At the meeting the other day, we were discussing the meaning of ‘the surrender’, that moment we gave up and ‘really meant it’.  Let’s discard talking about those many promises we’d made in the past … perhaps we then sincerely meant it, but, as with so many other ‘promises’ in the past, the mind was strong but the body weak and nothing really changed.

I find my final “surrender experience” a joyous time for it was only on that occasion I felt this time “I really meant it”. this time. This had to come from beyond me … my Higher Power. I was on my knees in the bedroom. I rose up and immediately felt I had passed into a sincere honest life with the Program. I felt that with the Program with all it entails – my Higher Power, the Groups, the Steps and all aspects we are called to undertake – with all that assistance, I would have a chance to lick this disease. That was what I felt … and I couldn’t wait to start.

I’d tried working the program before. I knew what I was getting into. No! that’s not correct … I never had really tried to work the program. I just drifted along playing the game of attending a meeting once in a while and talkin’ its lingo. Fact was that I just hadn’t had enough of my gala alcoholism.

Returning once again to friends “in the Program” wasn’t the easiest thing to do but it came about easier than I thought. I believe this was so because I had done this for me this time, for me to undertake the Steps and all the rest. I had rejected the game-playing of my previous “surrenders.”

After a period of work on the Steps, when I reached the Steps emphasizing the spiritual aspects of the Program, I decided to put a lot of effort into these steps. I had a belief in a Higher Power since childhood, the nature of the belief having evolved. I hadn’t forgotten all I had experienced. I suppose the fact is that this time I essentially repeated my act of surrender … I truly accepted that old rubric, “Thy Will, not mine.” I went about studying, meditating, following the Big Book’s suggestions for prayer to my Higher Power, and I joined a Church group studying the Rule of St. Benedict thinking it may provide ideas for finding time to really quietly meditate.

I retired several years ago and all at once I had the time to undertake the things I really wanted to do.  People asked me, “How are you going to keep busy?” Of course, my reply was that I just “did it.” Among a number of other subjects, I learned that there is plenty of time to explore the spiritual aspects of our lives and for heaven’s sake to bore deeply into the Program … if we but choose to do so.

So, I suggest and say, that surrender can be and for me was a joyous time, one which sticks with me each day.

Jim A.
Covington, Kentucky