10th Step PRINCIPLE: Perseverance

Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

Alcoholics understand defeat.  At least this one does.  

The problem with admitting defeat when one is an alcoholic is that this admission may lead the alcoholic to blame somebody else for his or her problems and/or to resort to self-pity.  The person who chooses blame and self-pity may not stay sober for long.  

Accepting that one is an alcoholic is a beginning to a life of sobriety.  Accepting responsibility for one's actions, regardless of who set the conflicts over which one obsesses in motion, builds momentum and continuing to practice acceptance in all one's affairs maintains the good life that emerges by virtue of working the steps.

Restart, repeat.

Within the steps, there is repetition, and of course, after completing step twelve, one returns to step one again.  Step ten repeats steps four through nine on a regular, and ideally, daily, basis.  When anger, fear and ill-will are addressed promptly, the destruction that follows in their wake is limited.

For me, I have become familiar enough with some of the destructive impulses in my thoughts and actions that I am able to identify and to address them before they wreak havoc on my life or the lives of others.

Even when these strong and strange thoughts and feelings sneak up on me and I give into them, or when I discover a new destructive, or self-destructive, pattern, that I had not noticed before, then I know what to do.  I center myself in the God of my understanding.  I question where these thoughts and feelings come from.  I acknowledge inappropriate behavior, and I strive to make it right with whomever I have harmed as soon as possible.

Step ten, like step one, has to be practiced every day.  If I drink, then I reset the illness that led me into the program.  If I stop taking inventory, then my thoughts and feelings, slowly but surely, become as twisted as they were when I came into the program.

I consider steps four through nine as the first bath after almost being buried alive, and I think of step ten as the daily shower that keeps one healthy, clean and attractive while reminding the alcoholic of the grave that one was digging for one's self when drinking.    

Life does not stop.

One's quality of life improves in AA, and the tenth step is one of the biggest reasons why.  To think that the quality of one's life will improve every day, however, is an unreasonable expectation (and, as is often said in meetings, expectations are resentments waiting to happen). 

Quality of life improves over time, as does the quality of one's problems.  For example, I have not been arrested for DUI, been in jail or paid an attorney or court since I have been in AA.

However, life does not stop when one stops drinking.  Excitements come, and disappointments go, and yet by staying centered in the program, I am less likely to spiral into pride or despair, both of which contributed to my drinking.        

Persevere.

The first 90 days in AA felt like boot camp to me.  I was humiliated and terrified.  I committed to attending 90 meetings in 90 days and was feeling drab physically.  I was eating ice cream by the half gallon in an effort to replace the sugar that alcohol once provided me.

At the end of 90 days, I felt that I had accomplished something and was grateful when my sponsor suggested that I cut back to five meetings per week.  After missing a meeting, however, my equilibrium seemed to be off, and I actually ended up attending more meetings than were suggested of me for a while.

What worked for me works for me.  At the end of 90 days, there is another 90 days, and if any of us are to achieve the next 90 days, then we must take care of business today, which is when the tenth step is to be practiced.

Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill once said, "If you are going through hell, keep going."  My drinking life serves as an illustration of this point, and yet in my sober life, I am finding that the opposite also is true.

2nd Step PRINCIPLE: Hope

Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

There are two big, bold pronouncements made in the second step that many alcoholics are reluctant to accept: 1) that God exists; and 2) that alcoholism is a psychological disorder.

Power greater than ourselves

I recognize that the language used in the second step is "a Power greater than ourselves," but let's face it: the program encourages belief in God.  Read on in The Big Book.  In the step three, one is asked to turn one's will and life over to the care of God as he or she understands God.

I wonder if alcoholics, who are working the steps for the first time, ever feel deceived.  I did not, but faith came naturally to me, almost as naturally as did drinking to excess.

To the person who feels rejected by the God with whom he or she was raised, this step offers hope, because AA offers theological freedom.  The God of my understanding may not look or act like yours, and yet the differences in our understandings of God do not prevent us from sitting in meetings together or helping one another to achieve sobriety.

Restored to sanity

Both the person who suffers from alcoholism and I are there for the same reason: to recover from "a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body," which, let's face it, introduces another truth that may be difficult to accept: the second step asserts that alcoholics are sick.

On the one hand, I did not like being told that I was/am insane.  However, wasn't it Albert Einstein who said that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of "insanity"?  I considered Einstein a genius, even when I sat in the same bar, drinking the same drinks and driving home for years.

On the other hand, there was something comforting in thinking about myself as sick, as opposed to thinking of myself as bad.  Sick people heal.  Bad people are punished, dismissed and forgotten.  Maybe the God of my understanding would act compassionately and remember me.

Exodus life

Inasmuch as alcoholics strive like to think of themselves as unique, ancient wisdom helps me to practice AA's 12 steps.  For example, I am not Jewish, but the story of the Exodus helps me to think about alcoholism.  The Hebrews are slaves in Egypt until Moses leads them out.

One of the titles considered for The Big Book before it became The Big Book was A Way Out.  The big difference between slavery in Egypt and the affliction that the alcoholic suffers is that alcoholic suffering is self-imposed.  However, before I completely understood the nature of alcoholism, I was already lying to myself about how, with more self-discipline, I could manage my drinking.

I had to suffer before I could hear the voices that helped me first to understand the nature of my oppression and then to follow them through a wilderness, up steps and to a place where promises are fulfilled.

  

The assurance of things hoped for

In the Christian Scriptures, faith is defined as "the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."  The terms of the things hoped for are set by God, or in AA-speak, the God of one's understanding, who knows the way out of alcoholism.

When I came into the program, I was not sure of much.  This uncertainty did not stop me from being bombastic and making big, bold pronouncements on every subject under the sun, but it did open me to accepting the possibility of being accepted by a God who welcomed alcoholics, all alcoholics, from every station in life from which one wandered into a meeting.

When I attended my first meeting, I was sure that I would be convicted of a DUI, and yet the suggestion that the God of my understanding was with me, even when it felt like this God was not, was comforting as I faced one of the most difficult periods of my life, which, for the most part, is behind me now.

Avoiding real disaster
The Dalai Lama of Tibetan Buddhism assures his followers that, "No matter what sort of difficulties, how painful experience is, if we lose our hope, that's our real disaster."

In the final years of my drinking, it was increasingly difficult for me to imagine life getting better.  I sat in the shadow of a mountain of debt, and the wreckage of my past haunted me every day of my life.

It was not until I was arrested for a DUI and felt like I had no choice but to go to AA that life began to seem manageable again.  I knew that it would take time to clean up the mess that I created and that time was one of goals of every person in the program.  At last, the disaster of lost hope was averted, because at last, I was able to stop worrying about an imagined crisis and to start addressing a real one.

The sum of human wisdom
Alexandre Dumas, who is best known for writing The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers, writes that all human wisdom is contained in these two words, "Wait and hope."

With jail behind me and a court appearance before me, I was not equipped to do either one, but I did not have a choice.  I had to wait and hope.

At that stage in my sobriety, feeling that I did not have a choice was good for me, because given a choice, I would drink, but after waiting and hoping for a while, I started making better choices, and now that I have made a few of them, I choose to wait and hope and am confident that good things will come from these choices.