All right then...I think that working the steps helped me to gain the courage to face life without alcohol. I learned to trust that honesty wouldn't kill me, and that doing the right thing made me feel better and stronger than cheating or lying to get my way -- and that my way wasn't always what was best for me, and to accept that. I learned the difference between self-pity and genuine pain, and what to do when either of them threatened my peace of mind. With the completion of each task, my faith in my ability to be the kind of person I always wanted to be grew stronger. I rediscovered my sense of humor, my voice, and my personal sense of morality. I learned how to be grateful, wrong, happy, angry, and everything in between -- sometimes even all at once -- without losing my balance, or at least not for long. I learned the difference between wanting a little privacy and keeping secrets. I learned respect for others as well as for myself. I live very differently today. Much less drama. Much more peace.

Drinking is only mentioned once, in the very first step. The rest are about learning to live life on life's terms. For me it's been about learning to live in such a way that I don't even think about having a drink anymore. Some will say that you have to have a higher power to do that, but I don't think that's true for everyone. I think it's more about trusting the process, whether you believe in God or not.

Acceptance. Letting go of the denial a page or scale at a time. Once I shed that, I was able to recover. Actually not me on my own, my God, prayer, meditation, exercise, rinse repeat.

"Penance and overachieving Rhetoric"...I like that Billy :)

As for what worked for me I can't put it much simpler than Honesty, Open-minded and Willingness...keep searching, keep swimming, expanding my Non-material (spiritual), emotional life. Without disappearing up my own Butt in the process :)

Oh, and not drinking. Without an uninterrupted period of clarity its hard to keep moving forward.

P