An AA brother shared, “When I was drinking, I would often wake up hungover and wonder what the hell happened?”
“When I came to AA and began working on Step #1 with my sponsor, I realized the question was not what happened. That was easy. Getting drunk was what happened; I had to see what happened before I got drunk. The important question was, what happened before what happened, happened?”
He paused and took a sip of coffee, “In Step #1, I saw two answers to this question. First, feeling restless, irritable or discontented, I would take a drink. For a moment, that solved the problem of these feelings. But I had an allergic reaction to alcohol which was the second problem; my allergic reaction was not a fever or rash; I got very drunk.”
“Looking at my history, I saw that for me, taking a drink and getting drunk was the same as sniffing pepper and sneezing. Both were bodily reactions that I could not control. Since I could not solve that problem, I had to focus on the first problem; I needed a solution to my restless, irritated, or discontented condition. And the AA Program gave me that solution.”
“Applying the tools of the Program, I could stop what happened before what used to happen happened.”
His share resonated with all of us. We had all discovered a new Twelve Step solutions to being restless, irritated or discontented.
But it did not stop there. This Twelve Step solution worked on other feelings and emotions. It handled the big three of restlessness, irritation, and discontentedness. It also dissolved feelings like shame and remorse and dispelled emotions like guilt and anger.
With good inventories and identification of the exact nature of what was going on, I could see and stop what was happening before what used to happen happened. I began to see the underlying causes of many of my mysterious negative and damaging feelings and emotions.
These negative and damaging feelings and emotions just seemed to happen. But if these happened, I could work on what happened before that happened.
Working the Program, I saw things that used to baffle me. Applying the Principles of the Program in all my affairs, I came to understand what happens before what happened happens.
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