When I walked into the rooms of Al-Anon, I quickly realized there was hope and support that I could tap into. As I always did, I jumped in feet first and tried to absorb as much as I could, bought just about every piece of literature and collected all the pamphlets! Just as quickly, I became overwhelmed and was drowning in information. Thankfully, I keep coming back each week to find that hope and support. Today I am thankful I have a lot of the literature, because slowly each day I can dig deeper and have an appreciation for the power of hope and insight that is waiting for me in the literature.
The first year of my program I only had the strength and attention span to read occasionally the daily reading from Courage to Change. Meaning, it didn't happen every day, but when I could I would simply open the book up to a random page or I would try to identify what I was feeling at the moment and pick a page out of the index to read. This was extremely important to my recovery and helped me build my self-esteem to take new and scary steps in my program to continue my growth.
I felt it was important early on that I found a sponsor, I didn't quite understand how the details worked, but felt I needed that extra support and guidance. I instantly connected with a fellow Al-Anon member and wanted the recovery she spoke about and practiced in her everyday life. When something is outside of my comfort zone, I need accountability to keep me in line. I don't attribute this to lack of self-discipline or laziness, because those are not descriptions of who I am. However, if there is something tough or challenging that I could easily substitute with something not as tough or challenging, I would usually take that road. Sometimes that is ok and works just fine. However, since my life had become unmanageable, it was time to make some changes in myself that would require me to walk the tough and challenging road.
My first sponsor was exactly what I needed to keep me accountable and honest with myself. She encouraged me to take steps into my uncomfortable zone and would support me every step of the way until that part of the zone became manageable in my mind. It was a gradual and healthy dance we had in that first year of my recovery. I'm forever grateful for her support and gentleness as I realized and started to believe I was powerless over the disease of alcoholism. She was a crucial part in helping me find and understand that there was a power greater then myself that could restore me to sanity. This was a huge struggle for me as I don't have a specific "religion" that I believed or practiced. Thankfully, I learned this program has nothing to do with religion and I had the choice to chose a spiritual power greater than myself and of my understanding. For a long time my home group and horses were my higher power, until I could build and connect with what is my higher power today. The slogan, take what you like and leave the rest, I used this slogan daily in my readings and in the meetings I attended when the word God was used. It stirred up all sorts of feelings I didn't realize where there, such as the front runner, don't try to shove that word down my throat!!! My, my, I would say to myself. Why the anger and what HUGE walls you are building. Then I could laugh at myself and realize, ok I wasn't ready for that so I'll leave that portion until I'm ready. Now I can respect those around me that make the choice to use the word God and respect that it is just that, a word. I prefer to use the term, Higher Power in place of God for my journey. The best part is I now realize I have that choice and practice that choice.
Now that I have a relationship with a Higher Power of my understanding, I could work through that my self-will wasn't working for me any more and wasn't bringing the serenity I wanted. So I practiced and learned how to let go and made the decision to turn my will over to my Higher Power. I'll be honest with you, I struggled with this on a daily bases. It was difficult to admit that my thinking had become distorted and that I was making decisions that resulted in actions I wasn't proud of. Being a control freak, I couldn't COMPLETELY let go, I would take portions of what I let go back, time after time. Needless to say, that wasn't working out very well for me. Today, I can willingly give more and more of my will over to my Higher Power and leave it there without taking portions of it back. A tool that helped me with this lesson was saying and applying the Serenity Prayer. I would recite the prayer every chance I could get, especially before I made any decision, big or small, to make sure I was changing the things I can.
I still use this tool today to help me stay focused and pay attention to what I can change, which is myself.
I feel like that only scratches the surface of the wonderful growth that my first Sponsor helped me find within myself. Again, I'm forever grateful for her love, support, and continued friendship today. Just under a year ago, I felt I had out grown my first Sponsor. I'm not convinced I handled the transition as smoothly as I could have in letting my first Sponsor know I was moving on in my recovery, but I know she still loves me, supports me, and is still a friend today. So I don't beat myself up over the transition.
In a future posting I'll share my continued journey with taking a moral and fearless inventory of myself with my new sponsor.
