In a Hole? Climb up the Steps!
In a Hole? Climb up the Steps!
If you’re new to AA, feel isolated, uncertain and that your life is a mess; that you have somehow fallen into a deep dark hole – you probably have – and worse. According to the World Health Organisation, alcohol is the biggest killer on the planet.
So, how are you going to get out from this dark, lonely and hopeless place?
We all need a sponsor, we can’t lift ourselves up by own boot straps. Our feet wouldn't find the steps or rungs or we would slip off. We all need guidance to find the way up and out.
With our sponsor, we concede we are alcoholics and have lost control over the booze, which now causes more problems than it solves, and has stopped working for us. From Step 1 we can’t slip any further down into the mire and are pointed upwards towards hope.
We look around and see recovery in our sponsor and home group. These people are happy in their skin, lives are coming together, employment, mended relationships, romance/family life with much laughter, confidence, serenity and no craving for drink. We wonder (being so special and unfortunate) if this can work for us. Our sponsors assure us it will and it will. That's step 2…keep marching!
Developing a working faith is easier than many fear. It’s God as you understand, him, her, it…the power behind the veil of life, the platonic blue print of a mother's or father's love or simply the power behind the group that has transformed their lives. Something bigger and better and stronger than us. We don't need to belong to any religious institution. At Step 3 we decide to let go of own self will and hand our lives over to God, in as far we are able, to this invisible force for good.
We are now ready for the self-illuminating step, and guidance is essential for us to tackle our underlying emotional discord. The restlessness and discontent that will eventually drive us back to the bottle. By the end of Step 4 we feel keen to get Step 5 completed and slightly stooped under the volume of our inventory, kike a great weight over our heads. That will be the manhole cover over our heads. Step 5 slides this across and with Steps 6 and 7 (which by now we do eagerly and humbly) we are able to step out into the daylight.
Step 8 shows the wreckage we have caused from our self-centred insanity and 9 repairs the damage.
We now need to maintain and build on this happy condition through Steps 10, 11, and 12 to prevent us falling back into the hole we escaped from.
Happy trudging.
Sean S., Road to Recovery Group, Plymouth