(The following is a personal post from one of our group members.)
I was remembering an incident a couple of nights ago when I could not get to sleep. Eventually I got up and turned on the computer. I checked my email accounts, and spent some time writing a few responses and then some posts to an online recovery group. Eventually, feeling sufficiently tired, I headed off to bed.
My wife had been asleep through all of this. I ever so quietly opened the door and did everything I could not to wake her.
And at that moment a thought occurred to me. I had done this same thing so many times before, this sneaking back to bed after having been on the computer in the middle of the night. But this time was different. This time was in recovery, because this time I was still sober.
When I was still trapped in my addiction, I would have been sneaking back into the room feeling oh so guilty and ashamed. I would have been doing everything I could so as not to wake her and have her wondering what I had been doing. My motivation would have been to hide and deceive, to not be caught.
But now it is all different. Now my motive is good. Now I am not thinking of myself at all. Now I am only thinking about her well-being, trying my best to not wake her so that at least she will have a good night's sleep.
For me, the joys of this program are in watching how God is changing me as I surrender to His will for me, surrender my selfishness and resentment and a lot of other character defects, and ask Him to change me. Working the Steps with a sponsor taught me how to start doing that.
"It works if you work it."
