conscience...

I had missed my home group the past couple of weeks but last nite I got there and it felt good! We had a nice sized group, a great mix of long time and newer sobriety and we had some excellent discussion about people's experience with anger. A few of the longer time guys really put it out on the table, their issues with anger over the years and how they've been able to grow in the program and get their anger under control. We talked alot about the importance of getting to meetings regularly (ironic, right? lol), the importance of constant contact with a sponsor or someone in AA, a daily life that includes the 12 Steps of AA, we talked in the end about honesty.

Honesty... It's one of the 4 Absolutes (along with purity, love and unselfishness) that are occasionally talked about in the meetings (not so much as I'd like). Only God can be absolutely honest. So, by that simple measuring stick, we tend not to be completely honest as a rule... When I was drinking and drugging I wasn't honest, period. The majority of my life back then was a big fabrication, a foggy haze of delusion, mistrust, anger, self loathing. but the bottom line was my inability to be honest with Scott. Slowly I became honest with myself in AA, and it began with that 1st Step (where I ACCEPTED in my heart that I am powerless over drink and drug alike). God's Grace filtered into my life a day at a time and I began to see the need to be honest (it was becoming too painful not to be) with myself on things other than my sobriety. This need for honesty created the ability to choose. All of this process took (still takes) time but it has slowly formed the foundation of my lasting (occasionally serene) sobriety.

Today it starts with self honesty, about everything. Now I can see what I am doing to myself, I can clearly see the (formerly blurred) lines between right and wrong. I have choices today. Back then I didn't, I just drank/drugged and lied my way through life, oblivious to it all. I am grateful for the Grace that has entered and remained within my spirit. This Grace keeps me fairly honest most of the time, and provides a (sometimes painful) measuring stick or barometer for my spirit, especially when I choose to indulge in dishonest behaviours, anger and other lovely forms of spiritual and emotional self-mutilation.