The Twelve Steps have taken me full-circle.  In Step One I admit I am powerless over circumstances in my life.   In Step Twelve I have a spiritual awakening because I have done the previous steps and I am still powerless over the circumstances in my life.  The difference now is that in my surrender is where my freedom and my happiness lie.

As many of us who work this program, I was miserable when I started.  As we say in the Way Out meeting, "There must be another way."   I was sure that misery wasn't the way for me and I didn't know how to get out of it.  I felt really stuck.  It had to take some sort of divine intervention for me.  I had no physical addiction.  I wasn't a drinker or drug user.   I eventually sought my refuge by using food or relationships.  I didn't have what it took to physically be an alcoholic.  But I was one mentally.   I eventually became a victim of the world I saw.

I found the Twelve Step program through a family member, an uncle who decided that he was an alcoholic.  He took me to open AA meetings and that is where I learned that my father has many of those tendencies as well, and eventually I found myself in Al-Anon, a recovery program for family and friends of alcoholics.   I learned that alcoholism is a family disease that did not only affect the person drinking.  I had many thoughts and ideas that needed to change.

I have found that I cannot seriously, with all of my being, ask for the help that I need and not get it.  Every step of the way and in every Step of the program that I took and each time I took them I had a spiritual awakening.   In the First Step I found that I wasn't at fault for someone else's drinking.  My life was unmanageable because I was trying everything, every idea, to get my father to quit drinking, or at least to get him to see that he had a problem.   My life then became unmanageable because nothing I tried worked.  In Step Two the God of my misunderstanding had to prove Himself to me.   I really didn't know what I thought this ought to look like, but I was insane.  I didn't know how to believe that God could and would restore me to sanity.   I didn't even know God, really, at the time.  I didn't know how the God idea worked.

Then there's the Third Step, making the decision to turn my will and life over to this God that I didn't know.  This is the surrender.  I asked for help with all my heart.  I didn't know how to do any of these Steps but I was so miserable and I wanted to stop hurting.   I had to trust my sponsor and the program.  As I took each Step on my path I saw miracles start to happen for me.   They happen all the time.  I was just unaware of them.

In that asking for help I had to be willing to open myself up to whatever came along.  I had to be open to try anything, to trust God as I didn't understand Him only for a moment for Him to show Himself to me.   And now I have a greater understanding of Him.  This is transformation.  There has got to be a better way, and there is.

Even while I was working the program and doing everything that was suggested to me, I still felt that there was something missing.   I didn't know what it was, really.  I couldn't put my finger on it.  I was and am very open about myself, what I believe, what works for me.   In this openness somebody presented me with the book of A Course in Miracles.  Of course the title attracted me.   I found that my belief in God was different than the traditional belief.  I tend to read books that lead me to a more experiential version of God.   I am finally experiencing the God of my understanding.  When I started reading the Course my experience of it was of the Third Step in Action.   Step Three is "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him."  The Course, for me, is all of the Steps, really.   However, it really enhanced my understanding of God.  I had a concept of God, but it was a God that was separate from me.  The Course taught me that God was inclusive of me.   My idea of my God changed.

Without going into a long explanation of the rest of the Steps, I find Steps 4-10 to be action Steps.  The Course teaches me that my life has already been done.   My problem is that I don't think it has, which is where my addictive thinking lies.  I think I have to do something about every aspect of my life.   I think that I, Karen, have to do something.  What happened to Karen who is not separate from God?  Why do I think, if I am not separate from God, that I have to do it all myself?   This is how I believe and the Steps are a practical way of turning my whole will and my whole life over to God, asking for guidance and direction at every moment and actually sitting still long enough to wait for the answer.   The Steps have shown me that there is a natural flow to life.  The conflict for me comes when I think I have to fix something, anything rather than to listen to that still, small Voice within to direct me and then take my action.   I am nothing without my Higher Power.  I am self-will-run-riot.  And the only way that I know this is through my own experience of it.

Step Twelve happens all the time for me.  The spiritual awakening and the miracle are one in the same.   Because of the way my life was, I have no reason whatsoever to believe in God.  What kind of a God would allow such horrible things to happen in this world?   We have heard that over and over again.  The Steps and A Course in Miracles have taught me that I am responsible for everything I see.  I am responsible for my life and for the way it is NOW because NOW is the only time there is.  I cannot see where the Twelve Steps end and where A Course in Miracles begins.   The Course is what sped up my spiritual awakening.  I am God's son and His will for me is perfect happiness.  I claim that for myself.

I have learned a sense of surrender through this program because the transformation is going to happen whether I do this program or not.   I am grateful to say that this program and A Course in Miracles has just made me aware of that transformation.  The Twelve Step Program has led me to A Course in Miracles and my current spiritual walk with my Brothers of like-mind.   I am happy that those people were here for me when I got here and I want to be here for you when you get here.

My transformation has been beautiful when I look back on it.  I can see that I did nothing by myself.  I can see that in spite of me, the hand of my Higher Power had my life the whole time.  My freedom was in my complete surrender to my Higher Power, who is my true Self.   It is an experience that no words can describe.  I live more, I love more, and I laugh more.

In Light and Love, Karen