Standing On the Ledge…

Standing on the ledge…
i have worked with more than a few guys trying to get sober sense I came into the “program.” and if one of them were to come to me and say that he went back out drinking again, (i call it joining the research division) I would always ask him the same question. How did that happen?
I am given a daily reprieve contingent on my spiritual condition alone. I nor any real alcoholic that I know can stay stopped based on self will alone. And if that guy wanted to take another run at sobriety, we would begin again at step one. Admission of total defeat seems to be the key. It’s funny, I have to lose to win. And I have to give it away to keep it.
I put myself in this position, I walked out on that ledge. I pulled the window closed behind myself and heard it latch shut. I will spend the rest of my life out on that ledge. That’s a fact. If I live to be 90, i’ll die an alcoholic. That can’t be changed. But I don’t have to die a wet drunk. This power greater than myself has set me free. I used to wake up in the morning and think, “when can I start drinking, how much can I drink and how can I get away with it.” I obsessed on those thoughts, and in turn I drank every day. And once I started, I had little inclination to stop. I have been relieved of those obsessive thoughts, and for that gift, I am deeply grateful. But if I were to pick up a drink, that vicious cycle would start all over again. I am not relived of my alcoholism, but I am relived of the thought that precedes that first drink. And up till now, that has been enough.
I take a meeting into a detox facility once a week and every once in a while I run into some guy I worked with before, and they are my best sponsors. If I ever wonder if I called it quits too soon, maybe pulled the plug on myself too fast, one look into their eyes is all it takes. We are all teachers, all of us all the time, and the lesson those poor men have to teach isn’t lost on me today. But again, it’s a one day at a time deal, so today is the only day I need to get it right.
But the good news is that this ledge is full of men and women. Shoulder to shoulder we stand with our toes hanging off the edge. We laugh at this peculiar position we have placed ourselves in. We agree on almost nothing, not on politics, not on religion, not on the color of the sky. But we all, every one of us agree in one thing, this simple set of spiritual tools, and the willingness to put them to use has set us free. We know we don’t have to step off into that incomprehensible demoralization that is active alcoholism.
I didn’t come in one day before I was ready, but when the pain finally got so great and the fact that I was facing a crises that could not be avoided of postponed was looming large before me, I admitted defeat. And in that simple act of humility, a new road opened before me. It is my job to stay to the broad road, and leave the ultimate destination in gods hands.

Shadowalker164