This morning I got off to work on time and had a nice walk in through downtown. I got to take in the coolness and the sites and sounds of the morning and feel grateful to be able to work in such beautiful place. I looked up at the 22nd floor of my building where my office is and I admire the architecture of the other buildings against the dawn sky and the moon.

At our noon meeting we read from step 6 in the 12x12. We read about how we are ok giving up our most glaring and clearly destructive handicaps. But most of us rationalize and hang on to our less extreme or milder defects.

Looking back I can see that this was the root of my struggle to get sober and to stay sober. As a young man I had extreme and glaring defects of character. I was prideful, self-righteous, bigoted, slothful, selfish, and prone to homicidal rage. Not to mention my overt and severe addictions. But in my mid twenties I improved due to the motivation of bitter experience. However my depravity was never really solved, it just took on a more cunning nature. I just had less extreme versions of them in most cases and I stuffed and rationalized in other cases.

I became a functional addict and drank and used in binges instead of all the time. I was still prideful and self righteous but I became passive aggressive and I only hid or suppressed my feelings. I became industrious but only to the extent that would allow me to go on benders of neglect. I pretended to care about people but only so they would like me or give me what I wanted. I also developed a vicious sexual addiction that I rationalized as necessary to keep a long term relationship.

My drinking and using obsession came wrapped up in a fantasy that I would go to happy hour drink with my network of drug dealer buddies, get loose and gregarious, shoot great pool and hook up with the ladies. After 3-4 pitchers I would take two stripper types to a hotel room with a pile of blow and have an orgy. Then at midnight I would go home to my wife and she would welcome me home and tell me all about the great things my son did.

The truth was that I would go to a bar, get drunk too fast, get the craving for drugs, go find a hotel room alone, shoot speedballs, and watch some other guy have an orgy with two strippers in a porn... for 3 days, until my money ran out. Then I would go home to my terrified and angry wife.

When I got desperate enough to get sober i was willing to let God have my addiction but I was not so willing to have some of my other character defects. In fact I only reluctantly admitted they would be considered character defects by the measure laid down by God's moral code. My sponsor and others helped me see that these seemingly justified eccentricities were actually destructive. But I didn't ever completely let them go.

I thought about lust all the time, I lusted after the girls in meetings, I continued to watch porn, and I went to strip clubs in sobriety. Then I would be resentful at my wife because she wasn't two strippers.

Consequently I couldn't stay sober. When I finally practiced the steps 24 hours at a time uninterrupted for 9 months I finally began to change. I incrementally needed these these old desires less and less. I incrementally gained new values more and more. The process helped me stay connected to a power greater than myself that restored me to sanity. I stayed sober and found peace of mind and happiness.

I now love my wife for her qualities and not for how she looks or doesn't look. I now don't need to rationalize infidelity. I don't need viagra and I don't need lustful fantasies to maintain our love life.

I had a productive day at work.
I had an awesome ping pong match.
It was an ordinary evening, my wife and I spent time in the back yard with the kids.

Thanks be to God!