I believe I am better today because I have God in my life. When I was drinking I was full of fear, frustration, anger and loneliness. I believe I drank to extreme because I was looking for a way to connect with people and to alleviate my fear. After a while this self-medicating stopped working and instead of alleviating my symptoms, it exacerbated them powerfully. Some people in AA taught me to find a way of being willing to believe in a concept of God. I do not know what this God concept is. I just opened myself to the idea of a power greater than myself. I started to pray daily, and with time, my prayers became steadily more earnest. This earnestness in prayer is directly proportional to the benefits I receive in the way I feel generally. I cannot explain how this works or describe my concept of God. I know only that if I pray daily and earnestly, I no longer feel fear, anger, loneliness or frustration in the same spirit crushing way I did when I was an atheist and drinker.
This is a simple and fundamental part of my daily routine and action, and I still wonder at it’s mechanism. It is, if anything, more a mystery to me now than when I was ill. The difference now, is that I do not feel the need to explain, debate or analyse it. It is sufficient to feel the results of it and to be profoundly grateful for the relief from those hideous symptoms I have described.
I can be at comparative ease knowing that if I do the right things - simple things on a daily basis - I will be okay. I will not have to be scared or confused, and I can live in gratitude and acceptance, at least to the extent to which a person should feel he can reasonably expect, and often far beyond that.
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