Knowledge resides in my brain. I can mentally know something, I can comprehend the facts, etc.
Awareness is different. Some ways I can put my finger on this – but still this isn’t quite right – is I know something in my heart or to the depths of my soul.
For most of the years I drank I was knowledgeable about the fact that drinking was not the right thing for me to be doing. Yet I drank anyway. Time after time after time. As I continued to drink the consequences become more serious, it became more obvious that drinking was a bad thing to do, and I grew more powerless to stop.
The end of this debilitating progression came when I had a profound spiritual experience. One of the revolutionary changes in my thinking was an awareness of what drinking was bringing to my life. It was suddenly clear to me that my drinking was continually stripping away anything that was joyful or important to me. So much so that I could see there was little left to take away. As it says in the 12X12, alcoholism had become the rapacious creditor.
There was also an awakening to the fact my actions were increasingly suicidal. Everyone will someday die. The problem for me as an alcoholic was that I was increasing the chances that my demise would come sooner, rather than later. I could not stop drinking for any period of time and once I started drinking I had little control. I was therefore inebriated on a regular basis. Anything could happen when I was drunk, including adding to my long list of “bad decisions” I could and would make. I will only take this one drink, it is Ok for me to drive, I don’t need that person in my life, no one will know I took this….
Becoming aware of my drinking problem meant I now truly understood the implications of my taking a drink: when I drank I was always asking for trouble and if I did not stop it was likely I could make an irrevocable fatal mistake. My first day sober was spent in an intensive care unit of a hospital, after all, following a night that included having to be revived by someone administering me CPR.
My obsession appeared to have been lifted from me as a result of my spiritual experience but all this left me was stone cold sober – in other words I had nothing to cover up my fear, uncertainty, and hopelessness. I seemed to have a real sense that I could, eventually, drink again if I did not get help. What was I to do?
Once I had made it to AA I learned that my drinking problem was that I was an alcoholic. I may have reasoned this out before, in some remote parts of my brain, but I never had the clarity I now had. The Big Book and people in AA told me there was no middle of the road solution to my problem. Being convinced I was an alcoholic meant I could either go on to the bitter end with my drinking or accept spiritual help. Despite the fact my brain told me maybe I was different from everyone else (i.e. surely I could somehow find a way to not drink, manage my life, and not work the 12 steps), my newfound awareness was able to counter my insane thoughts. In my heart I now knew all my best efforts to take on my booze problem on my own would fail. It was clear I was powerless.
I had some hope and enough willingness, but still I was reluctant to work the steps. I did not have faith that all this AA stuff would solve what I thought to be my only real problem. Fortunately I had nothing else to fall back on so I gave it a try. My actions were one of desperation – if this AA stuff didn’t work I was probably screwed.
I was initially surprised to learn that AA was able to explain my alcoholism in a sensible way that fit with my newfound awareness of what was wrong. It answered questions I did not even know I had. Then I was surprised to learn that the solution, a program of action laid out in the 12 steps, not only solved my problem but also changed my life in some profound ways. Things got better!
Just as I once got used to the unexpected but inevitable bad turn of events that often resulted from my drinking, today I am used to having good things happen as a result of approaching my life from a spiritual, principled perspective. I have changed from being an athiest, to reasoning my way into agnosticism, to being aware that God plays a role in my life. Today I believe this awareness, and not my knowledge, is one of my greatest strengths.
Wishing you all the best in sobriety,
AABlogger