There comes a time in everyone’s life when you just have to surrender.
Time when resistance is futile.
We can hang on for dear life and insist all is well.
Insist we don’t have a problem, or care, or concern about _______________________ (fill in the blank).
For some of us, we don’t know what we don’t know and we surrender without even knowing we have done so.
During my early stages of sobriety I tried like hell to turn my will over to God. I didn’t have a problem accepting God as my higher power as I always turned to God (even through my darkest phases) to fill up on high octane fuel.
My problem was turning my will over.
I could not do it.
I heard in the halls the importance of step three – to make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
Every morning I got on my knees and prayed, pleaded; “God I turn my life and every aspect of my life, my sobriety over to you” and every night before I got into bed I humbly thanked him for another day of sobriety.
Filled with gratitude for another day, but pissed and frustrated that I just could not turn my will over. I tried and tried and tried again – but I could not do it.
Everyone else is doing it – what’s my issue?
Despite the note posted on my bathroom mirror “Dear Diane, I do not need your help today – Thank you, Love God”, which reminded me of my frailties and my need to get out of my own way, I came up empty handed with each and every attempt to turn it over.
Feeling grounded yet shaky at three months sober, in March of 1992, I stepped outside the stuffy meeting hall into the cold and refreshing air, dug into my pocket, pulled out my package of cigarettes and light up a Winston.
My exhaled breath was a combination of misty chill and luscious cigarette smoke, which billowed out into the star-lit night.
A conversation ensuesd between myself, my friend Pat (who had three years of sobriety) and a young girl whose name I am unable to recall. She had not had a drink in three days. Taking a deep drag from her cigarette, her youthful face filled with a mix of desperation and hope, she exhaled questions… “How do you do it? How can you stay sober for so long?” (Three months feels like a lifetime, when you are three months sober.)
Without a second thought or a missed beat I heard myself say “Oh, I don’t do anything” as I tilted my head skyward and extended my arms to the heavens – “He does!”
It hit me like a ton of bricks.
I had surrendered all along.
I had let go and let God.
Consider this: Surprises are right around the corner.
When we least expect it, a miracle occurs.
Have you already surrendered but don’t know what that should feel like – so you keep holding on and trying to force something?
Do you believe you have gotten out of your own way away but continue to bump into yourself at every turn of the corner?
Are you holding onto something so tightly it is depleting your energy and occupying too much space in your mind?
You don’t have to… I can help.
I am celebrating 20 years of sobriety on the 13th of this month.
Hip, Hip, Hooray!!