I have often thought of myself as a smart man, quite brilliant at one point before sobriety; hopefully a bit humbler now. Without higher education, in just a couple of years I was playing jazz with the best of them in LA. After being discouraged by the music scene in LA went back to Silicon Valley where I now enjoy pestering by any number of head hunters lining up to put me in a myriad of high paying positions as a Systems Engineer. The truth is though, with all my so called intelligence in the booze area I was quite stupid to put it mildly. In the getting along with fellow human beings and attaining some humility department I fell short as well. I had read the Big Book 3 times and attended many hundreds of AA meetings for 7 years before I became a student of the Big Book. I am well over 17 years sober now. I found out something really humbling through careful study of the Alcoholics Anonymous book and that was this. That with all my brilliance and superior intellect I really hadn’t comprehended all the main points made in the first 164 pages.
I actually was pushed into studying it by my third sponsor who’s first book at age 34 was the Big Book. (he was illiterate before sobriety) I found out by the help of more studious and patient men than I, ( Joe and Charlie to be exact) that the first 164 pages of the big book are a text and meant to be carefully studied. The preface of the book illustrates this point.
A mistake in thinking I made was to classify myself unique, a cut above, an exception. I found that this trait is often shared by many an alcoholic. This feeling of being alone but superior than the rest and at the same time a victim of life. Over the years I have found something out about myself as well. That is that even with all the Big Book studying I had done it’s always good to refer back to it as my disease will often push back those good points and I’ll find myself getting out of sync with the principals. Refering back often keeps me on track. Writing blogs about it helps too.
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