During the active and practicing alcoholic days, I did not have the feeling of belonging and the feeling of being accepted. Now I have both in AA.I now believe strongly through the steps, that serenity without growth is stagnation. Through sharing and AA 12th step work I am now able to get involved with a people. I am also ready to take a few calculated risks for the sake of progress. I am able to replace the fear of hurt and failure with faith in god and value serenity, enough to take a chance and to grow. I know that my only job is to see myself clearly and release myself to his care. My present compulsions are in a way always positive which gives me a great deal of joy, acceptance and serenity.
During my repeated relapses and binges I was some times able to inhale peace, thus cauterizing what I had come to decide, with no respect for myself, must be a wound of my life. I drank as if I the great river of my blood was carried by alcohol not water. I was, to put in a four-letter word in it ‘mess’. When I was on water wagon and in AA, on and off, I wanted to shout from the roof top “I’ve quit drinking” and convince every one around, but nobody seemed to be bothered about these antics of mine. As time progressed so did my alcoholism. Now after a great struggle and considerable period of sobriety, I have found out the difference between absolute serenity and just serenity. I have clearly understood that people pleasing and opinion seeking is not serenity, since there is no end to it, need to seek through prayer and meditation for strength to fortify my beliefs in my higher power. The disappointments in the past were in reality a blessing in disguise.
Life was a mystery, I realized all I need was to look into today and run life and take it as it comes. I need to seek, through prayers and mediations for strength to fortify my beliefs in a higher power. The disappointments in the past were in reality great blessings in disguise.
I could not do it alone. Today the AA program and the grace of god have restored my faith and I am sober and serene with the help that I find in the AA fellowship. In trying to practice the principles in all my affairs, has taught and added a new dimension to my life and has given me back a faith in god, which I thought I had lost forever. Initially I was just a Zombie walking around aimlessly with no faith in God or in Life.
In the beginning when I came to the program, I had brought with me too many self-centered doubts and fear of what other people in AA and outside world would think about me. I now feel open and honest about myself in AA than in the outside world. I also had the panting desire to change the world to my convenience and had a very muddy and murky ideas about how do it. But now by the Grace of God I am now clear eyed, sober and cheerful.
R.R. Sethu.. PI-Chairman, Inter Group Chennai AA INDIA
