ENTIRELY READY?

SIXTH STEP...MORE TO COME

MEN'S MEETING--STEP SIX

This past Monday evening, I decided to break another mold in which I had been stuck for a large part of my sobriety. I attended a "Men's Only" meeting. Over the years, sure, I have slipped (bad word!) into Men's meetings and kept hidden there for a few months. I can be as unobtrusive as a newly sober person. But I don't like all-one-gender, or "One-Purpose" Groups. So I never joined those groups.

It seems men like to cuss. So do I. But I don't save it all for a one-hour men's meeting --grin! So this past Monday I sat with 67 other men. I still "feel like" a boy, sitting with all these tired old men, no enthusiasm, no bounce...ya know what I mean? I'm really older than most of them and am being judgmental here, shame on me.

The meeting topic was Step SIX! "Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character" Well, even after lo these many years, I gotta LOTTA work left, I can see. (sigh!) Will it ever end? I hope not! The more work I do here the less I'll have as carryover....many years from now???

Step Five ends with pulling our Big book down from the shelf, carefully going over the first five steps, making sure we have omitted nothing. Then we move onto Step Six. There is no vacation prescribed between Steps Five and Six. It is almost as if Bill W knew that many would stop as they finished Step Five (many DO!). And we all know what happens after that. "Well, I tried AA and it just didn't work for me, boo-hoo"....

"Were entirely ready..." Entirely is a big word here. I could not just will myself to be entirely ready, like when I AM (at all times) entirely ready to eat a HERSHEY bar. In fact, I was not "entirely" ready when I first arrived in an AA room. I never did drink again, but I did not know what 'ready' meant, much less 'entirely'. I had to forcefully 'hurt' my way into entire readiness to stay sober.

For Step six, I again had to (through certain behaviors) make myself hurt, all the way down to becoming entirely (almost? No! ENTIRELY!) ready to Let God do His job with my cooperation. God's job?..."Remove my Character Defects, Step Seven...", as I humbly have asked Him to do.

Humility, another BIG word, because I usually would have thought, "I can do that. No problem!" HA! Come again? God help me! God save me--from myself.

"God, I will be patient, and in Your time these removals, painful as they are, will take place." (My Seventh Step prayer--sometimes!)

Enough! I don't want to write a book, as I'm prone...or did you not know that?

After the meeting Monday night, it was still early enough to have a nice half-hour chat with a friend, as I stood out in the parking lot of the 24-Hr Club, by my bike, in the cool of the evening. Thank You, God, for friends, near and far!

TRIVIA

RAINDROPS won't form in perfectly unpolluted air. Without rain, no grass. Without grass. no people. We owe a lot to pollution.

On that polluted note, I send you my true unpolluted wishes for peace in your lives. Also I send you my Love, from
Steve E

Trivia taken from L.M. Boyd's "Curiosity Shop", Page 127