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Ego Deflation

I didn't know I had a disease that was killing me. I only knew that I was unemployed and quickly running out of borrowed money and there was no one left who would lend me anymore. I wasn't looking for the doorway into a brand new life, I was just trying to figure out a way to get a job so I wouldn't wake up every morning in stark terror.

My job search wasn't going well. I went to a therapist I knew to find out why, after six months, I couldn't find the energy to even send out a resume. After she listened to me whine about my life for 40 minutes she told me she couldn't help me. Her almost exact words were "you have the emotional maturity of a thirteen year old, you don't have an ounce of humility in your whole body, and your brain is so cloudy from you daily drinking that you cannot hope to get any clarity on your life." Then she looked deep into my eyes and said "you're in trouble aren't you Jeff?" The voice inside my head screamed at me not to agree, but finally I whispered "maybe."

Without knowing it I had taken the first Step. The admission -- "maybe" I was in trouble -- deflated my ego just enough to give my Higher Power the space to enter my being and work in my life. Suddenly I was being led by an unseen hand. A few days later I walked into my first AA meeting on a pink cloud. The obsession to drink was taken completely out of me.

I don't believe for a moment that I could have stayed sober this long without continuously practicing surrender, inventory, confession, restitution, service and the other principles embodied in the Steps. My spiritual awakening got me sober, but the willingness to "completely give myself to this simple program" keeps me sober. "Completely" reminds me that I can always do more -- that I can never let up on my program of action.
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