious effort sometimes every hour.

Yet as hard as those steps are, that is not where people fall off the edge or quit.  Step 4.” Made a searching and fearless moral inventory” and Step 5.  “Admitted to God, ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs”, is what divides the sober from the drunk.  I see it over and over.  The minute we have to start looking at ourselves, we quit.

I thought that I was this sensitive, kind, innocent and self-sacrificing mother and wife.  And although there is some truth to that, I was also touchy, mean if I was angry and pretty self-centered.  I wanted to control the show or I wanted to play the victim.  In reality I volunteered myself for all kinds of things I didn’t really want to do and then was angry when I didn’t get recognition or respect.  It was difficult to look at the real me, but I was given the gift of an inventory.  Any good business takes an inventory at least once a year to record its assets and liabilities.  Writing out all of my resentments took me at least 9 months.  Every time I wrote a couple of sentences, I wanted to drink.  I learned really quickly that my resentments are what got me drunk.  I’d write a sentence of two and then have to leave it sit for days.  It would have been less painful for me if I had quit at that point and just drank.  After I had finished I had to share it with my sponsor.  I had resentments of people, places, institutions, situations, God, myself and my sponsor.  It was quite a long list.  I not only listed them but I had to write in detail each resentment and what happened.  I was told to be as thorough as possible.

My sponsor in detail went through each and every one with me.  I would read a resentment out loud and she would ask me, “Now what is your part?”  I’m here to tell you that I was so crazy and self-centered that at first I couldn’t tell the difference between my part and someone else’s part.  I’d take responsibility for other people’s wrongs and blame others for my wrongs.  I was embarrassed and humiliated by some of the things that I had said and done.

The interesting thing is that there had been nothing that I had done or been through that was shocking or that elicited any kind of a response except, “What was your part?” That made me at ease.  The other thing that is unforgettable about that experience is that when I finally come to terms with what my part was in the destruction of my relationships and in the destruction of my life, the resentments left and I had forgiven everyone who was on that list.  I had sat in church for 20 years listening to sermons about forgiveness and wanting to forgive, but when I returned home I was baffled about how to apply it.  When I look at my part, the forgiveness is automatic.

The process set me free.  I admitted and accepted that there are dark sides to my personality.  I quit hiding it and embraced it instead.  As a result, the dark sides have been brought to the light and I don’t have a need to act on them.  I don’t have a need to hide them either.  I am who I am and I like me today for all the good and all of the bad.  I just get to work on the character defects and I’ve asked my higher power to remove the ones that kept me drunk.  So far, he has.  The ones I get to work on keep me humble and in touch with other alcoholics.  It keeps me in the fellowship.  My character defects pull me in when otherwise my life would be so good that I may forget where I came from.

I discovered that there were patterns to my behavior and attitudes that got me into trouble or that caused a rift with a loved one.  At the end of the process I knew that I had created the hell that I lived in.  It was no one else’s fault but mine and it was all in my mind.  I began to think that if I created my own hell than I must be able to create my own heaven.  If hell began in my thoughts then heaven must too.  The truth about who I am set me free to create the life that I want.

Just for today I will discipline my thoughts and create something amazing