8 YEARS HIGHER POWERED

Today eight years ago I got sober. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired.This particular morning I awoke with a beer beside my bed, and even drank from it,I always took one to bed, whether I finished it or not, and when I got up my back felt numb, I had been given a bottle of pills from someone who picked me up hitchhiking the night before, didn't know what they were, just looking to get high. I had taken several, and drank heavily. I always drank heavily,I couldn't get enough. This numbness really scared me, I had no idea how many pills I had taken or much recollection of the night before. This time I had really hit bottom, and the only way to go was up, so down on my knees I went and pleaded to God for help. I got up and immediately dumped the bottle of pills down the toilet, this was real, I would never throw pills away. A weight had been lifted from me immediately. It is kind of a blur from there, as I found myself going to meetings every night and really embracing this new way of life. I didn't look back, I wanted this with all my heart! I did what I could,I asked God to strengthen me in my weakness.

And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me,and have faith in me,then will I make weak things become strong unto them. Ether 12:27

I didn't pick up and went to meetings. I read and studied the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, I learned a lot about myself from this book, I learned how to deal with what I discovered. I got a sponsor and worked the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. I went to church and my life was filled with a newness, a bright hope. Days went by running into each other as each twenty four hours by the Grace of God, I came out of them sober. I know I was carried through that first week, He truly does the rest when we do our best! I am testifying that to you now, that he knows when we do our best because He takes over from there. We are not perfect in ourselves, but we can become perfect in Him, just by doing what we can do, and when He does his part, He completes it, we are perfect in Him. We can do no more, it is done. He has done for us what we could not do for ourselves.Now we stay the course, using the tools we have been given in A.A, improving everyday our conscious contact with our Higher Power, and asking for his will for us and the power to carry that out, and we don't pick up for any reason. There is never a reason to pick up, that is not an option for me any more.
And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone, even alcohol. For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality- safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is our experience. That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition.

What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition.- Big Book of A.A-
There is nothing that my Heavenly Father and I can't get through together. I am grateful for my sobriety today and every day. I do what I can do, and leave the rest to my Heavenly Father. He never lets me down. I will never leave thee nor forsake thee, He said it, He is the source of Truth, Beauty and Light. I say these things in the name of My Higher power, my Savior, My Lord,and my God, Jesus Christ. Amen.