March 5

FAITH MONTH: DAY 5: “Faith is not something to grasp, it is a state to grow into.” ― Mahatma Gandhi

This is my truth as well. I did not have great faith in anything when I came into this thing. I made the decision called for in the step, but had to keep making it.

Why? Because I did not see how that was going to work. I was a strong, fighting survivor of life. I was a warrior with a whole lot of attitude (all bad) and a fierce ability to spit and run (my greatest skill, or so I thought!).

So, I began to let go of things, my attitude began to shift; and really began to shift after I wrote gratitude letters regularly. Then I began to let go of the behaviors. Spitting came a couple of weeks after I got here. It was an issue at the place I landed and they were going to kick me out for that and for chasing the boys (THAT took some work!).

So, faith that something, somewhere could aid me in living a better life was not a given. It took time and work and resistance and yielding and resistance and yielding.

Most of the time, I must BE surrendered around here. I don’t just “let go” of things. I am usually face-down in the mud, gasping for breath with a heavy boot on my head. (This all happens in my feeling state.) There is no real boot, all figurative here. So, I become beat up and willingness seems to seep in through the cracks of the beating.

Drugs surrendered me, behaviors surrendered me. Each and every old idea has surrendered me. One by one, I have hit that brick wall at 500 miles an hour enough to let these things go. It happens faster each time, which is good, ‘cuz I am getting old and tired and cannot take a beating like I once could. I still don’t know why I think it is powerful to be able to take a beating. As I wrote that and felt a tiny surge of pride inside, it puzzled me…always has. Tough guy thing, I guess.

So, I am no longer that tough guy. Many of my ideas about life and who I am have been shifted. This has also been a part of deepening my spiritual faith.

I am grateful for Step 3. It is always my rallying point. It is always where I must begin again when Steps 1 and 2 are happening in my life. I get powerless and willing to let something restore me to sanity. That means I must “LET GO” …okay, I get it.

Then I get to process 4-9 on this stuff and I am free again, of another thing I did not see coming. That has been the course of recovery for me. And my faith grows and deepens and one less thing for me to control is removed. I wish I could do this once and for all, but that is not how it has worked for me. I look around the rooms and see that many of my peers are also struggling with life and their approach to it, their ideas about it and their way of working through it and see that we are all in this together.

That is both comforting and sometimes frustrating when I demand more than my fair share of this thing. I want to be done, to get my diploma and get on with life. It does NOT work that way. That is why I have to keep coming back…oh!