I was at a meeting tonight and the topic of the tenth step came up. I was called on to share early and spoke about how I used to do a consistent and thorough tenth step, but over time I've become lazy about it and I'm not as vigilant as I used to be. A few other people shared and then a gentleman who was fresh out of rehab shared. He stated that he had been sober for over ten years then stopped doing the maintenance steps. Then he stopped going to meetings. Then five years later he started drinking. Then a couple of years after that he was doing crack, heroin, etc. His wife was in recovery and they relapsed together. Earlier this year after partying he woke up to his wife dead in the bed beside him. The story started with his no longer working the steps.
I don't want that to happen to me. I've worked too hard and now had too many successes to want to give that up. My wife and I are both in the program. We both are coming up on our sixth anniversary. We have two small kids together.
In recent years I've been maintaining my sobriety....but thats about it. I haven't been passionate for the program. I have become lax on step work committments, service, etc. I don't really feel as passionate about AA and NA as I once did. I simply do the minimum to get by.
So, this is part of my effort to get back to doing step work. To get back to trying to live this program. It is private, anonymous, and not intended to be read by anyone that I know in my "real" life.
We'll see how it goes.
