Willingness and Action

Willingness and action are two words that will make you or break you when it comes to living a life based on spiritual principles in sobriety.

Those two words go hand and hand when coming into a 12-step fellowship with the desire to experience what active members speak about such as the promises, a spiritual awakening, inner peace and serenity or the gratitude to just be alive in general.

Many come into the program with the desperation of a drowning man, seeking a solution to permanently get rid of the reliance upon drinking and drugging to deal with life. But there is nothing that will help them make the necessary changes, unless they are willing to take action on what truly makes a difference in the quality of one’s recovery.

Those who are actively involved in the program say that willingness is key when it comes to sobriety, and action is what unlocks and opens the door to experiencing life in a new way with being an active member of a fellowship such as Alcoholics Anonymous.

The journey of recovery is more than just being abstinent from all mind-altering substances; its more than just getting a sponsor, working the steps and then being recovered from a disease that lives in the mind. There is no cure.

The program is a way of life and the literature that has been made is filled with guidelines on how to live with integrity while abiding by spiritual principles. Basically, there is no finish line after starting the race unless it is someone losing the battle to an overwhelming obsession that pushes alcoholics and drug addicted people to make the supreme sacrifice rather than continue to fight.

When coming into the program at what can possibly be the lowest point of your life, you may feel that you are a lost cause. That cannot be further from the truth, though. The willingness to try something different, believe in other active member’s, trust the process, and doing what others did to become and stay sober is what’s going to start the journey to find the solution of no longer living in a state of misery.

Action is putting in the foot work, one hundred percent and nothing less than that. The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous tells us that half measures gave us nothing, meaning that there will be no hope for one’s recovery if they do not commit to doing the proper work. It only makes sense to go to any length to stay sober, just as you would have gone to any length to get drunk or high.

The reason why willingness and action is so important to talk about is because those two words will be put to use all throughout one’s journey. A lot of members have found out the hard way that after a period of time, they began to rest on their laurels and, slowly but surely, stopped doing all the things that the program suggested.

There is nothing different about those who have long term sobriety, compared to a newcomer with twenty-four hours. Everyone in the program has the same ambition to live life as a recovered alcoholic or drug addict, and willingness and action will be two thing’s that will forever be a part of the process.