Take what you need and leave the rest...

[Steven_S]

I remember it like it was yesterday. November 16, 1986. The National Council on Alcoholism, on Lexington Ave in Manhattan.

I had been fired for being drunk on the job and the owner told me if I wanted my job back to go get some help. I saw this councellor once a week for 12 weeks and of the many things she said, this one stands out as the most important one for me.

I didn't want to go to AA meetings because of "The God Thing" but I agreed to go to one meeting a day for 90 days. And abstain, of course.

I heard what I needed to hear, and I knew I really had to stop. One day at a time, and all.

This one piece of advice kept me in the chair long enough to know that my drinking days were over. The rest, as they say, is history.

[Mutley]

1. Thanks for telling your story.

Hopefully you can inspire some others to do the same!

:hi:

[Tallison]

2. I struggle with this

My mind has such a knack for catching the stuff with which it disagrees. Why is it so contrarian?

[KitchenWitch]

3. I think the alcoholic mind is wired to be contrarian!

It gets easier to leave the stuff that my mind disagrees with behind, the longer I stay sober.

[ismnotwasm]

4. Neat

At 15 years of sobriety, I still stuggle with "the God thing" but it's a personal stuggle and has nothing to do with my AA program. What hooked me was "all you need to know about a higher power is that there is one and you're not it"
And then there was this old guy with 40+ years who would say he was an atheist. And then would proceed to talk some of the best program talk I've ever heard, combining hilarious stories along with how he stayed sober.(one day at a time) Always welcoming the newcomer.

We found out after his death that he wasn't really an atheist in any way that matters. He wanted those newcomers who ran out the door the minute they heard the word "God" to find commonality, someone to connect with, until they understood what "of your own understanding" meant. I still miss that man.

[yardwork]

5. AA helped me find my own spiritual path

I too was very dubious about the God thing, since I'd left the church years before. But I decided that I could accept the idea of a Higher Power, and gradually that Higher Power became a spiritual path that I believe in like I never believed in any spiritual being before.