Steps 10, 11 and 12 are not an option. As the reading states that those are the luxuries of the dubious that I just can't just forfeit if I plan on having any semblance of a serene, healthy and stable life. I may be stone cold sober for 20 years, while my insides eat me alive-thanks, but no thanks. That is not the kind of sobriety the Steps were designed to produce. We have an outlined program, a design for living that keeps me in constant contact with the One who keeps me covered while I grow in my knowledge of it and seek it everyday-not just when things are falling apart or going good. God is not a back burner friend or someone I use only when...
That's rude!
Step 10 is a daily opportunity, not optional, to sit with God, with my notebook, do my gratitude list, examine my motives, look at any resentments on paper that may have come up, look at any defects that I am holding on to- asking God and myself why am I scared to let them go. Ask how they have benefited me, how they have hindered me...etc. Sometimes I write down dreams or concerns too. Just an overall honest and private inventory with God and myself to keep that connection clean. I want to always be transparent with God because if and when I start keeping secrets from God and myself through a screen of egoic delusion, I am headed for trouble. If I have to convince myself something is true that my guts know is false, then the gut/brain connection gets screwy.
When that happens, I can start a chain reaction by making all sorts of decisions based in fear because that connection is corrupted by the lie I have to tell myself in order to not have to admit that I might have been wrong. The state of having to double down on the lie just so that I can live with myself, takes its toll and can lead to madness. Any action or decision made in fear will backfire-and that backfire can take years to manifest depending upon how interwoven I have become with it.
Thanks to this program, I can stay transparent about these things on a daily basis so I don't have to go through the painful process of the removal of the delusion years down the road. If I trust God, I know God will give me the courage to face the temporary uncomfortability of being wrong. I get to be honest with God and recorrected by Spirit-and that in my opinion is the ultimate in self care.
Step 11-Seeking knowledge of God's will, and asking for the power to carry that out-everyday. Where I am currently sitting typing this, is where I ask that question out loud as I set my daily intention to serve God and not ego. That doesn't mean I won't slip and serve ego, it means that I set my intention to serve God, so if I fall short, I can quickly re correct my course back toward God using the above Step with honest examination of motives and intention.
Service God doesn't mean that I am going door to door saving souls or in the bars pulling drunks into AA, or even running around going to a bunch of meetings-for me it's about rewiring or aligning myself back to Source before I was hijacked by the ego. Playing both sides, or trying to serve both, doesn't work. That too creates havoc internally-physically, mentally and spiritually. I serve God, but if I slip, I can correct and do better next time.
So, am I doing the right thing when nobody's watching? Am I allowing myself to be molded by God? Am I toxifying my soul with insane amounts of tv and social media instead of seeking truth? Am I vampiric by feeding the battery of gossip and despair? Have I become a debbie downer and despair mechant? Do I bring hope to others? Can I create beaty or have the capacity to be patient enough to learn something new? Am I the reason someone smiles today? Can I let go of belief systems if I come to new information? Do I only "love" people through a lens of fear that they might fall or not like me? Do wallow in self pity and guilt and use that as a way to virtue signal that I am long suffering and serving God as a martyr when in reality I am resetting on my laurels?
If I don't know which of these things is God, and which of these is self/ego-then I have A LOT of work to do!!
Step 12-Carrying the message....
Sponsoring. Sharing. Being. Only someone who knows, and has been to hell and back, can truly speak to my soul through thier experience. In other words, I couldn't hear this through a book, even the big book at the time was too much-I couldn't hear it from a doctor or a shrink...I needed to see and hear it through your real experience because the and because that message carried depth and weight, it held true.
Alcoholics are not stupid people-we know the truth when we hear it. I knew that you had no icky motive to take time with me, to teach me to take up my bed and walk-other than to stay sober and serve God. You weren't trying to control, manage or save me. If I want it, great-if not, there's the door-but the door is always open when and if you do. Take it or leave it mentally took all the pressure off to perform or people please. I needed real help and where else to get that help then from someone who gets it.
If I am not growing, I am dying. Soul death is not ok when I have every opportunity to learn and grow from my mis-takes, trials and tribulations. The only tragedy is not growing or learning from the hardships we have been given. If I stay a victim, I go down with the ship of hopelessness and despair. If I stay stagnant and never really address anything just kinda lingar and stay afloat, then I will have that sort of lifeless sobriety that needs to vampire in order to stay up. If I learn, grow, serve, teach, allow, feel pain, admit my faults, guide and forgive, even the heinous or horror I experienced as a child, I rise up out of the ashes and transform. The transformation is what this program offers.
Just for today I choose to Rise and to Shine and reap the benefits of a whole intact program-half measures availed us nothing.