Troubles of My Own Making
Monday made 8 years that I’ve been without a drink. That is staggering to me. It feels like I was just getting sober, yet at the same time I can feel the years behind me. What I have learned through those 8 years is that all my troubles were of my own making. Even now, when things come up, I can point the finger right back at myself. I’m the culprit. All those days for 15 years I made my own trouble. I feel like kicking my butt from here to the end of the street!
Knowledge that I caused my own problems is major. I stumbled through recovery for several years trying to get the hang of it. I surely didn’t see that I was the problem at first. But once I finally did, wow! It was like the skies parted and I could finally see where I was going and I could see the plan and understand what AA was offering me. I realized I had to work on myself first before anything else. I certainly couldn’t help anyone else until I’d worked on myself.
Now 8 years down the road I am grateful, so very grateful for my journey. I figured out A LOT and I took the steps to fix them. I couldn’t wipe away all I had done to myself and others, but I could make amends, even daily amends for the wreckage of my past. I had to learn that I am responsible for my own life and if I didn’t alter how I was living, thinking, and doing the problems would start all over again. The recognition that I caused my problems is KEY to my recovery, but it must be followed up with a change in behavior. That change results in different actions in my life and it results in a renewed me.
I’m grateful for each and every day under my belt. To have 8 years makes me tear up and leads my mind down the path of memories.not the memories of my pre-recovery life, but the path of memories of my life in recovery. I accept who I am, am proud of the immense growth, and am humbled by every day as well. From here on out I have to keep one foot in front of the other and keep living the Program. I must recognize that my life is what I make it and that it should be made up of joys and gifts not drunkenness and misery.
Have you come to the point where you recognize your problems were of your own making? What are you doing to fix that?