I read something which I want to share, but before I do I wanted to share this first.....
One of the meetings I attend is one which breaks up into three different meetings depending on the steps being discussed. I have been attending a Beginner's Meeting (Steps 1, 2 and 3)since I first became sober. At first, I was surprised that there are some old timers which also attend this meeting, rather than the meetings which discuss the other steps. Some of them have shared that they come to this meeting because they want to remember what it was like for them when they first got sober. Well, I was asked to chair this meeting last week. Since I have heard that if you are asked to do anything in AA you need to do it, I did it. It was the first meeting I have chaired and of course I was a nervous wreak and my mind went blank and I forgot the 2nd Step. I frantically looked all around the room for one of those wall charts with the steps on them. There wasn't one. I had to confess to the group that because of my nervousness, I had forgotton the Second Step. (Which confirmed to myself and probably others, that I was in the right room and I need to stay there a while longer.) Anyway, one of the oldtimers helped me out with the words to Step 2. So, then I had to say something about my experience with this step. So still extremely nervous, a bunch of words came out of my mouth and I didn't realize it until after I shut up, that although I shared about my alcoholism, none of what I said had anything to do with the Second Step. So I sat there sure that my face was as red as my red jacket I was wearing that night, and also thinking that it really was not a good night to forget to put on deodorant before I left. I couldn't even focus on the other sharers who probably were staying on topic. I tried to tell myself it wasn't all about me and that I had an obligation to fulfill and there were people in the room who may have never attended an AA meeting before who were depending on the meeting running smoothly and so since I wasn't able to hear the shares anyway, I prayed to my HP that I wouldn't be so nervous and to help me say the right things for when I had to talk again. I felt a sense of peace at that point, and my nervousness faded. I was able to focus on the shares by the people in the room, instead of poor me and my problem of being "put in the position" of chairing a meeting so early in my sobriety. At the end of the meeting when we had time for one more share, I was able to share again, and talked about the Second Step, "Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity." I didn't even worry about the possibility of anyone getting upset for me double dipping. Anyway, I got through it, despite my own self-esteem issues, fear of people, fear of public speaking and all those little voices in my head telling me I was going to screw up the rest of the meeting and make a fool of myself. There were so many great shares that night that I heard and I used a "Power greater than myself" to help get me through that night, because the ability to overcome my fears that quickly sure didn't come from me alone.
Anyway, I turned to this chapter tonight and found it interesting. Although it talks about the First Step, and not the second one, I still feel it is timely for me and gives me hope and I thought about the Old Timers in the beginners' class as I mentioned above......
This is an excerpt from "Self Discovery in Recovery" by Abraham J. Twerski, M.D., pg. 73
"As we shall see, the A.A. program is an excellent and perhaps unsurpassed vehicle for development of self-esteem. As one continues to grow in sobriety and feels progressively better about one's self, the acceptance of a limitation becomes even less threatening, and the sense of surrender can become more profound. Surrender is therefore not a one-time event, nor should it remain stagnant. Surrender must grow with one's personality growth. The First Step must be taken over and over again in the course of sobriety. If a person who has been sober in A.A. for fifteen years doesn't have a more profound sense of surrender than the year before, it's because he or she has remained stagnant and hasn't had any personality growth for a year."
I have often prayed during the meeting that If I had the opportunity to speak, that it be God's words that come out of my mouth rather than me trying to show-off how much I thought I knew ... the same was true for me in the beginning, when nerves of sharing openly got me tongue tied ... and nothing but gibberish would come out ... when I prayed for guidance in sharing, I sudden started to become very calm when speaking, truly amazing ...
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'Those who leave everything in God's hand will eventually see God's hand in everything.'
Early on, the smashing of the EGO, central to surrender, and admission of all our character defects doesn't seem to do anything for our self esteem. In fact, self esteem at this point is more likely to be false pride. Accepting defeat is not easy:
"There is a solution. Almost none of us liked the self-searching, the leveling of our pride, the confession of shortcomings which the process requires for its successful consummation. But we saw that it really worked in others, and we had come to believe in the hopelessness and futility of life as we had been living it. When, therefore, we were approached by those in whom the problem had been solved, there was nothing left for us but to pick up the simple kit of spiritual tools laid at our feet. We have found much of heaven and we have been rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence of which we had not even dreamed."
Once we apply the spiritual tools in our lives, we can hold our heads up in the world with humility and serenity. The term self esteem doesn't seem to go quite far enough.
