Sometimes I'm the man I know I was meant to be.
Other times, not so much.
Surrender -
Complete defeat—what a concept! That must mean surrender. Surrender—to give up absolutely. To quit with no reservations. To put up our hands and quit fighting. Maybe to put up our hand at our first meeting and admit we’re addicts.
How do we know we’ve taken a First Step that will allow us to live drug-free? We know because, once we have taken that gigantic step, we never have to use again—just for today. That’s it. It’s not easy, but it’s very simple.
We work the First Step. We accept that, yes, we are addicts. “One is too many, and a thousand never enough.” We’ve proven that to ourselves enough times. We admit that we cannot handle drugs in any form. We admit it; we say it out loud, if necessary.
We take the First Step at the beginning of our day. For one day. This admission frees us, just for today, from the need to live out our addiction all over again. We’ve surrendered to this disease. We give up. We quit. But in quitting, we win. And that’s the paradox of the First Step: We surrender to win, and by surrendering we gain a far greater power than we ever imagined possible.
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Just for today: I admit that I am powerless over my addiction. I will surrender to win.
Complete defeat doesn't just pop into your head one day. The life of an active addict has to take an extreme turn for the worse before surrender enters the equation. It's not easy living the life of an active addict. They suffer and struggle each day trying to keep it together... to maintain some semblance of normalcy. It's all worth it if they can get high... until it's not worth it anymore. The time when that decision comes is different for everyone. Then we get clean and the character defects rise to the surface; replacing the drugs. "Well, it's better than using", we think... that is until acting out makes our lives a mess. Finally we put these down one at a time as well. Have patience, the rate of recovery varies from addict to addict.
I'm not the man I used to be. Thank God.
P.S. Did I use the semicolon properly?
