Step 6

I'll just jump right in..

Step 6 Were entirely ready to have God remove these defects of character.

I love the steps (if I haven't said that before) because they take as at our pace. They work us into change- the definition of meeting us where we are at. First we identify the problems, we admit the problem, and THEN we become ready for the problems to leave.

The sad thing about character defects they are usually ones that we have come to enjoy, find comfort in, and as I said before, indulge in our negative coping skills. The idea of them being gone all together is frightening.

I smoke cigarettes (which I love right now so no one tell me to quit!!!) and along with every other human being on the planet who smokes, I smoke to get some sort of relief-usually stress or a situation that I don't know how to control, or when I need to cool down for fear that I might blow up. Now in all reality the smoking isn't the problem (outside of being unhealthy) it is the fact that I don't know how to properly deal with stress, anger, or unmanageables. Now the key here is that I NEED all of these things to still be around if I want to continue smoking. If they are gone and I smoke then I am a fool. I am a fool because I am just slowly killing myself for no reason. If there is a reason then all of the sudden it makes sense to smoke. I have to. The longer I tell myself that, the longer I will still be able to have my indulgence. So-back to my point. We need these not great things about us the longer that we want to indulge. I need to have my self esteem remain low (and although it is getting better at times it is frighteningly low!!), I need to want to avoid negative feelings because I don't have any idea of how to deal with them properly. I still want to indulge. The time that I finally make a decision that I want to stop doing these unhealthy things is when I will decide to deal with those reasons that make me want to do those unhealthy things.

Now on to my other questions. If this is so clear then why is it so hard!! The idea about recovery is very simple in theory-not necessarily easy to do. For example the idea of a checkbook is very simple in theory- put in money, write a check to pay the bills. However that does not automatically make it easy to do. For example, I have to know how to add and subtract, I have to be organized and write everything down (thank god for online banking!!), I have to be honest and have some self control to not write checks when there is no money in the account, I have to have money to put into the account... and so on. The idea of recovery, very simple Just don't do whatever it is that is making your life unmanageable. The actual actions that requires are not easy to do.

The last part is to understand again that God has to take that stuff away, because if we knew how to do it then we wouldn't have to get rid of them in the first place because we wouldn't have them to begin with!!

On a side note-next Monday will be my first weigh in after the initial one so I will be able to see how things are going with me. I am noticing that clothes are fitting differently (better) so that is always a plus, and I am not so winded after doing things (like taking the stairs at work YUCKO!!)

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. !!!