One Step At A Time

This is the view upwards from the crossing in Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia. It is truly amazing. More so when you understand that when Gaudi died, no where near completion of his/God’s masterpiece, the builders carried on. Even after they lost his detailed plans, they carried on. With only hundreds of models Gaudi had made detailing the construction, to go on. It is the most glorious monument to God and the human race I have ever encountered. If you have not been and get the chance to go, do so.

I recently celebrated thirty-eight years of sobriety, one day at a time, as they say. My days and those of my loved ones have been the better for my abstinence. I never thought about how long I would be sober when I first stopped, I just put one foot in front of the other and tried to do the next right thing. Above all else I didn’t pick up a drink.

I follow a twelve step programme of recovery, the original one developed by Alcoholics Anonymous in the U.S. There are many other fellowships now that use the programme and have the same structure of AA: there being no one in charge and being fully self supporting declining outside contributions. The programme works if you work it as they say.

Often people are surprised that it isn’t just about giving up the addiction. It is about turning away from the old life and stepping into a new way of living based on simple principles. The principles are guidelines, no one has to do anything in the programme, but it is suggested that recovery comes best by following the steps. The twelve steps and traditions are basic common sense drawn from religious, spiritual, philosophical and ethical precepts that go back before Christ. Because nothing is new in living a good life.

I use the programme constantly in my day, it saves me from hurry and indecision, and from myself, my own worst enemy. It seems to me to be more needed today than ever, not the addiction to the poison part, but how to live a joyful and happy life.

Over the coming months I will write a series of essays that explain how I apply each step to my everyday life. I hope you will find them interesting and hopefully useful.

Take care and good luck

Paul