HUMILITY MONTH: DAY 6: “That’s an animal fable about humility. If you survive your mistake, you must learn from it. Accept that you’re fragile, vulnerable, and sometimes stupid. Realize that you’re not immortal and you’ve got to take care of yourself. And then laugh it off and fly away.”― Marc Maron
The last line is the best, isn’t it? Laugh it off and fly away. That is always how I feel after a good inventory and amends for something stupid that I did, that may have harmed someone else.
These steps are extraordinary tools for life. I have taught them for so many years to others that they are often employed by people who are not even aware of where they are most often used. It is possible for these tools to be used in a setting that is not at all a 12-step environment. I have done that in workshops and large gatherings for many years.
And then there is the life-long application that WORKS so well in recovery from any type of addiction. And the important thing here is to remember that you are never going to stop needing them and never going to be “recovered” from addiction. It is a permanent disease.
The BB has a line about having “recovered…”. I know a lot of people who think they are done with this stuff after a single time through the steps. All that they have done is temporarily arrested their most abhorrent and obvious symptoms. They have not cured their disease. Just like any form of disease, it is always there and relapse is more a certainty than a possibility.
I do not talk about this in meetings, because people in meetings want to argue anything they hear for hours. I do not. It is experience in working with hundreds of thousands addicts over the last 35 years that has proven this to me. And I can only share MY experience, strength, and hope. I am always open to being proven wrong…but so far, has not happened. It would provide me with another example of my own or someone else’s humility.
Dolphin Hug 