I don't do this to boast or brag, because it was not all me who got me through another year clean, sober, and still recovering from the disease between my ears.
I want to share so that any new comers may know this program of A.A. does work when we work it. I pick up chips when I can get to meetings so I can give them to my children, my grand children and once in a while I feel a God nudge to give one to another member who is new in recovery for a hope chip.

I feel picking up my AA birthday chip is a sacrament for me.
Definition in theology being;
"An outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace."

I am not a religious person with-in any organized church. I frequent many different churches with many different spiritual views. I have been raised with Methodist, Native American, and many more views on the subject. I choose my own conception from the truths I've experienced along my path.

Celebrating my New Life, my second chance given me by the Grace of the Higher Power I have found in the rooms and in the following of the principles laid down in the Book of Alcoholics Anonymous and the literature found from before and during the creation of Alcoholics Anonymous I have and feel it to be a very sacred day.

I know without a shadow of a doubt that there is a power beyond my ability to express with words which has brought me up and out of the dark caverns of alcoholism and spiritual death. Physical death was not too far from my reach the last time I drank.

I was an emotional wreck, with suicidal thoughts daily. I could not understand why, if I was working a good program and I was doing all that was suggested to me by successful members of AA that I could feel so horrific and void of the promised happy, joyous, and free emotions.
Later when I was saved from death by this power greater than I , I found many pieces of the program which were hidden from me by my own ignorance and the ignorance of the people attempting to help me work through the AA program.
Throughout the years many pieces of AA literature and the meanings of them have been either watered down, or lost to most members and so there were many important spiritual discipline and practices which were left out of how I was being taught. I could not discern the meaning of some of the explanations of the process laid out in the first 164 pages of the Big Book.

I was almost 7 yrs sober when I went out and drank for about 3 months and contemplated ending my life. The emotional turmoil I was in was a direct result of traumas and abuses experienced in early childhood and teen years.
The human brain is a wonderful thing and it has a safety valve which will turn on to keep us safe from stimuli which we just cannot comprehend or experiences we just cannot consciously endure.

Many call this P.T.S.D. There are other definitions of it too. I came up against some of this while working hard to clear my side of the street working the 12 steps the first few times around. I was saved from death by a power larger than I and larger than the abuse and trauma I had endured as a young person..

I did however have to let go absolutely for this power to be able to help me.
I had to remember that I do not have all the answers, I cannot fix all my issues or character defects alone by myself.

I hope I have helped someone here know that there is hope beyond our comprehension and a power in this universe larger than our ability explain or express, and that power is availed to each and everyone of us just for the asking. But we must be humbled enough to ask. This power will not intercede without our permission. I must ask for the help.
So far, I have never been left alone when I have asked in earnest humility for help. I mean never. Recently I have gotten the answer to my dilemma before all the words in my sentence of asking have come out of my mouth.
I need to ask in my morning meditation ( which means when I am in two-way prayer with paper and pencil with God) what I can do for the person who still suffers and much of the time that is I need direction for me to help me not suffer any more, not just others.
I need spiritual discipline daily in my new life of recovery if I want to have comfortable and contented sobriety.
It works, it really does.

In Love Light Truth & Service,
'Stubborn' TerrieAnn
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