Another day may be another story, but for today I am astonished at the simplicity of maintaining sobriety by not taking a drink. I am grateful for those days--which are probably about 90% of all my days for the past two decades--during which it actually seems easy.
During those times when it is not so easy, when so much as a micro-twitch can tickle my neurotransmitters and snakes itself into some form of stinkin' thinkin', I pray for the grace of god & the strength of the steps, to use all the tools in the toolkit, to get me through, a minute-ten minutes-an hour-whatever-at a time, until the not easy becomes clearly simple, once again.
"but for today I am astonished at the simplicity of maintaining sobriety by not taking a drink." V V V "snakes itself into some form of stinkin' thinkin', I pray for the grace of god & the strength of the steps, to use all the tools in the toolkit, to get me through."
Well put. Soberiety is simple when we don't take the first drink, have worked the steps and understand them, use the tools, understand the concept of not resting on our laurels and the need to maintain a spirtual condition and arrest stinking thinking when it arrives.
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Rob
"There ain't no Coupe DeVille hiding in the bottom of a Cracker Jack Box."
Thanks Lee,a simple program for complicated people!!By the grace of God we remain "teachable"and can use our"practice"daily ,of application of our spiritual principles and get through the storms that will come....
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Selfishness-self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles.
In early sobriety I would always have a complaint about this or that, and someone - sponsor or otherwise - would remind me that I hadn't taken a drink today. And I'd usually respond by saying yeah but I wanted to, or yeah I thought about it, or yeah but so what everything else sucks. Then I'd get that smile that says I *did* do something right today by not taking a drink. It was so hard for me to get because it seemed too easy. Not drinking really is that easy. Life is, and can be, hard - sobriety doesn't change that. But another thing my sponsor said was, there's nothing in your life that's so bad that drinking won't make it worse.
Another day may be another story, but for today I am astonished at the simplicity of maintaining sobriety by not taking a drink. I am grateful for those days--which are probably about 90% of all my days for the past two decades--during which it actually seems easy.