A4 Envelopes.

My names ……..and I’m an alcoholic.
My friend sent me some pictures yesterday of a new office he was opening.
We talked about desks, and the Wi-Fi, we discussed costs, and if the building had showers installed.
It was in a converted church.
Beautifully modernised.
To exacting standards.
We also talked stationary.
All the prerequisites to having a smooth-running workplace.
In my office, we have the usual printers, laminators, paper, Sellotape, and folders.
We even have an engraver to mark door keys.
On the shelf are piles of envelopes.
Big and small. Brown and white.
Boxes of them.
I was looking at them this morning and thinking, that they somehow represent a quarter of a century of my recovery.
Ever since my first meeting in Alcoholics Anonymous, I’ve been dealing with stuff. My stuff.
My resentments, my fears, my past, my guilt and my inventory taking.
Each envelope represents each piece of my past, that I been ready to let go of.
It’s like I’ve posted off those things from my past to a higher power.
Secure in the knowledge, that they’ll be in good hands.
Big things, little things, and everything in between, all in different size envelopes.
Each thing I send off, I put it under the heading of ‘that was then, and this is now.’
In our 12-step program, we have steps that encourage me to hand my past over. In its place, I welcome in the new me.
Having a car serviced is just like recovery.
We replace the old worn bits, keep what is worth keeping, and put a bit of oil on the bits that are worth keeping, but don’t run very smoothly.
The first thing I posted off, the day I called AA, was my desire to drink.
I’m not really sure if I let go of it, or if it was taken away.
I was hoping it had a post mark, ‘do not return to sender’.
And just for today, it hasn’t returned.
In my step 3, I’ve posted off my will and my life to my higher power. This one, however, didn’t have a post mark ‘do not return’.
I’m a real alcoholic, and I do take my will and my life back. Continuously.
Until that is I’ve had enough of them, and off they go again to my higher power.
Steps 4 & 5 needed the biggest envelope.
It was a mass clearing out of my past. To be sent out into this world, to another human being, and to my higher power. I didn’t either want it or need it any more.
It was a totally liberating step.
And so, cleansing. It was amazing.
Steps 6 and 7, are the two steps I have the biggest pile of envelopes ready and waiting .Daily. All stamped and addressed.
Each day in recovery there are many things I need to send off. Maybe a defect, some anger, a resentment, some fear, even some selfishness, and some self-seeking.
All are ongoing defects that grow and subside at will. It’s the path of alcoholism for alcoholics of our type.
Steps 8 & 9 see me sending off my willingness to forgive, and my humility to say sorry and make amends to the people and the world around me.
Each amends contained so much of my past. Letting each go, allows my future to move on a little smoother than before.
Step ten is a step where I have to ask for the willingness to look at myself, and to find a willingness to apologise.
Step 11 is a daily posting to my higher power. For I’m asking for advice daily, for direction, and for the will you carry that advice out.
My mail box is continuously full with letters to my higher power. All going backwards and forwards. Dealing with my needs, my wants, and my inability to find the right answers within myself.
Daily I get lots of post back with what I need to do.
It’s brilliant.
And I even get a reply if I forget to put a stamp on.
And lastly to step 12. Where I’m asked to help others, and to recognise when my insides match my outside.
For that’s when my spiritual awakening occurs.
But the problem in my sobriety, is that I don’t always recognise the awakenings I have.
They are the end result of all we do in recovery.
So just encase I get complacent, or I get use to life being good, I need to send a little reminder to my higher power every so often to remind me of something that I sometimes forget.
And that’s exactly what I have got and what I haven’t got.
And if I get any stamps and envelopes left over, I might just post one off to the Gods of my sobriety, with a simple message inside.
And it will just say ‘Thanks’. 

Anon