Hi Family, My name's Melissa and I'm a very grateful recovering addict from Santa Cruz who is keeping the recovery fires burning while Journey is away. First, I'd like to thank my HP for another day clean. Next I'd like to say congratulations to the celebrants and welcome to the newcomer!
Today I will be sharing on: “By working the steps, we come to accept a Higher Power's will... We lose our fear of the unknown. We are set free” -Just for Today
Man, do I love those sentences. I love all our literature but I particularly love those sentences because they sum up my personal experience in recovery. When I first came in to NA, I followed my own will because that was the only way I knew how to live. As I kept coming to meetings I realized that my self-will was what got me into the rooms. As I worked step 2 I realized that Self-will is the total opposite of divine or spiritual will. It was only after I developed a relationship with a loving higher power of my understanding that I was able to live the 3rd step and entrust my Higher Power with everything that I had no control over: people, places and things.
Through the 4th I realized the destruction my disease, as manifested by my self-will, my fear and all my character defects, had caused in my life. In the 5th, I not only took responsibility, for my role in my own diseased self-destruction, I admitted it before God and my sponsor. Knowing that my HP was there to help me, no matter what I did, gave me courage and comfort to share the worst using aspects of me and the worst of what I had done in active addiction. For me the 5th step helped lift a huge burden of guilt, shame and self-loathing, which I carried everywhere I went and which my disease used as ammunition to seduce me into going out and using. The lifting of that burden gave me long periods where I experienced peace, self-love and serenity. It was at the 5th step that the promise of Freedom began to be fulfilled. Of course that Freedom and sense of peace was elusive at first. But as I continued working through various cycles of all of the steps through the step working guide, the peace I experienced became more profound and the connection to my loving Higher Power deepened to the point where I felt pure bliss and joy more often than not.
As time passed and more subtle things to work on were revealed, the freer I felt from any concern. On 9/11, in my 18th year of recovery, I lost 7 out of 9 of my closest and dearest friends in recovery – they were my family – my inner circle of most trusted and wisest friends. Between them there was almost 200 years of recovery that had given me strength, wisdom and love beyond measure. The years that followed were a true test of both my recovery and my relationship to my Higher Power. During those years my anchor was a loving, gentle Higher Power that intervened on my behalf when I was unable to cooperate or take good care of my recovery. The loving miracles he provided, in the form of coincidences where at my lowest I would be invited to speak, or someone I had done service with in the past would call me out of the blue and announce they were in California and looking to make a meeting and have dinner with me. As my gratitude slowly returned, so did a little spark of life.
That spark has grown back into a fire that burns strong and bright with a love for my higher power and for the fellowship of NA that was never there before. Today I am free… free from despair and sadness, free from anger and hate, and most importantly free from the slavery of addiction and from most of its manifestations in the form of character defects.
Today I am able to live happy, joyous, and free. Today I feel blessed to be me.. the me that God always wanted me to be. and to the God of my personal understanding I say: Thanks HP!
Today I will be sharing on: “By working the steps, we come to accept a Higher Power's will... We lose our fear of the unknown. We are set free” -Just for Today
Man, do I love those sentences. I love all our literature but I particularly love those sentences because they sum up my personal experience in recovery. When I first came in to NA, I followed my own will because that was the only way I knew how to live. As I kept coming to meetings I realized that my self-will was what got me into the rooms. As I worked step 2 I realized that Self-will is the total opposite of divine or spiritual will. It was only after I developed a relationship with a loving higher power of my understanding that I was able to live the 3rd step and entrust my Higher Power with everything that I had no control over: people, places and things.
Through the 4th I realized the destruction my disease, as manifested by my self-will, my fear and all my character defects, had caused in my life. In the 5th, I not only took responsibility, for my role in my own diseased self-destruction, I admitted it before God and my sponsor. Knowing that my HP was there to help me, no matter what I did, gave me courage and comfort to share the worst using aspects of me and the worst of what I had done in active addiction. For me the 5th step helped lift a huge burden of guilt, shame and self-loathing, which I carried everywhere I went and which my disease used as ammunition to seduce me into going out and using. The lifting of that burden gave me long periods where I experienced peace, self-love and serenity. It was at the 5th step that the promise of Freedom began to be fulfilled. Of course that Freedom and sense of peace was elusive at first. But as I continued working through various cycles of all of the steps through the step working guide, the peace I experienced became more profound and the connection to my loving Higher Power deepened to the point where I felt pure bliss and joy more often than not.
As time passed and more subtle things to work on were revealed, the freer I felt from any concern. On 9/11, in my 18th year of recovery, I lost 7 out of 9 of my closest and dearest friends in recovery – they were my family – my inner circle of most trusted and wisest friends. Between them there was almost 200 years of recovery that had given me strength, wisdom and love beyond measure. The years that followed were a true test of both my recovery and my relationship to my Higher Power. During those years my anchor was a loving, gentle Higher Power that intervened on my behalf when I was unable to cooperate or take good care of my recovery. The loving miracles he provided, in the form of coincidences where at my lowest I would be invited to speak, or someone I had done service with in the past would call me out of the blue and announce they were in California and looking to make a meeting and have dinner with me. As my gratitude slowly returned, so did a little spark of life.
That spark has grown back into a fire that burns strong and bright with a love for my higher power and for the fellowship of NA that was never there before. Today I am free… free from despair and sadness, free from anger and hate, and most importantly free from the slavery of addiction and from most of its manifestations in the form of character defects.
Today I am able to live happy, joyous, and free. Today I feel blessed to be me.. the me that God always wanted me to be. and to the God of my personal understanding I say: Thanks HP!
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