Putting My Toys Down and Growing Up in Recovery

Stop Procrastinating!

Yesterday’s meeting was on Step 6, which we read aloud in The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. I don’t know why reading aloud drives points home.

As I read along, notes in my book from other12&12 meetings since 2015 popped out:

If I am trying to control, I am out of control.

I know that was true about my drinking – controlling to the best of my ability, not lack of control, was what was driving me crazy.

But Step Six isn’t about my drinking. If I am trying to fix, amend, remove the wrongs that I admitted in Step Five, I haven’t turned my will over to God. (Step Three)

These wrongs, defects of character, aren’t the three-fold illness that alcoholism is. Yes, they sound horrible – but often they seem like old friends. (Step 6 — The 12 & 12, pages 66-67)

It isn’t until I take them to God I can even see them. Rereading the program’s suggestion for working this step is the mirror in which I see, I really am my biggest problem.

Worse, excusing, or indulging them says to God, I am not ready to accept the gift that His conversation is. (Isaiah 1:18)

Becoming Willing to Be Willing

I believe my character defects are so woven into my psyche that I can’t remove them, and when I try to, I will fail – and perhaps set myself up for something worse: turning back to alcohol to remove the pain and shame of failing to be whom I wish to be. All Step Six asks is that I become willing to let God do for me what I cannot ever do for myself.

The AA Big Book suggest how to put the willingness into words. (Chapter 6, page 76) King David, however, said it best:

Generous in love—God, give grace!
   Huge in mercy—wipe out my bad record.
Scrub away my guilt,
    soak out my sins in your laundry. . . Psalm 51

 God’s goal for me is to grow-up, even at my age. All He asks is my willingness to let go of the toys that keep me diverted from living the life He has given.

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, and Other Addresses

Thanks for reading – I appreciate your interest!

Love in Christ,

Sober and Grateful