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...it sounds suspiciously like groveling, bowing, and scraping. and some days it even feels like that. not really, when those feelings come up, the last thing i am usually practicing is humility. be that as it may, i can say bunches about how humble i am, but as one of the men i have the honor of sponsoring says, when i start going into how humble i am, chances are that i am not being humble at all.
so why is this such a slippery and tricky concept for not only me, but other addicts in recovery? well,m i cannot speak for anyone but myself. when i came to recovery, i was taught that addiction was all about self-obsession, all of my problems, living and behavioral stemmed from self-obsession, and the only way i could hope to stay clean was to have my ego broken down to the point where i could become teachable. the message i heard was that everything i thought i knew about myself was wrong, which was probably correct and helpful, AND that i needed to let go of everything that i was proud about, after all pride feeds ego, ego feeds self-obsession and that is the core of my disease. what i heard and what i was actually being told were worlds apart, and i know this because no matter how careful i am when i speak about this concept with newcomers, they inevitable hear the same thing i heard when i was in their shoes. it is probably a good thing that humble does not appear in the steps until step seven, because by that time, i was certainly ready to start hearing a different message. in fact i was so shocked the first time i really worked step seven (my second trip through the steps), that it took almost a month before i could share again.
but anyhow, today i know what humility is, it is that sense of knowing exactly who i am, not who i think others think i am. it that sense of knowing what skills i do and do not have. it is that sense of being a human being, with a full compliment of assets and liabilities. and most of all it is a sense of accepting that i can do my best today, to live up to my vision of the man i am becoming, regardless of what is happening in the external world around me. so with that in mind, it is time to go shower off the workout and get ready to greet the real world as an equal and a peer, and let the rest go, it is after all another good day to recover.

∞ DT ∞