Sobriety and mindfulness are cathartic and healing. I can just breathe and watch the universe unfold. This has healed any illness I have had. Mindfulness is a blessing in my sobriety. According to Jon Kabat Zen the word mindfulness is derived from medicine. As Saki Santorelli said regarding healing thyself: “Look at the bandaged spot, and let the light in; the light comes not from without but from within.” The two requirements of Step Three in the Big Book are that no human power can relieve my alcoholism, and I am not God. If I just do the footwork and Let Go & Let God, I can pay attention, not perseverate, not beat up on myself, or even think. I had three alcoholic grandparents and two functional alcoholic parents who were obsessive-compulsive atheist controllers. I was taught to be an alcoholic. By 1997 I had found a Higher Power within and met my husband at a prayer circle group at a church but was a social drinker not bitten by the disease yet. I had knocked off my drinking in my twenties and didn’t realize until 2004 that I had an allergy to alcohol; it makes me mentally ill, and I started to crave it. Working the steps in the AA Program eight times and step work in Al anon three times and finally adult child step work has been healing me like the un-peeling of layers of an onion. Now I can finally rest with my Higher Power and watch the show. As the “Just for Today” Al anon Bookmark comments: “Just for today I will adjust myself to what is, and not adjust myself to my own desires. I can take my “luck” as it comes, and fit myself to it.” I am walking with my Higher Power. As the AA 10th Step Promises State: “And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone—-even alcohol. For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If temped, we recoil from it as from a hot flame.” As the 11th Step States on page 87 of the Big Book: “We usually conclude the period of meditation with a prayer that we be shown all through the day what our next step is to be, that we be given whatever we need to take care of such problems.” This is how I came to believe, pay attention, and heal today.
Patricia N.