Published in the Nature Coast Journal - March 2009
Twenty three years after my first meeting, I still have most of the character defects the Big Book talks about. My character defects are to this day only a heartbeat away.
Years ago I begged God to remove these defects, but the next morning when I awoke, they were still there. I asked Him the next day and again they were still there. God helped me to become aware of the defects and allowed me to practice the opposite. I know today that my character will not allow empty spaces within it. For example, I just can’t ask God to remove my self-centeredness and expect that it will be gone tomorrow. It must be replace with helping others and it will not happen over night. After several years of helping others, I realized that my self-centeredness was nothing like it used to be. This is what we mean when we say, “do the next right thing”. Eventually the right thing will come first and all of those defects will be over shadowed by the character that God wants me to be.
Some of those defects have never gone away completely. Old thinking can come back if I stop working the program of recovery.
My world happens inside of me and I have the power, with God’s help, to overcome any adversity. Bad things may happen, that’s just life, but I can handle them now with this new way of thinking. I must now staying in the solution instead of the problem and continue to ask God to help me keeping those defects on the back burner as they really never go away.
Changing the way you think is not easy but unless you start today, tomorrow will be the same as yesterday. We only have today to work on ourselves. God will do His part if asked, and I have to do the legwork. “Easy Does It”, but DO IT.
John L, Citrus County, FL
