I am grateful for my faith today.
Before sobriety, I moved through life at what felt like a break-neck pace, dreaming wild and sparkling dreams of grandeur, downing drink after drink to dull the deep seated fears that shot sharply into my consciousness, and nimbly sprinting between failed and redundant plans to gain some measure of control of my excess and some measure of manageability of my life. I rarely worried; worry took time I didn’t have. I was too busy getting from one drink to the next, attempting to clean up one disaster after another.
My drinking life was chaotic, no doubt, and though I had the persistent feeling that I could just never quite keep up, or catch up, it turns out I wasn’t going much of anywhere. I was constantly doing, constantly surviving…but never moving.
In early sobriety, I began to search for the spirituality I had lost in my active addiction. In my first attempts to open my eyes, ears, and heart to my higher power, I found myself paralyzed by fear. I prayed for guidance, and when I was touched with inspiration, I immediately questioned the source. Was this higher power stuff, or just my instincts run awry? What were my motivations? Was I being graced with a divine plan, or simply rationalizing my own selfish desires? These aren’t inherently bad questions for the pondering. In fact, I think they can be quite helpful. But if they stop me from taking any action, from moving from stagnant complacency to a more vibrant and useful life, they are not being used in the way my higher power intended.
Gradually, I have realized that my life is all about movement. Even in my most quiet and still times, there is an ever-present movement in me– the undulation of my breath, the beat of my heart, the pulsing of blood through my veins. I can feel the shift in my perception of reality, in my thought processes, in my emotion, and in my spiritual plane. At any given moment, I am moving–physically and spiritually–away from one point and toward another. These points are never destinations. In this life, I will never reach the point at which I stop moving.
The very simple idea that life is not about reaching a destination, but about experiencing the journey, has affected my faith profoundly. I had lived my whole life–both in my using days and my first days of sobriety–as if my serenity, sanity, and happiness were contingent upon hitting some certain target. My higher power has granted me the blessing of retrospection; very few of the plans to which I so desperately clung worked out the way I wanted or expected, and I couldn’t be more grateful. It has become clear to me that every mistake, every disappointment, every ounce of pain I felt or caused others, has brought me to this particular point in my journey, and this particular point is exactly where I should be, for this moment, in this space.
The thought that the path my higher power has set for me is not contingent upon my plans eases my mind greatly. I listen for the small, spiritual voice within myself, and though I haven’t received divine direction in the form of burning bush or golden tablet, I do my best to practice spiritual principles that I believe will clear the channel and align the inspiration between my higher power and my own heart.
I move in the direction I believe my higher power would have me go. I don’t let the fear of making a mistake or winding up walking the wrong path freeze my progress in this spiritual journey. I can make mistakes. I can stumble down some un-blazed trails. And still, I will be drawn back onto the path I am meant to walk. I will rest easy in my faith that all will unfold as it should, eventually, and sometimes, in spite of, my best attempts to stall the journey.
The Next Steps 