“The central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that our Creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous. He has commenced to accomplish those things for us which we could not do for ourselves.”* That quotation can also be found on January 1 in Daily Reflections. I think it’s appropriate to begin this New Year with the acknowledgement of “the absolute certainty that our Creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous.”
What’s miraculous in not drinking? Any idiot can stop drinking.” So, I thought, when I told my boss I’d “quit drinking and go to AA.” Going to AA was easy. Quitting became difficult as the periodic craving tightened my stomach, and my mind was anywhere but on my work in the office or at home.
Looking back on it now, it is a miracle I did not drink during those first four-and-a-half years when I existed on a dry drunk. Self-satisfied, self-important, self-centered and selfish. I did all the right things for the wrong reasons, and it darn near killed me.
I look back now and think “It’s a miracle I did not kill myself driving on those narrow Irish roads in a black out. It’s a miracle I did not drive into a bayou driving in a blackout in Louisiana. Others did it. It’s a miracle I’m alive and well.
It’s a miracle indeed that I am alive and able to tell my story and know that, on my own, I could never have stopped drinking. After one drink, maybe. After two drinks, possibly. After three drinks came the blackout and God only knows what else. Most of what I did I learned about from those to whom I made Amends.
It’s not just certainty. It’s “absolute certainty.” There is no doubt, nor can there be any doubt that God. My Higher Power, stepped into my life and gave me back my life. I didn’t know I was among the walking dead. I never ceased to find it fascinating that I grew up in a denomination believing we were the one and only true church. Had it not been for AA, I would never have put my foot inside the church of another denomination. Slowly but surely, God was pushing me onto a new Spiritual Path that was wider than I could have ever imagined. Not only other denominations, but other Faith communities as well. The Spiritual program of A.A. not only helped me stop drinking, but it also assisted me – when my head was finally fog free - to open my mind and heart to God’s ways, not mine, nor male-made dogma and doctrine.
“He [God, Higher Power] has commenced to accomplish those things for us which we could not do for ourselves.” The simple steps. “Seamus, if you’re not living the program, you’re not working the steps.” What was the difference in living the program and working the steps? What do I have to do? “Just do the next right thing.”
Once I learned how to live the program on a daily basis – and that took a while – I discovered there’s a simplicity about this way of life. And yet, I could never have gotten this simplicity or recovery on my own. I wanted to complicate it with my own way of doing things and they did not work.
It’s a miracle. The spiritual program teaches us that there are miracles on a daily basis; miracles of a newcomer coming to AA on an important holiday. Miracles of someone not killing themselves. Miracles in how we grow up and open ourselves to God’s path and not our own selfish road.
“The central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that our Creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous.” And now the miracle lives because “All we have is a daily reprieve based on the maintenance of our spiritual condition.”
My Higher Power directed and achieved the goal of getting me into the program, putting winners in my life, opened my mind and heart, and then it was up to me. I now had a choice. I could choose to continue my daily reprieve, or I could choose to return to the wilderness. What freedom!
It is a miracle that I am here at my desk sharing this. It is a miracle that I am alive and well. I am a walking miracle. Miracles do happen. This new year I want to increase my conscious awareness of my Higher Power and especially in seeing and celebrating the miracles around me. We are all miracles.
*Alcoholics Anonymous.25.
Séamus D.
Séamus is a semi-retired Episcopal priest in the New Orleans area.
