Topic for the week: My AA ‘Savings Account’
I was given the gift of desperation 10 years ago on April 30th of 2013. I say desperation was a gift because that feeling of desperation is one of the main things that keeps me sober and in my seat in AA.
Now that I have a few 24 hours under my belt it would be easy to let up on my program. It might seem like I’ve ‘got this’ sobriety thing down. I can afford to go to less meetings… I don’t need to be as intense about working my program. That would be my disease talking though! My disease that is just waiting for me to give it an opening back into my life.
As I’ve approached my sober anniversary this year I have been especially focused on re-energizing my program. I was taught early in sobriety that 5, 10, and 15 years sober can be dangerous year’s for an alcoholic. We get comfortable with sobriety. We get bored and start taking it for granted. If we aren’t careful a relapse might be just around the corner. Because that seed was planted I find myself evaluating my program on a regular basis. I ‘qualified’ once for a seat in the rooms. I don’t want to repeat that process!
Recovery is not a straight line. There will be hard times in our program and there will be hard times in our lives. That’s the way life is. It helps if we accept this and prepare for those hard times. Even after 10 years, I make it a habit to put time into my recovery every day. Developing good habits is like having a ‘savings account’. When hard times come, and they will, I can take the investment I’ve made and work through my problems.
My daily deposits into my ‘savings account’ help build up my faith. I know my faith is weak so I work at strengthening and building up my faith, increasing the deposits into my ‘savings account’. I do this in several ways. I have daily habits I follow. Prayer, meditation and checking in with GROW are the way I start each day. Having daily habits assures me I have something to fall back on in my ‘savings account’. I share regularly in meetings and I do Service when I can. I invest time each day building up strength for the times when temptation comes.
AA isn’t something that you ‘join like I once thought. It is a way of life. If I want to continue to live this life, free from alcohol, I have to work at it each day.
Sobriety isn’t an object that we acquire and then put on a shelf. It’s a never ending journey, one day at a time! I have to take care of it because permanent sobriety is something I will NEVER possess. The quality of my sobriety will always depend on today’s thinking, behavior and my continual deposits into my AA ‘savings account’.
Thank you for allowing me to lead the meeting this week. The meeting is now open for you to share.