Deep well
Originally uploaded by ilovemytripod
A long-timer in the program, a woman who I admire greatly shared this profound pearl of sober wisdom in tonight's Step meeting:
"We must acknowledge our powerlessness every morning as we rise. Step 1 gives us only a daily reprieve. Surrender is a deep well ..."
The room fell totally silent after she spoke, her words landing and locking into me like a missing piece to a complex puzzle. I really needed to receive this tonight.
This woman's statement is a reminder for me that this is truly a "one day at a time" program. Step work is never completed; it is, instead, a continuous, daily operation so that I may live soberly. It is what guides me to do the next right thing. It is what keeps me from picking up that first drink in any given moment when I am tempted or lose my way.
Surrender is a deep well. This statement rocks me to my core.
I don't just turn my will over to God or ask for a character defect to be removed today and it's a done-deal. I can very readily want to take my will back or find that my character defect has re-surfaced as early as the next day and this will require me to surrender once more. And, I am only guaranteed a reprieve for that day. Maybe not even for the entire day.
And this doesn't even account for the fact that there are defects that I have held onto and my denial or my resistance has put up a barrier that makes it very challenging for surrender to have a fighting chance. Just like the photo depicted at the top of this entry, it is quite dark and bleak at the bottom of the well. Some of us have to fall long and hard and often until we reach that place where surrender is our only way out from the hole we've created.
The recognition of powerlessness every single day in my morning prayers and my evening prayers keeps things real and green for me. I do not take my sobriety for granted any longer. Knowing I cannot do this alone and need God's help is the bucket that carries me up and out from the bottom of the well.
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