#step eleven

Warriors: thank you for your service! Sending out a simple note of appreciation to all those who have served to protect our country & congratulation Marines for 250 years of loyal dedication! Also, a very special thank you to my martial arts instructor – you have stood by my side since serving in Nam; I am forever grateful! Prayers for my cousins’ family and others, who have lost loved…

Step to step: Natural skill

I know that I can be very critical of religious people in A.A. but I am actually pretty spiritual with my step eleven. To show this, I’d like to tell you my daily prayers. I start with the 3rd step prayer and next have my own part:

“God, I offer myself to Thee- to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life. May I do Thy will always! Help to show the same love, service and tolerance I would hope for from others, and to be a channel for thy peace. Help me to humiliate and vilify those who defy you and myself, show me new ways to upset them and cause them despair. Direct my thinking towards sustained attacks and control, publishing any gossip and vicious rumour that extends my mission, and causes maximum pain and suffering. Help me to see that the ends justifies the means, and to remember it is fine to be a verbally violent and privacy invading thug. For in the end, the means are justified. Show me the way of love, tolerance, patience and kindliness, but let me remember our crusade is righteous God, so the sobriety and lives of those I must destroy are secondary to the light, the truth and the way! Bless us with Thy love and power! Amen.”

Cheers

The Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous’ Spiritual Programme)

PS God is love.

I saw someone from my old life. Someone from the team I was once a part of, once played with, once coached, once was an interim “president", and was at one time an announcer for.

I had gone for a quick run this afternoon right after work. I didn’t have time to do much more than 1-2 miles before having to meet my temporary sponsor and talk step 4.

So I set off at a quick pace and heard my derby name yelled out. I said hello and they asked if I’d stop to chat and I said I would catch them on my way back. I came back around after a mile and a half and stopped up on the porch to chat.

I knew that they were very likely drinking so I was glad I took the time during my run to ask myself if I was prepared to sit with them and decided I felt fit.

I could tell right away that they’d been drinking quite a bit already.

Did my eyes look that empty and sad when I was drinking? I asked myself.

One of the first comments this person made was that i “was skin and bones".

No, I replied, I was skin and bones a year ago. I’m muscle now.

What I heard in my head was them really saying “I’m insecure about my body and I’m jealous of yours, let me say something negative about you so I feel okay about me".

I know my body. I listen to it pretty well now. I’m taking much better care of myself. I workout so that I eat and I eat so that I can work out. My body is right where it’s supposed to be for what I do.

She then said that she’d offer me a drink but that I probably wouldn’t want one.

So she knew! Someone from the team who knew that I had decided to go to A.A. had told others. My anonymity was broken by the few people that I had told. So I said, “no thanks, but how did you know that I wasn’t drinking? Someone told you?"

She goes " you quit drinking!? I don’t wanna hang out with you any more, I’m kidding."

So she didn’t know until I outed myself or she was lying. Doesn’t matter.

We got to talking about the training we were doing as she was going to be doing an obstacle course soon and I am doing the Beast. She told me about how she was going to get wasted the night before the race so that if she was sick from drinking the next day she could just blame her puking on the race.

It was time for me to go.

I went and had an awesome dinner with Sally and she gave me a plethora of step 4 options. One of which is right up my alley.

She went with me to the b. step meeting where there was only 6 of us to read and discuss step 11.

It was the universe again whispering in my ear, going it’s hard to humbly get down on your knees and ask for the universe to take care of me and the people that I’m praying for in the way that the universe will. That the way I have been praying has still been with a request for a specific seeking to be done, which is still me trying to exert my will upon things. An expectation of mine that things may or may not be carried out as I had asked for them to be carried out.

Pfft, really… me? It reminds me of gnarls barkley’s lyrics:

Oh oh oh bless your soul/you really think you’re in control?

Today helped me see that I was still not turning my life over to the care of the universe. At least I have made a concious decision to turn my will and my life over by completing step 3. Or so I had thought.

Sally asked me after the meeting to read step 3 again and write it out with the wording I’d like and then to give her a call and we’d go over that step and then get to work on step 4.

I was frustrated at first, thinking that I had completed that on my own through what I had done and then thought:

Contemplation:

- from contemplati, orginally "to mark out a space for observation".

- "com", within, "templum", area for observation.

Definitions of contemplation:

- A long and thoughtful observation.