Monday 6/8/09 - THAT "AHA" MOMENT

THAT "AHA" MOMENT

I can't count or even remember now all the "AHA" moments I have had since getting sober, but they are many. I also know that almost everyone who has been sober for any length of time has experienced them. These moments of revelation have a way of bringing the goose bumps (also called "God bumps") up all over me.

My latest "AHA" moment came as a result of something I read coupled with some things I heard people say and my own experiences to date and all of a sudden - voila - I had a realization. This latest one was a sudden awareness that my spiritual and other gifts have been within me for a very long time, but I was unable to recognize them. They were buried under years of character defects - fear, envy, jealousy, lack of self-confidence to name only a few.

Through the grace of God I was brought to my knees by alcoholism and He brought me to Alcoholics Anonymous and later to Al-Anon. It is there that I discovered the truth about myself. I became able to see my shortcomings by working the 12 steps, sharing myself with trusted AA and Al-Anon friends, attending meetings, and the practice of prayer and meditation.

What I found beneath all that negativity and self loathing were the beautiful gifts God had given me from the beginning that I had lost. This discovery has not been a short trip, but a very long one arriving at that "AHA" moment.

As beautiful as my "AHA" moments are, even more wonderful is the joy of playing a part in such a moment of a sponsee or other loved one. Being in conversation with someone and suddenly seeing the awe and wonder in their eyes, watching their face light up as they experience their own moment when the "light bulb comes on" is priceless .

I had such a moment recently when I was meeting with a brand new person in Alcoholics Anonymous who was having difficulty identifying her powerlessness over alcohol. I was listening to everything she was telling me about recent events in her life. At the time we were reading from the Big Book, "Alcoholics Anonymous", in "The Doctor's Opinion", p. xxvi:

"They are restless, irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks-drinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery."

I pointed out something she had just said, this reading, and the consequences of her drinking and suddenly she "saw the light" and she understood what had been hidden from her understanding just a moment before. She could see how she was powerless when she took a drink.

This is God in action. It is humbling to be used by God to bring someone out of darkness and into light in such an "AHA" instant. Truly priceless!

It just doesn't get much better than that. Thank you God.

Prayer Girl