I think the most disappointing thing about getting sober for me came when I figured out that it was a program from which I was not going to graduate. Coming from a family of educators and loving school myself, I was somewhat of an overachiever.
Okay, an extreme overachiever. I had to be the best. Get the highest grade. Succeed. Graduate with honors. A–plus.
When I got sober, I got a sponsor and started to work the steps. I was hooked.
I went to work. Writing everything I could think of to tell my sponsor. Pages and pages of truth I wouldn’t tell anyone else. Ready. I was ready for the grade. Ready for my sponsor to tell me that I had passed—gotten the A–plus—succeeded.
We spent several hours going through this together—I cried, I told the truth, I said everything. I looked at my sponsor and said, “How’d I do?” waiting for the stamp of approval and the A–plus.
And she said with a knowing smile, “Oh, there’s more.”
What? I was mad. She might as well have given me an F–minus! It took me several weeks to figure out that I was not going to graduate from this program. When I got that, it was the most comforting feeling ever. I didn’t need the grade. There is no right or wrong answer. No cap and gown—just safety. A place to go and always tell the truth and be accepted no matter where I was in the process of “there’s more.”
I was growing up. I was going to make this program part of my daily life and study myself for as long as I would live. I need to continue to look at myself, and God will continue to reveal (peel away the layers) what I need to know on a daily basis when I look at it and become willing to change.
There is always more.
“For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.”
Luke 8:17
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