Less Frightening Now (Overcoming fear)

LESS FRIGHTENING NOW (Overcoming Fear)

As I approached my life in this 12 Step Programme, my greatest fear was leaving behind the only life I had ever known. It was filled with fear, loneliness and self-centeredness. It’s hard to believe that I wanted so desperately to hold on to such a life, but the truth of the matter is, it was familiar and in a strange way, very comfortable. The old Chinese proverb says, “I would rather live with the seven dragons than the one strange dragon I don’t know.”

The changes I was so afraid of have become comfortable today. If I have anything to say to the newcomer today it is, “Our Fellowship began from the very start to make the unknown less frightening than the known.” It helped me come from a person who was completely self-centered to a person who can see a Power greater than myself, from a person who was so dominated by fear to a place where I’m not so often in fear and anxiety and to where I am at a point of spending much of my time with a measure of peace. I need to think the world was a terrifying place, a place I tried so hard to get out of. Now I find it a beautiful place wit peace and contentment in recovery that far exceeds my expectations.

Please don’t misunderstand the fact that I still have some pretty rough times. With the changes that have taken place, they are certainly there; but through this Programme I have come full circle in my spiritual life, and underneath it all, I know, are God’s everlasting arms.

AS it says in A.A.’s Big Book, “Half measures availed us nothing. We asked His protection and care with complete abandon.” Those words have convinced me I must take this Programme pretty seriously, not to just patch or tidy things up a little, but I need to give this Programme my daily attention, holding nothing back; and the funny thing is, the more I love and work this programme, the more guarantees I have that I will have more of God’s love and goodness in my life.

I know today I am somebody. The 12 Steps have helped me to feel good enough about myself to know I do count in God’s plans. For me, that’s real progress.

From “Stepping Stones top Recovery.”