Thankyou all for being here with me & sharing your stories. I want to give back some gratitude because I'm so happy through contentment. I haven't done my first straight run through the Steps as yet but I am certainly working the rudiments of what I'm learning in recovery on a daily basis. I'm partway through 4&5 so I have something to be getting on with. For the most part I am simply happy to be sober. Leaving the drink down 1Day@aTime has meant that I have been & am in with a chance for each & every promise to come true for me. I like myself today. I know how to speak about & to myself today. I am on a daily reprieve from the negativity that used to reside rooted in my head. I hated me, my inadequacies & everything I thought I couldn't offer to the world, my selfishness & confusion. Little by little these things are phasing out & I have patience & love for the world today. I'm still early in learning what I might be capable of as far as improving my job & learning career but at last I'm investing in me & enjoying my family; enjoying my fellowship & the friends I'm making with these new skills. A.A. is teaching me so much & I have enough now that the pride can come down & I can openly admit & attribute any success of mine to how I've been supported & taught how to love from the inside out. My shame is healing & I'm so glad to be able to continue like this. I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart because if I didn't have you I would have made a right mess of myself on my own. I'm sure of it. I was so vulnerable & desperate that it would have been quite easy for me, for example, to end up in an abusive relationship that might have knocked the stuffing out of me. I didn't know how to respect myself & I didn't know how to respect others. I used & abused others too despite my 'best intentions'. My compulsions meant I couldn't help but be selfish or a doormat. It was one or the other a lot of the time & I'm glad it doesn't have to be that way today. I didn't have the self~esteem to learn or act on morals for their own sake whilst drawing boundaries & acceptable behaviour. I was a mess & had no balance. A.A. has given me this today. I'm no longer ashamed that I had to come here to get it. I'm no longer ashamed that I wasn't perfect or just had all these qualities to begin with. I'm no longer ashamed that I had to, asked for & received help. I'm no longer ashamed that I didn't do it all on my little lonesome. I am truly proud that I managed to acheive these things because you all helped me. Even in meetings & fellowship I was accepted, not fawned over, but accepted & loved until I learned to love myself. And now it's this that I can give away. Thanks for helping me while I was all take, take, take. I'm sure with my self~centredness I may well still be but I will try harder & have more confidence to continue to be as honest as I possibly can in order to share my ES&H that another may be helped. I simply feel connected now in a way that I can give freely & others can take what they like & leave the rest; that my story is one of many & that the whole world doesn't have to revolve around me. I feel a sense of pride now, but a gentle pride. A happy & content pride where there is freedom in humility. I just want to say thankyou for all of this. Without your help I would be nothing. I don't mean that in a self-deprecating kind of way I mean it in a glad to be able to glorify life for its own sake kind of way. Thanks for being here. I really do appreciate you. Thank you all for sharing here. Keep coming back, Danielle x
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Progress not perfection.. & Practice makes Progress!
Good Morning! I love the share! You do sound happy and content. Isnt it amazing! I can see the promises coming true in your life. Hearing you pour your true self out does help me to stay on the right path, knowing that can be mine too!!!
" A friend is one to whom one may pour out all the contents of one's heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that the gentlest of hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away." - Arabian Proverb
Enjoy your day! Lani
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"We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have. "
Thanks so much for your super share. You have echoed so much of how I feel about AA and the amazing effect that it has had on the whole of my life.
The other day, my boyfriend and I headed off for a day out and it was wonderful. When I was drinking I would never have been able to enjoy such a truly wonderful day with him.
I am so very lucky. Thanks for reminding me of just how far I have come in my recovery.
Take care,
Carol
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Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. ~Dr. Seuss
