It's easy to let go of things that are causing more pain than pleasure. Like when my drinking and using was killing me, I stopped, and even though it was hard at first, I found that being sober really was the easier, softer way. But I still had a lot of old ideas and behaviors that still worked sometimes, and letting these go was not so easy.
As I sat in meeting after meeting, I would hear that "the result was nil until we let go absolutely", and I never really got it. I mean, I was certainly getting results - I was clean and sober; I got my job back, and I began repairing broken relationships. But there were also times when I was intensely unhappy, irritable, and needed and wanted a drink. It took a long while for me to see that these feelings almost always followed old ways of thinking and behaving.
The longer I'm in recovery, the more I understand the value of steps six and seven. My old behaviors will continue just so long as I remain unwilling to give up the character defects that cause them. But when I do become willing, something wonderful happens - my Higher Power does for me what I can't do for myself - and that is relieve me of my old ways of thinking and acting.
Today I understand when they say, "It's not an old behavior if you're still doing it."
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Copyright @ 2013 Michael Z
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'Those who leave everything in God's hand will eventually see God's hand in everything.'
