Re: Maintaining Our Faith

[Tom G]

I think you’ve both hit the nail on the head. It took me two years of sobriety to realize that drinking and drugging are not my underlying issues. Spirituality, or, more accurately, lack of spirituality is! For me, drinking was a solution to my underlying issues…it was just the wrong solution.
When my view of the world didn’t match reality, something had to give. For some reason, people and events didn’t match my expectations (imagine that!). If only they did, the world would be perfect. When that didn’t happen, I turned to drinking to mask my frustration and it became a means to deal with the world around me.
Knowing that I’m not in control, knowing that a power greater than myself is makes everything alright. Instead of trying to control others and situations, I’ve accepted that I accept the things in life that I can’t change (other people and situations). If something needs to change, I change the only thing that I can change; and, that would be me. And, I ask my higher power for the wisdom to know which to do when a situation arises. That’s how I put the Serenity Prayer into action, daily.
Am I ok with what I’m doing today? I’m at peace with the world. I have the serenity that comes with turning my will and life over to the care of God, as I understand him. I accept the world as it is, not as I would have it. Like Chris M. said, today, that simple answer is yes. If the answer is no, I use the tools and skills learned through the 12 Steps of AA to get to ‘yes’.
It works.