Responsibility?

At last Sunday's 12-step meeting the speaker, celebrating 32 years sobriety, picked the topic "responsibility."

As soon as he got sober he crossed the line from being irresponsible to being responsible. He quit stealing. He started paying his bills. He started spending time with his family. He saw his business began to develop and grow. He said that life changed for him in every way.

We addicts don't want to be responsible. Blaming others for our addictions and alcoholism means we're not responsible for our disease. We can continue using. We can continue living a life that allows us to blame others for everything bad in our lives. When we finally accept responsibility a light goes on. All of a sudden we realize that, by following a few simple steps life can change very radically.

When I accepted responsibility for my addictions in January of 1991 everything changed. Within a year I was on my feet. I was back on my old job. I’d laid the foundation to start my own recovery program.  My health improved. My family began talking to me again. My self-esteem began to grow. And it was all because I took responsibility again for going on with me.

It is easy, when one is young, to get others to believe that our terrible upbringing or lack of opportunity or lack of education is responsible for our disease. But when we spend years blaming others for our problems people get tired. They stop helping us. They quit running interference. They have their own lives to live and our disease is not their responsibility. It's good when this happens because can become responsible for our behavior.

Maybe then we’ll get sober.