He Said – As I Understand Me

Once again, I’m debating with myself about the notion of willfully giving myself over to a “higher power” for my recovery. As I’ve said before, I’m not prone to placing responsibility for the things that I’ve done, and the things that I need to do, on something that exists outside of me. So for now, and I know this might change; my higher power is me, the version of myself that I want to become. The person who can eventually lead a happy and fulfilling life, and allow the lives of those I care about to be me more happy and fulfilling. In a sense, that person DOES exist outside of me, and is someone I don’t really know.

The important thing to understand for me is that I can’t rely on who I’ve become as a drinker and simply say I won’t drink anymore. I have to be able to look at a part of me that can make good decisions and realize that I have weaknesses that can be overcome, or at least confronted and dealt with, and do not need to be simply dismissed.

I remember looking in the mirror at myself, several months ago, and thinking “This is not me. This is not what I want. Things have to change”. Even though I didn’t do anything about it right away, that may have been to first step towards embracing a future version of me. I really do think of the person that I hope to be in the future as a stranger, someone who I am moving towards and will eventually be able to walk with side by side.

I’ll never be perfect. No one can expect that, and it is not my goal. I just want to know that I’m able to make choices about my life with the intent of making things better. It won’t always turn out that way, but the important part is the intent. This brings me back to my choice of my “higher power”. The intent is not to choose God, per se, but whatever you are able to embrace with the understanding that there is something out there you can look towards for help.