Indeed, the attainment of greater humility is the foundation principle of each of A.A.’s Twelve Steps. For without some degree of humility, no alcoholic can stay sober at all.
The fact that I have literally and metaphorically cracked this book means I have a degree of humility. I had to accept that my way didn’t work and could never work, and that the way of the book and of the people in the meetings does work and would work for me.
That’s an interesting concept. I was able to see immediately that it worked for others. Most of us share the experience of first encountering these happy, happy people and just wondering what exactly their problem is. They laugh at tragedy and they enjoy themselves way too much.
The intellectual and psychic leap that it takes to understand that these people are just like me came to me early in AA, and I am grateful. I think it is a key to my long sobriety. It is a foundation of AA that one alcoholic talking to another about alcoholism can breach the wall when so many others fail to get trust and understanding from someone who is struggling to stay sober. This is part of humility, to know and understand and trust that when these people say they understand, they truly do, I’m not unique.
The second part of that is harder, and it took me longer to get it. I had to be humble enough to believe that it could work for me, too. I’m not worse than the others, I’m not more hopeless or dense or unable to “get it.” In my own evolution, this understanding came to me through the final, hopeless admission that I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t stay sober through Alcoholics Anonymous. Admitting I couldn’t enabled me to do so.
I personally had to be beaten into the ground and brought to the point where I could no longer function to be humble enough to see that I am powerless over alcohol, that I couldn’t stop drinking, that the people in the rooms had been just like me, that they achieved sobriety and so could I.
Now, within the program, I need to get greater humility in order to go on and to grow. I need humility to look at the oldtimers ahead of me who have done it and who are there to tell me that I can also, and to believe that I am just like them. I need greater humility to increase my usefulness to the people in my life, and to be more effective and more at peace with my work, my home, my life.
I have that old admission of total defeat to remember and to help me today. I also have the experience of new and incredible life springing from those ashes. I know because I’ve lived it that it’s possible and that it’s worth it.
