I Showed Up - The Credit

November 17. Hey friends, the middle of the week is past us all. I'm having a pretty good week & hopefully all of you are too. I have had a real privledge in being the son of my parents lately as they have been helping me without end in getting my business relocated & full time operating hours. So much of them & their time has been freely given to me & again tomorrow they will be helping me do the ground work for the actual moving in process with jewelry cases & hardware. I never imagined when I began my sobriety that our relationship or their support would ever reach these heights as they have most recently. Starting a few months ago when I surrendered my license, they have stepped up to the plate & gone above as well as beyond the duties of a typical parent. If I can do one thing right to honor their constantly nourishing involvement in my life it is to work hard at growing this business & in growing in both spirituality & sobriety. I hope to one day look back at the beginning & remember where the real credit is due, with them & my higher power. That seems like a good segway to my topic for tonight, so I'll start there.

Many addicts & alcoholics share a very similar story, and those of us that get sober share many common threads as well. One huge thing is that upon getting sober we often realize or admit later that we had very little to do with getting sober to begin with. We sort of just showed up, gave up, and followed the suggestions that would free us from the hell we lived. It is often our friends, family, or even strangers like in my case that put us in the direction of the help we so desperately needed. In my case those strangers were police, judges, and some very helpful professionals along the way. What inspired them to help me, or me to actually listen, is something that defies the odds & regular routine of the disease we carry. It was not the handcuffs, the consequences, friends or family, not the strangers nor the pain & suffering, not one single thing was enough to bring me personally to seek help & do anything necessary to change. There was & had to have been some sort of miracle that occured, be it in the form of people & events over time or a sudden desire to stop the madness, that miracle was caused by my Higher Power. Some people want to disect their recovery, to break it down to exact pieces & moments that they began to change, for better & worse. I personally don't see it necessary. I just need to keep going in the direction of spiritual growth & change. I need to realize that I cannot do much of anything myself, my disease does not allow or want me to, and that the credit lies in the actual miracle at hand.. Recovery.

Abstenance from chemicals alone would not mend the holes in my spiritual life, just as religion & spiritual practices would not negate substances if I put them in my body. Left to my own will & ways I do not know how to recover, I have tried all my life & my methods have proved to be failures. It helps me to know that I am a simple miracle today, a result of Grace of my Higher Power & many of those great people & events that it has put in my life to shape it today. I simply show up, willing, sometimes even fearful, but trusting because I see others recovering around me today. As I try harder & live as much of the 12 Steps in my life as I can, there is an actual feeling of wholeness & happiness that comes from doing so. My sobriety & my future is contingent on my spiritual condition today, so today I am doing my best to just show up & be willing to follow someone else's plan. Though so many things are left up to me to decide on a daily basis, I find a person who is nothing like I used to be calling the shots. It's when I open myself as an instrument of my higher power & do for a change what it will have instead of what I will have done, then I begin to feel happiness & change in my life. In my active addiction I was an alcoholic of the very selfish type. Each move I made was done in line with feeding my disease which was starving for numbness, sensations of false happiness, and things lacking spirituality. I can not say that back then I was capable of changing the self-centered being that I was, and because of this I don't think I was ever really capable of recovery. That was until a miracle occured in my life, something that I only participate in, and that something is one thing I cannot take credit for. But I can thank my Higher Power. Thank You God & All who you have sent to guide me. Good Night.. Good Morning.. <3 Jimmy