Freedom to be Me

 

 

 

For once in my life I would like to be free.

Free to make decisions that are good for me.

But that wasn’t always how it was.

Once I found alcohol, the ability to make choices and sane decision-making were gone.

Alcoholic thinking was what I would do.

Most of my life I was like a great chess player in my mind.

Always two or three steps ahead, moving the pieces on the board for the outcome I wanted.

Manipulating the people around me, if I could.

To produce the final victory, which was the drink or drug in my hand.

But there was no real freedom in my thinking at that time in my life.

Old John Barleycorn was making the real moves on my chessboard life.

Leading me into thinking that I was the one making these great choices and leading me down the road of what I thought was happiness.

But there was no real happiness by the end of my using.

Nor was there any real freedom from my thinking.

The insanity of this disease was keeping me out there using when the end was well over. What I didn’t know was Old John had moved all my pieces on the board into no freedom for me.

Now I’m in the program, working on these steps.

Having put down that drink and drug was one of the hardest decisions to make. Especially when my thinking was so messed up that at sometimes in that first year, drinking sounded right.

The alcohol thinking and the insane decisions were still right there.

I thank God for the old-timers that helped me out.

Showing me a way from the insane life I was living.

Helping me understand that even if I wanted to drink,

I didn’t have to.

This was for me my first real freedom.

Knowing that I had choices again.

But what if I chose wrong?

Well that’s what a sponsor is for – to ask.

That’s what the twelve steps are for – to do.

Having cleared away the old chessboard and getting honest with me.

Not drinking or drugging was but the first of many decisions that I would make.

Learning how to live one day and sometimes one moment means to make choices and decisions for myself.

Wrong or right I’ve learned how to do this.

With the help of a higher power, a sponsor, having a home group and being part of a Fellowship.

Not just a side line watcher. But a doer.

Jumping in with both feet as they say.

Talking to other people in the Fellowship.

Letting others know where I am and learning to have people help me when my thinking isn’t great.

It’s not so much the drink or drug today, it’s my thinking, my decision making.

The choices that can put me in the wrong place so fast that I feel I’m back at square one. But the ability to make right choices for me is the best freedom of all.

Being able to think clearly because there is no alcohol or drugs in me is one of the greatest feelings to date.

Right or wrong, the choices we make and being accountable for our actions is freedom of self.

But the best thing of all is that I can be me.

That I am free,

and the Freedom to be Me….