This is my first time checking this site out. I am writing about step 12, because I am beginning to work with others on a temporary basis. I have worked the steps with my sponsor and have had a spiritual awakening! I am so grateful for a chance to help others, but I am finding it difficult to keep them on topic. Our program here is very solution-focused and I want to help them learn, but sometimes they only want to go on about their horrible day! I pray for patience sometimes, but I see my higher power has a sense of humor, because lord, do they make me call on my patience!
I was given the gift of abstinence. I say a "gift" because it came about because I was scared. I thought I was dying; literally. I thought I had serious liver damage. I mean, I drank for 30 years. So I stopped. But it turned out to be diverticulitis. Still serious, but not life threatening.
So often we ACoA get caught up in feeling all the feelings of the past, that we sometimes get stuck in what once was. In fact, sometimes we get so caught up in how we used to feel, we forget that we aren't powerless anymore. As a recovering ACoA I have learned to embrace my past as a gift. Because I am an ACoA I was forced to look within for answers, and as a result I found the greatest blessings ever. I found--ME.
