I learned in recovery that alcohol and drugs are not my problem. The problem is my thinking. Though that concept seemed strange to me in the beginning, I know how true that it is today. If alcohol and drugs were my problem, then detox would have fixed me, right? But it didn't. Neither did jail, or treatment, or any of the other things which separated me physically from those substances for brief periods of time.
So now I know that the problem is my mind, but what is the solution? My friend Bill J. often says "I can't think myself into better thinking, I have to act myself into better thinking". I believe that he is correct, but what action is required to effect this necessary change in thinking?
The book Alcoholics Anonymous describes the results of working the steps in three distinctly different, yet synonymous terms; spiritual awakening, spiritual experience, and psychic change. Psychic change literally means a change in thinking, and it has been my experience that working the 12 steps and incorporating them into my daily life has done just that.
My perception is not the same as it was before I worked the steps. Following up the decision that I made to try a new way of life in the third step, with the "vigorous course of action" as it is outlined in our book, has not only helped me build a relationship with a God of my understanding, it has profoundly changed the way I view the world and all who are in it.
The result of this change in thinking has been nothing less than miraculous: I haven't found it necessary to pick up a drink or a drug no matter what life has put before me!
awesome!
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