Constant Growth

January 30, 2024August 15, 2025 / Tim / 1 Comment

When I came into AA, I knew almost immediately that I had found my tribe: I belonged here.

After a month or six weeks I shyly asked a man who had a quality of sobriety that attracted me to be my sponsor. And very soon after that I was on my knees repeating, phrase by phrase, the Third Step Prayer. At the time, I really had no idea where that prayer came from nor did I really understand what it meant. But I trusted my sponsor. I at least had enough faith to know that this man knew more about this stuff than I did.

I didn’t realize then that in this prayer I was making a bargain with my Higher Power: I’ll surrender my will and my life over to Your care and share that with others and You’ll release my from the slavery of Ego and remove difficlties from my life, which will further show just how powerful You are.

On the surface it was easy enough to understand. But like many aspects of the AA program, I’ve learned that there’s a whole lot more depth to the words.

Like most newer members I spent the first few years cleaning up the wreckage of my past. Then I moved into my character defects.

I had spent very little time in Step 6 and 7 when I first went through the steps. And with six years of sobriety, with the help of my sponsor and the book Drop the Rock, I made a much deeper dive into these steps. One of the main ideas that I took away from my time spent on those two steps then was this: if I want a new Tim to arrive, I had to let go of the old Tim. Not only did I have to be willing to give up the character defects that were holding me back I had to be willing to put the ones I thought were positive aspects of my character on the table as well. Slowly, I began to let go of the old Tim, once again turning my life over to that Higher Power.

I know that it was a growth experience for me and I believe that I grew from where I was into someone different.

However, with time, it’s very easy for old character defects to return, especially if one isn’t vigilant, and I wasn’t. I see now that I was “resting on my laurels.” Looking back over my years from six to twelve I see that arrogance, perfectionism and selfishness had crept back into my life and I had a tighter grip on my will. I was able to see this because, again with a sponsor and this time armed with the Big Book, I worked through all the steps again.

This experience has taught me many things about myself, the program, my relationships with others and with my Higher Power.

It has taught me that not only do I need to let go of the old Tim, I also needed to stop putting conditions on how the new Tim would show up. If I’m really putting my will and my life into God’s care then I can’t have conditions at all. I can’t hold back what I like about myself. Nor can I tell my Higher Power how I should be in the future. It’s a full and complete surrender. Yes I thought I surrendered that first time I recited the Third Step Prayer and I did, to the best of my ability at the time.

But my abilities have changed over the years. So my understanding of what a complete surrender means has also changed.

My first uttering of the Third Step Prayer was a beginning. And like all beginnings, there’s a lot to learn as the journey progresses. Old ideas must be released and new ones embraced. I can see that I couldn’t have understood the prayer the way I do now; new understandings are built upon old ones.

I don’t know where the next stage of my journey is taking me. I don’t need to know. My Third Step decision reminds me that I only need to trust and my Higher Power will bring me where I need to go, meet the people I need to meet and learn the lessons I need to experience.

I don’t need to navigate the river…just enjoy the ride.

Pruning and Rejuvenation

February 23, 2019February 23, 2019 / Tim / 1 Comment

When I was in school, yes many moons ago, young Grasshopper, I learned that the cells of our body could regenerate. That was why when I got a cut it would heal over. I learned that all cells could do this, except neurons. We were born with a certain number and there wouldn’t be any more coming to us. We even joked about it; when we had a night where we had gotten particularly blitzed, we´d say we had burned out a few more brain cells. However, it’s not true. Neurologists tell us now that we do generate new brain cells and continue to do so for all of lives. So, you can teach an old dog a new trick after all.

Neuroplasticity, the ability of the brain to reorganize and regenerate itself allows me to make changes to my life. It means that I am not condemned to the same thinking pathways, the same personality or the same Tim as I was when I was born. Change my neurons and I can change my thinking. I don’t have to be the same person I used to be. However, when the new comes in, the old has to move out to make room for it. There’s the rub!

If I have a Higher Power and I have put my will and my life into its care, then I have to allow it to make those changes to me. I have to give up the old Tim and welcome in the new Tim. Of course, letting go of the old me is easier said than done.

I can see how I have changed since I came into recovery. I am not the same guy that first walked into my first meeting. By working and living the Twelve Steps, I have made major changes in my life and done my best to clean up the damage of my past. I feel I am a better person than before. However, I also feel that my Higher Power isn’t done with me yet. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life just maintaining the status quo. I want to continue to grow. So I have to let go.

I do that, or more honestly, I am trying to do that regularly. In the third step I ask that my Ego be lessened and that I be open to the plethora of possibilities before me. I ask for guidance which I receive via my sponsor and sponsees, through meditation, and by being aware of those serendipitous things which happen around me. I believe that it is important for me to continue to change and grow.

I am reminded of a particularly pretty flowering shrub I had on a property once. Over the years it had grown fairly wild. It wasn’t very thick, there was a lot of dead wood and it produced few flowers. After a bit of research on it, I follow the advice for a radical pruning and fertilizing schedule. It took a few years but the scrub grew new branches, thickened up and gave an incredible spring show of flowers. Still the same plant, but a completely different result.

So, I ask my Higher Power, in its care of my will and life to do the necessary pruning and fertilization in order to allow me to grow and change. I want new neurons and pathways to grow and create a new and evolving Tim. And it will happen as long as I have open-mindedness and willingness.

Terminally Unique

February 19, 2019February 19, 2019 / Tim / 1 Comment

I, like many others who arrive at the doors of recovery rooms, was suffering from a belief that went far beyond my addiction and was at the root of what was killing me. It was a belief that went deep and in many ways was the source of all of the problems that I was encountering in life. I arrived with the disease of ‘Terminal Uniqueness’.

I thought that I was unique. I believed that I was different. I knew that no one else had the challenges that I faced. I was convinced that if anyone else had been bombarded by the set of circumstances that I found myself in, they too would have found a way to escape this prison by over indulging in some sort of ‘medication’ to treat this disease.

Of course I ended up in recovery. I was sure I was the only white, gay, ex-catholic, male, farm boy from Southern Ontario that had ever been born. I had some lower back pain issues. I had a partner who didn’t understand me. I was depressed. I felt I was powerless over my situation and so, of course, I deserved some compensation for all of these difficulties. Getting loaded was my way of dealing with all of those things. I needed some relief from all of the things that were constantly prodding at my mind.

It took going through the Twelve Steps of recovery to allow me to see that I wasn’t ‘unique’ or ‘different’. I came to see that my ‘terminal uniqueness’ was another deadly form of Ego disease. I realized that I hadn’t accepted the package that made me who I was. Thinking I was different was my ego telling me to run away from all that I was instead of embracing it. My problems weren’t connected to my sexuality, my religion, or my environment. My problem was me and my solution was acceptance.

Recovery has helped me to face myself honestly, without judgement and without expectation. I have a garden variety addiction. My story is very similar to the stories of the other folks around the meeting tables. Some dove deeper into their addiction than I did but the result was the same and here we all sit. I learned to dig below the surface to see my past for what it was. I learned to accept my story, my past. I learned to embrace the person I was discovering, perhaps for the first time.

Today I focus on gratitude. I am learning to be grateful that I have all of those qualities that I had been running away from. I have come to understand that I can’t change my past or those qualities, nor to I want to. They are part of my make-up and they are something to celebrate rather than escape from. My ego is a bit tamer these days. Oh, I still fall into the trap of thinking that I can’t make it through whatever I am going through. But, I have survived every challenge that has ever come my way. How do I know? I am still here.

I have learned that accepting what happens as ‘life’, makes it neither positive or negative. I live my life on life’s terms, not mine and that allows me to remember that I can and will make it through.

And for that I am eternally grateful.