Highlight on the 12 Steps
Steps 10-11 By Bill Kornovich
Drug And Alcohol Treatment Centers:
The Twelve Steps
are a journey, not necessarily a destination.
We as humans enjoy having a goal, a destination,
something for which to look forward. The anticipation of
reward begins early in life: expectation of a journey to
grandpa’s farm, graduation from high school and other
milestones in growing. Yet, we find the journey of life continues
throughout our mortality. Such are the steps. Like a
tree growing with all the steps of the branches developing
simultaneously throughout the perennial plant’s lifetime,
so the steps of recovery are a journey of expanding horizons,
knowledge and application. Each day after recovery
supports the next. Tomorrow cannot come without today
and yesterday. So too the steps build into a seamless structure
of recovery. To paraphrase a favorite meditation: ‘Each
day well lived can make yesterday a dream of serenity and
tomorrow a vision of hope.’ For myself, while focusing upon
the task at hand today, I need guard against drifting away
to the resentments and guilt of yesterday and the worries
of tomorrow. Do well the job of now and all will grow in
mutual support of recovery.
Steps Ten and Eleven
fit hand-in-glove, together in protection
and support for my journey of recovery after
drug and alcohol treatment.
A daily inventory not only leads to appropriate amends where
needed, and good self feelings, these actions also move us
daily into the light of that serenity every human craves.
Take care of this day’s faults and mistakes today. Admitting
one’s shortcomings is not pleasant. But, “…pain was
the touchstone of all spiritual progress.” (page 93 of Twelve
Steps And Twelve Traditions). The word “spirituality” keeps
coming up in recovery. For the Twelve Steps are a spiritual
program. The disease lives in our head, recovery is in our
heart.
For many of us, the revelation of mistakes and shortcomings
comes in that quiet time of meditation. Taking
time to reflect upon the day and thank my God for another
24 hours of sobriety gives opportunity for honesty
with myself. Only by candidly examining my own actions
am I doing my part to keep the ‘me’ in harmony with
others.
Over the last eight plus years at the
drug and alcohol treatment center,
I have ministered to many people of dramatically different life
journeys, all with diversity of faults, failings, as well as
saintly acts. Though quite diverse, these people, without
exception, all have loved and needed to belong, even
though some outwardly denied this human desire. Needing
to belong, living in fellowship and community, these
are our humanity. Making timely amends for my wrongs
keeps me from becoming separated by resentment.
In my career in the United States Air Force, as a
young officer I was privileged to serve under the command
of and fly with a former prisoner of the North
Vietnamese in the Vietnam War. On the rare occasion
he would speak of his experience, he talked about extended
periods of solitary confinement. This man recalled
the fear of being alone, separated and forgotten.
In the colonel’s case, his separation was not by his
choice. But when we are separated by fault of ourselves,
the choice to mend the breach is ours. In separation
due to resentment we are not only at odds with a core
human need, our serenity is tested if not jeopardized. If
the grieved party, however, does not accept our amends,
we have at least done our part. We can be at peace with
our effort.
Very recently, I delivered a Sunday homily around
the words “action and belonging.” Our step work is a
labor of action both to our benefit and others. We all
need to belong. When disharmony exists between myself
and other humans, one of my human ties of belonging
is strained; and these threads of connection are indeed
fragile. In meditation I ask my God for the humility
of amends and courage to take action.
Fellowship is a key part of our lives. The Twelve Steps from the drug and alcohol treatment center
provide support for the daily life journey in sobriety as
well as the joy of fellowship in harmony. The quiet time
with my God in review of the day’s actions, both good
and bad, honors the spirit, calms the emotions, and refreshes
the body.
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