Working With Others

 When I relapsed for a crack night in 2005, I found a passage in a step-study guide called The Little Red Book that described my experience as being a lack of connection with my higher power.  It seemed both plausible and accurate that m spirituality lacked power prior to my relapse.

I don’t have verse from the literature that succinctly describes the source and/or cause of my last relapse.  The first paragraph from chapter 5 How it Works from the Big Book list three possibilities. “Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest.”

It would be ultimate in self-victimization to say that is my problem and quit trying to work the program.  That would be a quick trip to the Hobbesian existence of my life being nasty, brutish and short.

After much discussion with other AA members with much sobriety and great wisdom, my conclusion was that I needed to stop doing my 12-step service work home alone while isolating behind my keyboard and work directly with other alcoholics.  My very life depends on my being of service to others. 

I met two ladies in my relapse that are now willing and working hard to get sober.  There is a risk that I go back out instead of staying sober since we share crack as a drug of choice.  That could happen.  I would rather die bolding trying to live a better life rather than cower in fear at home and alone with my disease.  It is better to try and fail than to simply quit because there is risk to working an active solution.

I am grateful for having the grit to keep trying to live a better life helping others instead of quitting by no longer getting up when knock-down by life.