MOMENT OF CLARITY
In A.A. we survivors of lives of addiction have many things in common. The program works because we can relate to one another. When we share our story and our feelings it creates a common bond. When we let down the protective walls that surround us we open the door to love and friendship
One of our common experiences is what we call “a moment of clarity”. Something happens in our mind that wakes us up to realize we need help.
The thing is we alcoholics/addicts usually spend allot of time in denial of just how bad our addiction really is. Without the survival skill of denial the guilt and shame would destroy us. To have some semblance of peace in our corrupted lives we lie to ourselves on a regular basis. We blame everybody and everything around us that we can for the state of our affairs. I could write an entire paper on denial, as a matter of fact I already have but that’s irrelevant.
The moment of clarity is what happens in our mind when that long-term denial drops off our brain and we see the whole truth about ourselves and the shape we are in. We see suddenly and inexplicitly those we have harmed and the money we have spent. In the moment of clarity truth roles over us like a freight train.
My moment of clarity happened about ten days after I was thrown in the clinker for possession of a crack pipe and who knows what else. They threw me in isolation for three days and then put me with the rest of the girl in population.
LOCKED UP
I am one of those people that had a low bottom. I had been in the woods smoking crack I don’t remember how long. I finally left the woods to go home. I got stopped in fanning Springs I wasn’t even driving a car. I hid a crack pipe in my hair there was no time to throw it away. The guards left me in a little cell that happened to have a chair with a tiny ledge all around the bottom of it. I disposed of the pipe there.
They send me to Levy County Jail because of a warrant. After nine days of severe withdrawal from Methadone, cigarettes, crack, and Xanax I looked at myself in the steel mirror. My teeth were rotting out from the crack, I had lost so much weight so fast that my skin was hanging off me unnaturally. I felt suck a severe remorse for the way I neglected my daughter that I almost died right there. But I had my moment of clarity. That clarity stayed with me. The 12 steps are designed for people like me.
After two years of probation I went back in that jail with the friends I met in A.A. We brought meetings in twice a month. You just don’t know what a feeling a joy and accomplishment I had doing that 12 step service work. By the perpetual grace of Gody sobriety date is April, 15 2006 according to the sobriety calculator I have 3,318 days sober one day at a time.
9 years 1 month 1 day
Time span:
474 weeks
3318 days
9.08 years
https://www.recoveryfarmhouse.com/2/sobriety-calculator/
Do you know when your moment of clarity was?
By Anonymous