[MajestyJo]

If temperamentally we are on the depressive side, we are apt to be swamped with guilt and self-loathing. We wallow in this messy bog, often getting a misshapen and painful pleasure out of it. As we morbidly pursue this melancholy activity, we may sink to such a point of despair that nothing but oblivion looks possible as a solution. Here, of course, we have lost all perspective, and therefore all genuine humility. For this is pride in reverse. This is not a moral inventory at all; it is the very process by which the depressive has so often been led to the bottle and extinction.

AA 12 Steps & 12 Traditions


When I came into recovery, my thoughts were "Stop the world, I want to get off." When I came through the doors, I received a ray of hope. There was still a lot of look what happened to me, I am so hard done by and it was only by coming to the rooms and hearing others share, that I was not alone, others had gone through more traumatic stuff than I did, and whatever I needed to go through, I didn't have to do it alone.

What happened to me was my trauma but I didn't have to continue to live it. I had to give up the role of martyr, victim, scapegoat, and all the negativity and leave it in the past and just deal with it a day at a time. One days feelings, one day's thoughts, one day's action. I could look into the past as to how it affected me in today. My past made up part of who I am in today, but so much of it had been me acting out in my disease. I had to look for the real person, the person I lost along the way, and work toward being the kind of person my Higher Power would have me be.

Humility means to be teachable. To be open to other ideas than my own. To connect with a Higher Power, tap into the Power in the rooms, and connect in the here and now.

I had drank to too many people health in the past, it was time to look at my own. Don't tell me, watch me had to go. Instead I had to reach out and ask for help. Those old tapes of "Don't tell me what to do! and "If you can't do it right, don't do it at all," had to be replaced with new ones. I was reminded that I had the control of the 'play' button. If an old tape started running, I had the power to turn it off. When I surrendered in the first Step, I was empowered to do what I needed to do to stay clean and sober and live in today if I tapped into the Power that was available in the rooms. My Higher Power put great people in my path. I was truly blessed. Once I got here, I didn't have to go back out and do more research or go and drown my sorrow. I found what I need in the rooms of recovery.

To be continued...