Ca-ca-ca-Courage

I was listening to someone new in sobriety share his story last night and was so inspired. Since then, I have been contemplating courage.

I have thought myself Mr. Chicken my entire life. I have felt everything from discouragement to shame to hopelessness over the fear I have felt for years. I missed the memo that said - feel the fear but do it anyway. It was in the rooms of recovery that I heard the saying that goes something like, "Courage is not the absence of fear, but doing the right thing in spite of the fear."

When I was newly sober, I had no idea what I was doing. There was no clarity of thought. They say that I wrapped my arms around the program and jumped right in. All I know is that it was terrifying to walk into a room of strangers, much less talking to a room of strangers. I had been isolated in the latter years of my drinking. I was in terrible fear that I would drink, that I was doing the wrong things, saying the wrong things - constantly questioning myself and feeling embarrassed.

I would have never believed I was being courageous. I did not feel courageous. But, as I watch the newcomers desperate enough to keep coming back, hopeful enough to come early or stay late and broken enough to ask for help - I see pure courage. Courage that does not come from moral fortitude or strength of character but from a very strong, yet obscured, desire to live and love.

I don't think they, or I, do it because we "get it". I think we do it because we have lost all faith in ourselves and want so desperately to have faith in something that can pull us out of misery.

Somehow my courage was born out of some kind of surrender. I had been in a state of fear for years and was not able to take any effective action to change the destructive course I was on. Why August 11, 2004? I don't know. I just know that I could not go on like I was. The deplorable and hideous idea of going to a 12-step program seemed to be my only option.

I was really kind of baffled as to why I could not bring myself to commit suicide. I had constant morbid thoughts of wanting to be dead. But, that is where that "very strong, yet obscured, desire to live and love" comes in. The thoughts that I did not care, that I wanted to die were just more lies my disease was telling me. By six months into recovery, I realized I wanted to live and be loved more than anything in the world.

The minute I ceased single handed combat with my disease, I was given courage. I was given the courage to walk through the doors of recovery in spite of incredible fear. I was given the courage to go back everyday and sit amongst people I was sometimes so uncomfortable with. I was given the courage to say, "My name is James and I am an alcoholic." I was given the best six years of my life.

Thank you all.

Hold that thought…

James