[MajestyJo]

This program is suggested. If you want to stay clean and sober, then it is suggested that you do certain things: Don't pick up, go to meetings, listen to learn and learn to listen, get a sponsor (someone you can identify and connect with or a person who has something you want), work the Steps, learn to apply them to your life, and get active in service within your group. I found these to be 'darn well betters' or you will go back out and use. I am grateful to a friend who did my research for me. I didn't have to go back out, he showed me it wasn't any better out there. He use to say, "Sit in the front row, you can hear better." I said, "When if you hear you don't seem to listen, I'll sit farther back and listen harder." It took me a long time to move away from the back row.

The whole picture is very overwhelming. I didn't get this way overnight, I couldn't expect myself to heal overnight. It wasn't a quick fix program, it took time, and all I had to do was take it one day at a time. I just had to deal with one day feelings, one days thoughts, one days actions, and when something from the past came into today, I dealt with it or left it there until such a times as I felt up to handling it. I tried to live in the day and not project into tomorrow. Tomorrow never comes, when it gets here, it is today!

I had to have an open mind. My best thinking got me to the doors of recovery. I had to learn to be open to other people's ideas and concepts. They said, "Take what you need and leave the rest on the shelf." As a friend of mine use to say, "If you can't use it, perhaps you can pass it on to someone who can."

My sponsor told me to quit analizing everythng. I want to know the whys and wherefores of everything. She said, "You can't intellectualize this program, just know it is and that it works."

My experience had been a religious background. It hadn't stopped me from becoming an addict or an alcoholic. I found that I had to find what worked for me. I saw AA working for other people, and had to have faith that it would work for me. There were so many ideas of who God was I was confused and didn't know what I believed. I had to make God personal. Slowly things changed in my life and I could see the results of the program working. AA itself became my Higher Power until such a time as I could find out who God was to me. It was my understanding of God, not someone else's that I had to discover. I ended up taking some of my old ways of thinking and beliefs and bringing in the new ideas and concepts which made my God bigger than anything that I had to face on this recovery journey.

They talk of God in Steps Two and Three and yet it wasn't until I finished the other Steps that I had true knowledge of what and who God was to me.

To be continued...