Steps to Living
When asked to write, I was honored but also puzzled. What could I possibly contribute to their platform that supports families who have experienced prenatal or infant loss. Me, who had no kids or experienced infant loss…
Their mission - to inspire faith, hope, love and perseverance by bringing awareness. Those words I can connect with from 12 Step Programs I found nearly 6 years ago. I then began trying to figure out where to begin. I heard solutions can be found in the steps. The 12th Step refers to principles, something I never really paid attention to or practiced for too long.
Looking at pillars of Puzzled - Faith, Hope, Love and Perseverance apply to four of The Steps. Previous blogs spoke to Faith and Hope, that leaves Love and Perseverance. Love is something I don’t think I really understood that wasn’t rooted in my selfishness. And perseverance, probably didn't understand the true definition outside of what I made it up to be. I was a procrastinator and a runner when things got tough.
I have learned a lot about love through getting sober. I’d hear guys say I love you and hug each other and had no concept of what the heck was going on. But I get it now. Through sharing our experiences, we can connect to each other's bad chapters. We can see that we’re not alone. We are able to see how sharing can give someone else hope.
Mark stated in a preview that I use my story of brokenness and recovery to help people throughout Indiana and beyond. Hearing that at first doesn’t sound possible, but it’s simply the path another man laid in front of me, one before him, and so on.
It’s hard to summarize what it was like, what happened and what things are like now in less than a thousand words. Puzzled’s website says, “Darkness will not prevail when hope exists.” In 2016 things started to get really dark, really fast - blackouts, temper, and much more. My thinking about my drinking got to the point that I was ok that if I got another DUI or lost my job and that if I ended up having to live with my parents or in jail, that at least I would be safe from myself and ok with it. But looking back it started many, many years before. There wasn’t one thing that started the step in that direction. I don’t blame any certain person, place or thing. I think there are many things in our cultures, traditions and more that will easily take us in those directions without even realizing it until it’s maybe too late.
For me finding The Steps started taking me away from that darkness and using those steps to see what was really behind the drinking and drugging. I try to work those steps on a daily basis. I believe every choice I make is a step towards staying sober or relapsing, a step towards something good or bad, a step towards God or away from Him. Another critical component of the steps were their roots in spirituality. I never had any negative experiences with the church or religion, but never really had any true relationship in those areas. I was so scared of going back to the dark place that I was in, I was willing to listen.
I had to start stepping away from the past. I had to learn to step through anxiety, depression, and so much more. This is just a small snapshot of my journey, feel free to reach out if you would like to hear more. It’s all about sharing the steps of my journey, maybe in doing so it will help others and doing so helps me. Sharing and helping others comes from the 12th Step and a pillar in recovery on serving. Early in sobriety I was working towards a relapse and realized the service work I was doing was pretty minimal, just checking the box so that if my sponsor and anyone asked I could say yes. When my sponsor suggested some more service work, I shut up and listened and really dug into it and really started to see growth. Now I firmly believe that’s what it's all about, helping others - showing up, being a good representative for sobriety, my employer that knows my story, and the community organizations that entrust me to serve them.