STEP ELEVEN

 

When I came back into recovery this time around, Step Eleven was the scariest step because the wording of it sounded so religious to me. Fortunately, my sponsor had good news for me. He said there are ten steps in between this step and the one you're currently on. So I didn't have to worry about it in the beginning.

In Step Two, I expressed a willingness to believe in the possibility of a power greater than myself, and that was enough. In the third step I began to put to the test the things this power was capable of. I didn't go through my day waiting around for God to show me what to do. I'm an adult. I know the difference between what's right and what's wrong. The only difference in my way of thinking was that now I would strive to do what was right instead of what was wrong.

Then I got into the inventory steps, 4, 5 and 6, and I learned more about what I had been doing wrong and why I had been doing it, so I became more conscious of what areas of my life I had to work on. In many cases it was just my thinking. My perception of reality needed to change. I had to try to be less selfish, less dishonest, less angry, less afraid, not so greedy or lustful or self-centered. And by becoming less of the wrong things I became more of the right things.

I found that despite all my attempts to remove my shortcomings, I was unable to do it on my own resources. I had to have the guidance and the care of this power I had become acquainted with in steps 2 and three. In Step 7, I got that guidance. My perception of God and humility began to change. It was helpful that I had been separated from my drug of choice for quite some time. My thinking was becoming more clear and I could see that my shortcomings had really been getting in the way.

Then I did my eighth and ninth steps, trying to improve not only my understanding of myself and my understanding of the people around me, but also improving upon my understanding of God. There were times when I needed to know God was with me when I approached some people. So, all this time, on this journey I was on, my understanding of God and of spirituality was changing. It didn't seem so frightening anymore. I'm not a religious person in the sense that I used to relate that to. I don't belong to a church. I don't go to mass. I don't wear an orange bathrobe and I don't eat walnuts. I'm just a guy that used to think there was no such thing as God.

I've been proven wrong.

Step Eleven says we seek through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understand him. Prayer to me is talking to God and meditation is listening for the answer. It's about communication. Communication is an important ingredient in any relationship. I don't always like the answers I get, but I don't have to like it I just have to do it.

Step Eleven even taught me the proper way to pray. I was always saying gimme gimme gimme when what I should have been saying was thank you thank you thank you. We don't pray for jobs or for cars or girlfriends or for long happy lives. We pray only for the knowledge of Gods will for us and for the strength to carry out that will.

My sponsor used to say that God wants us to be happy, joyous, and free. Hey, that's what I want too. To be happy, to be joyous, to be free. So, God and me, we want the same things. Why would I perceive that as something to be afraid of? Because my perception of reality was twisted. I thought believing in God meant that I would have to give up things that I enjoyed doing when in reality believing in God meant I could receive things that would be even more enjoyable than what I knew.

Every Tuesday night at 7:30, I get together with a handful of drunks Some are business people. Bartenders. Ex-cons. And what do we all talk about? We talk about how we established and developed a working relationship with the god of our understanding. We laugh and kid around but there's a deadly earnestness about what we do. Most of us know where we would be if we weren't doing what we do. We would be sleeping in a box under a bridge or lying in a gutter with a needle sticking out of our arm.

By the end of the hour, I tell you no lie, you can feel the presence of God in that room. It is said that deep down in us is the fundamental idea of God. He is within us and he comes in many forms. I spent years looking out there for God and all this time He was right here. Of course, that's just how I see it. So, my perceptions have changed and they continue to do so. In the Bible somewhere it says seek the kingdom of heaven and all else will follow. It doesn't say you have find the kingdom, you just have to look for it.

So if you seek through talking to god and listening to god to improve your conscious contact with god and you pray only for knowledge of his will for us and for the power to carry that out, well that's how we do step eleven.