January 1

ACCEPTANCE MONTH: DAY 1: “In this moment, there is plenty of time. In this moment, you are precisely as you should be. In this moment, there is infinite possibility.” ― Victoria Moran

When I first met Step 1, it was so radical a notion I could NOT wrap my head around it. Me? Powerless? Really? It was okay to say that my life was unmanageable, I got that. But powerless? I don’t think so. I can (and have) stopped drinking and drugging for short periods of time.

Acceptance, for me, is something I have to get to in bite-sized pieces. I just don’t seem to be able to jump into that whole-heartedly or with great zeal.

In fact, it quite often makes me angry. I really do hate being powerless most of the time. Then I get to the point where acceptance of that fact becomes a relief. Then I am in!

Truth be told, I believe this is true of the human ego. It balks at information that is not first conceived of by itself. That is the struggle with education and learning new things we are not looking to learn. If I am engaged in a learning activity and happy to get that information, it works out okay. But if I am not particularly happy with it, my go-to response is denial.

Why are we like that? I don’t really know, but it has proven itself to be true for many years. And when the truth is something that cannot be explained to me, I am going to remain dubious. That certainly was the case here. I am grateful for the BB and its way of allowing me to doubt and remain abstinent until I did some further exploration.

Acceptance must happen across the board, in my life. I did not always know this, but I cannot be at peace until I get there. Thank God for Dr. Paul O. His piece on Acceptance has been the most read thing in all the books I have ever owned. In my early days, I was lucky to sit in the same room with him for the first 8 years. To be honest, I feel blessed to have sat with many of the folks in the early days, because I have never forgotten their message or their great love.

When I get to acceptance, I get to the place where I really want to let it all be as it is. The quote today is to remind us all that we are not racing toward an end in this thing. That we are all acceptable as we are in this moment and that we are in a process that has no deadline or date stamp. The end result is never the end of anything.

That is hard when we focus so strongly on this being the day when our lives are going to change, when we focus on this as a starting date for something we hope to acquire, hope to achieve, hope to have at the end of a specified period. Setting goals on this date is cultural. Most of us do it. But it can be a setup for disappointment when our expectations range higher than we are meant to go right now.

Acceptance gives us a break from expectations. Although I want to remain in recovery this year, program reminds me to do it today.

I may want to be a better version of myself at the end of this year, but I can only do that one day at a time. None of it will work, however, until I have accepted myself just the way I am right now. That is the eternal lesson. It is always perfect, I am always perfectly human, and anything could happen.