Character Defects
In a few months I'll be 85 and I haven't had a drink for 23 plus years. I think I've received a lot of benefit from AA and probably would not have been sober so long without it. But have my "character defects" really been "removed"? Just tonight I found myself being just as obsessive, compulsive and perfectionist as ever in trying to assemble some sound equipment for my wife's birthday. And I was so tired, hurting so much from arthritis and yet I felt that if I didn't get it "right" I would have trouble sleeping. My wife didn't seem concerned and suggested that I wait until tomorrow. But I wouldn't wait. I finally got it right but I guess this kind of thing could give me a stroke or heart attack some day if I kept doing it. Hasn't AA taught me anything? Would a "higher power" really be able to "remove" this from me? Well, to look on the bright side, what AA has taught me is that I have these weaknesses and I should focus on ways to cope with them, to take it easy, slow down, have patience, humility. I think it's taught me a lot about myself. But it's also led me to believe that it doesn't provide any magic solution, no sudden "removal" of "character defects". All it did was to put me in touch with my true self, stopped me from lying both to myself and to others, helped me recognize my weaknesses and helped me cope with them. And, above all, it helped me give up drinking. Maybe one of those weaknesses was that I didn't work the program perfectly, follow it right to the letter, the way it's written down in the Big Book. But I sometimes wonder whether, even if I had done that, would I have become an easy going, non compulsive, non perfectionist person. I'll never know. But I'll settle for what I can get. I'm reasonably happy and have absolutely no inclination to pick up a drink. Also, for what it may be worth, any person taking five different blood pressure medications a day ought to know that one good drink would probably put him on the floor, possibly for good! And many years ago a nurse told me that cirrhosis of the liver, as a way to die, is worse than cancer.
W.