Completely Sold - Working A Program

September 10. Hello everybody, its ticking on into Friday morning & I felt like writing while I sit home & awake. I'm not sure if I'll ever get this sleep thing right, if I run myself lean I still don't sleep & if I sleep all day sometimes I can pass back out immediately. I guess balance will come slowly like it does with everything else & if not then my Higher Power will find another way to take care of me. Thursday wasn't a bad day, I spent the afternoon with my Dad. He took me to my doctor's appointment & waited while I was in there for a little over an hour. It's nice to know he's involved with my health & recovery as far as support goes. After the visit there we took the long ride back home & even missed an exit, enjoying the scenic route & talking some. My mother was off attending to my Grandmother, she has not been well & things were looking bad so she had to be admitted into the hospital. Fortunately its not anything immediately threatening but they are testing and keeping her in there for a potential surgery. She is the last of my living grandparents & one that has been sweet to me throughout my life. Thinking back I can remember wronging her one time, she has yet to wrong me. So if there is nothing I can do now, I can at least pray avidly that she come out of this fine & return home safe & sound. I went to my usual Thursday meeting & saw a few friends there. The guest speaker had a great story & the topic was about "working the program". Some people play the program & never really get involved, some let it work them, then others who really want to make it give in & work the program.. with the help of others of course.

When it comes to working the program, there is no half-assed way of going about it. You can do things in half measure from the sideline & thats exactly where you'll stay, on the sideline & on the edge of losing sobriety & your spirituality if not more as well. I have seen & experienced many feelings myself about this, from not wanting to be involved enough to wanting to be absorbed in the program's potential in my life. This being the main topic I want to talk about tonight, I will speak more about it in a minute. First I want to mention something that many of us do as human beings & do not recognize or correct as spiritual biengs. We SELL OUT. When we do this, most times it is not to something positive in our lives or for the world around us for that matter. It's usually selfish, centered, and over time shows to be not any good for us at all. Some people sell out to a boyfriend or girlfriend, forgetting all about their friends, family, or the people that were there for them on those lonely days & nights. There are those who sell out to money, greed & the like, always wanting more & more material & monetary growth in their life. They lack the relationships, spirituality, and beliefs in a Higher Power of humble & moral rewards. I have probably sold out to many things, many not even mentioned here, but the one thing I sold out to that was worst in my life was Drugs & Alcohol. I don't know if I chose them or they chose me, but at some point there was no longer a choice. I had lost that ability to choose back any of my friends, family, or any of the other things or people I loved in my life. Selling out can be a negative or positive though, however rare the positive may be. A true miracle occured in my life & I got sober through the help of many & my Higher Power. The 12 Steps are helping to ensure I can remain sober & spiritual for the long haul. But I have had to sell out one more time, only this time to the program. That is how I "work my program" today. Completely Sold!

I have to not only hope, but also believe. I have to learn as well as teach. Advocate while developing within. I cannot ask for my time back nor can I wish there was another way. I must know & show that this is the one & only, the final solution, for all of my problems in life including Drugs & Alcohol. I am an alcoholic & drug addict, sober a little over one year, only because I have become COMPLETELY SOLD that the 12 Steps & a spiritual sober life was a lasting relief from the life I was trapped in before. So when someone that has seen "it work" suggests something to me, something that they are completely sold on having worked in their own sobriety, I won't hesitate to at least try it in my life. If they are as convinced as me that life is thousands folds better in sobriety than in active addiction, then they are trustworthy. Aside from that, the 12 Steps has refferences, as in the book that the fellowship uses to teach them. I own that refference, and others with the 12 Steps & Traditions in it, I can use those to find what someone is suggesting & see how it has worked for someone inside those books. They are all real stories, as real as mine. So if it's real, then I am Sold.. Completely Sold. Because having found no other way to do anything but fail & suffer, I would much rather succeed & be relatively happy every day of my life because I worked a simple program that requires me to believe. Sell Out? You betcha, but this time I haven't forgotten anybody.. not anyone that was worthwhile in my Higher Power's eyes anyway. Thanks for blogging in. Good Morning.. GOod Night.. <3 Jimmy