Promises Dawning
Yield beautiful changes
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: A home filled with love
Posts: 1,707
Promises Dawning
I'm a health care professional who began attending AA in February of 2022 after existential misery and shamed moved me to finally admit and seek help for my prescription pain medication abuse. 12 Step attendance was a mandatory part of my profession's formal recovery program. I'm (in general 
) very willing to follow rules and earn my "good girl" title, so I threw myself into the program. My drug use/experimentation started in 2018, but I now know that my soul sickness originated LONG before that. I was familiar with AA because I have loved an alcoholic, and I knew that drug addicts were welcome at meetings. It was a good fit, and my recovery blossomed in the rooms of AA and in conversations with my sponsor. Still, I truly struggled with fully embracing the idea that ALCOHOL was a problem for me. Afterall, I hadn't been drinking alcoholically........alcohol scared me quite a bit. I had been very hurt by someone else's drinking, so I was always pretty careful about alcohol.
Nine months in, clean and sober and learning, my AV told me that there was really no good reason I couldn't drink one day. And the ONE drink that I remember taking (I think I drank about 5 units of alcohol) resulted in me waking up approximately 5 hours later. Soul sick and miserable with defeat and disappointment.
But from that defeat dawned UNDERSTANDING of my condition. I now know that my drug use wasn't incidental. My occasional drinking wasn't a fluke. It wasn't a silly choice. It was my subconscious demanding appeasement, ease, relief in WHATEVER form. If there weren't drugs, alcohol would work. If neither were available, lord knows what kind of shenanigans I would have gotten into with shopping or sex or food or love or work.
Accepting, at long last, the discontent of my God-designed spirit, relieved me of the desire to GET OUT. To space out, sleep, run, poison myself, escape. When I pictured my spirit, I could see that it was striking, significant, beautiful, and stuck in a prison of my own construction. At that moment, I became entirely relieved of my desire to trap myself.
Defeat led me to surrender which showed me truth and gave me victory.
At this point, I am ever vigilant, but entirely confident. I am delivered.
For me, as 2022 draws to a close, AA's promises are dawning:
Promise One: We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.
Promise Two: We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
Promise Three: We will comprehend the word serenity.
Promise Four: We will know peace.
Promise Five: No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.
Promise Six: That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.
Promise Seven: We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.
Promise Eight: Self-seeking will slip away.
Promise Nine: Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.
Promise Ten: Fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us.
Promise Eleven: We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.
Promise Twelve: We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
I am AWAKE, grateful, humbled, secure, joyful, unashamed, growing, learning, working, and loving. I am a new creation. I understand now why people celebrate a new "birthday" in recovery. Getting clean, originally, was a sacrifice for my family, my friends, and my logical brain's best interest. My new birthday marks a complete change in mindset, motivation and desire. I am clean and sober because my soul's purpose is to be, unabashedly, undiluted, me.
As the New Year dawns, I am floored by gratitude for this change. The promises can come true for all of us. We are TREASURES hiding in jars of clay. Bust out!
-TC
) very willing to follow rules and earn my "good girl" title, so I threw myself into the program. My drug use/experimentation started in 2018, but I now know that my soul sickness originated LONG before that. I was familiar with AA because I have loved an alcoholic, and I knew that drug addicts were welcome at meetings. It was a good fit, and my recovery blossomed in the rooms of AA and in conversations with my sponsor. Still, I truly struggled with fully embracing the idea that ALCOHOL was a problem for me. Afterall, I hadn't been drinking alcoholically........alcohol scared me quite a bit. I had been very hurt by someone else's drinking, so I was always pretty careful about alcohol.Nine months in, clean and sober and learning, my AV told me that there was really no good reason I couldn't drink one day. And the ONE drink that I remember taking (I think I drank about 5 units of alcohol) resulted in me waking up approximately 5 hours later. Soul sick and miserable with defeat and disappointment.
But from that defeat dawned UNDERSTANDING of my condition. I now know that my drug use wasn't incidental. My occasional drinking wasn't a fluke. It wasn't a silly choice. It was my subconscious demanding appeasement, ease, relief in WHATEVER form. If there weren't drugs, alcohol would work. If neither were available, lord knows what kind of shenanigans I would have gotten into with shopping or sex or food or love or work.
Accepting, at long last, the discontent of my God-designed spirit, relieved me of the desire to GET OUT. To space out, sleep, run, poison myself, escape. When I pictured my spirit, I could see that it was striking, significant, beautiful, and stuck in a prison of my own construction. At that moment, I became entirely relieved of my desire to trap myself.
Defeat led me to surrender which showed me truth and gave me victory.
At this point, I am ever vigilant, but entirely confident. I am delivered.
For me, as 2022 draws to a close, AA's promises are dawning:
Promise One: We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.
Promise Two: We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
Promise Three: We will comprehend the word serenity.
Promise Four: We will know peace.
Promise Five: No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.
Promise Six: That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.
Promise Seven: We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.
Promise Eight: Self-seeking will slip away.
Promise Nine: Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.
Promise Ten: Fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us.
Promise Eleven: We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.
Promise Twelve: We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
I am AWAKE, grateful, humbled, secure, joyful, unashamed, growing, learning, working, and loving. I am a new creation. I understand now why people celebrate a new "birthday" in recovery. Getting clean, originally, was a sacrifice for my family, my friends, and my logical brain's best interest. My new birthday marks a complete change in mindset, motivation and desire. I am clean and sober because my soul's purpose is to be, unabashedly, undiluted, me.
As the New Year dawns, I am floored by gratitude for this change. The promises can come true for all of us. We are TREASURES hiding in jars of clay. Bust out!
-TC
Member
Join Date: Jan 2018
Posts: 293
What an amazing and inspiring message! At one point during my drinking career I couldn't imagine my life without alcohol until I was forced into a do or die situation which is often the case with drug/alcohol abuse. I chose sobriety which does not offer the instant gratification of alcohol but something so much more sustaining and life giving, not life avoiding. Today I am building on who I really want to be. Someone who I am proud of and respect.
Congratulations on your new life!
Congratulations on your new life!
Yield beautiful changes
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: A home filled with love
Posts: 1,707
Originally Posted by Gettingcloser 
At one point during my drinking career I couldn't imagine my life without alcohol until I was forced into a do or die situation which is often the case with drug/alcohol abuse.
In my early twenties, I watched my ex-husband drink himself into incredible depression, pain, and self-loathing. He died due to his alcoholism at age 42. He wanted to get better, but he never found recovery. It was terrifying and heartbreaking to watch (even from a bit of distance), and it truly left me questioning HOW relief from addiction could ever be achieved. Did people really change? Was I doomed? Was my family doomed?
Now, I know that true freedom is absolutely possible, but it requires a sea change in attitude and a willingness to WORK for health. God granted me the attitude adjustment, but I had to do a lot of inner work in order to be ready to be adjusted.
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