On Sun, 06 Feb 2005 20:06:53 GMT, Bill D.
<neveraloneneveragain@NOSPAMverizon.net> wrote in message
<oauc0119le6va29rgliqn51c0kiaq5l1u3@4ax.com>:

I'm 50 today. Whuff!!!

you look like yer over 65.

...slit yer throat...

I didn't think I'd live to 30 when I was using, then when I got clean
at 32 I was more dead than alive in all the ways that mattered. Making
it to 50 was just unimaginable. I lived with a fear, for quite a few
years, of dying before 42 because my Dad died at that age. He was the
only one who could say that he was alcoholic but I believe that he
would have benefited immensely from a 12 Step program. And I was a lot
worse than him.

God saw fit to allow me to live even after all the self destructive
living that should have killed me at a very young age. He gave me
people like you to teach me how to live. That was another fear I had.
Of living. Because I didn't know how. You told me to keep coming back.
To have faith in the process because it worked. That it worked for you
and would for me if I let it. So I did. I let it work. Through a lot
of struggle and pain because I was unable to surrender. Even though I
knew the total freedom and joy of surrendering to addiction and crying
out to God for help, there were many things in my life that I thought
that I was just "supposed to know" how to do. Because I was a man. And
men aren't "supposed to need" help.

What a beautiful thing began to happen when I was able, slowly,
haltingly, to admit that I didn't know how and to surrender and to
just put these things into God's care. I began to live without fear. I
began to trust and to have faith that God would take care of me "no
matter what." And he used you to do it.

He filled my life with loving, caring, people like you so that I might
have a chance to live. And all I had to do was to accept your love.
That was a struggle for me too. Because, in my mind, I wasn't worthy
of your love. I'd done nothing to deserve it and had a very hard time
just accepting it for the gift of grace that it was. He had given me
the grace to surrender and to stop using, now I needed the grace to
surrender to your love. I still struggle with that at times, but I
find that when I surrender to love my life is a lot happier, joyous,
free.

That's what has allowed me to live this long. Love. The healing power
of love. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for healing me with that
love. Thank you for allowing yourself to be a channel for the healing
power of God's love.

"Take my will and my life, guide me in my recovery, show me how to
live."
"Thy will be done, not mine.

I'm 50 today. Whuff!!!
---
"Let us move on, step out boldly, though it be into the night, and we
can scarcely see the way. A Higher Intelligence than the mortal sees
the road before us. We do not have to strive for good, but only go
forward and possess it. Good awaits us at every step."
~Charles B. Newcomb~

Peace.
Bill

--
smash yer modem, reboot, kill yerself
Mel the Defiler
member, ATJ regs
webmaster of atjfag.com
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