“Your imperfections make you beautiful, they make you who you are. So just be yourself, love yourself for who you are and just keep going.” – Demi Lovato

Reading step 11 in a meeting last night got my thoughts thinking. Sought through prayer and meditation… Before we get into step 11 let’s take it back. Back to the beginning. Some good reflection of one’s past never hurt right? When I first walked into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous I was sure I’d even belong in this seat. Let alone know I was searching for something bigger than me. Bigger than anything. I still had a mindset that I could cure everything. I could stop my drinking if I just drank a little different. I knew I had a problem. But me? An alcoholic? You must be crazy. I don’t live underneath AA bridge or in my car. I shower daily and have a good job.  Surely I couldn’t be affected but this disease you’re calling alcoholism…. How wrong was I? 

If we go back even further. Back before I was ten. When Sunday school happened every sunday. No matter how much I’d complain. I just didn’t understand the concept of god or religion. I’m a seeing is believing type of person. Especially by the image as a whole. So when you see parents forcing religion and Sunday school down your throat only to turn and act differently the other 6 days well it can become confusing. So when I found these rooms and people began talking about a higher power and finding one. When they spoke about only a power greater than yourself could relieve me of this alcoholism I found it troubling. At first I use my grandmother. She was such a big part of my life growing up. Surely she must’ve been the reason I made it home safe every time I got into a car after a few too many. It meant a lot to me to go find her grave. Only to find out she had no headstone. You’d never would’ve know she was there. But I now did. As I stood there time after time. Crying. Smiling. A breeze would blow. I found my struggle to not think that it was her. 

Than I walked into rooms again. Still feeling incomplete. Like something was missing. Meeting after meeting I would listen to people having the same thoughts as me. Thoughts I’d only have with myself. Sometimes it was things I needed to hear but was unwilling to say to myself. I realize these rooms and the people inside them are just that. My higher power. My god as I choose to understand had shifted and evolved as I get another day sober. I don’t think I’ll ever understand the higher power I’m comfortable now calling my god. By maybe that is the point. I’m not meant to understand. I have to be okay not seeing it but knowing it’s real. Feeling the power of it as it works out things in my life. 

It’s that the point though. To constantly improve your conscious contact with god as you understand it. I’ll never be a church going preaching of the big book or steps kinda of member. But I am member who’s got a dark side. Some days standing in the light it’s too bright. Who’s walked a fine line. Plays Russian roulette with her thoughts. Especially when the thoughts give chase down a rabbit hole I can not help but follow. 

There’s lyrics to a song that’s been playing over and over inside my head….. 

Yeah, days go by

These days all I’m trying to know is who I am

Don’t know why

It’s been hard for me to stay in one place

Yeah, days go by

I’ve been trying to run away from what I know

And I don’t know where I’m going

But I do know why 

– Mike. (Days Go By)

Learn and understand myself. Unlearn the ways I thought you handled life when life started doing life things. At the time I needed them. But I don’t think I do anymore. I ran through so much. Ran from just as much. Unfortunately I never appreciated the little things but the big things are all that ever mattered. I used to think I didn’t know how to pray. I was good at it. But all I had to do was start and can no longer sit here and say it hasn’t helped. I say thank you at the end of a great day. I say let’s try better tomorrow on the not so great days. I don’t know how to turn my will over. Give my life away because someone or thing is going to control it. I know it’s probably how I’m looking at it or even understanding it. I pray to find the knowledge to know better right from wrong. Help me be a better person. Be more mentally well rounded. I pray to keep the people I love and who are closest to me safe. I dont know how I would handle losing these people. Give me all their bad days so that they may feel the love back doubled. So that they have the best kinda days even if mine ends up shitty. I say thank you more as the days go by. I always end the day with a thank you. Because after all I wouldn’t be here without all of them. And I surely wouldn’t be sober with you. So thank you.