"IT'S NOT OLD BEHAVIOR IF I'M STILL DOING IT."

It's easy to let go of things that are causing more pain than pleasure. Like when my drinking and using was killing me, I stopped, and even though it was hard at first, I found that being sober really was the easier, softer way. But I still had a lot of old ideas and behaviors that still worked sometimes, and letting these go was not so easy.

As I sat in meeting after meeting, I would hear that "the result was nil until we let go absolutely", and I never really got it. I mean, I was certainly getting results - I was clean and sober; I got my job back, and I began repairing broken relationships. But there were also times when I was intensely unhappy, irritable, and needed and wanted a drink. It took a long while for me to see that these feelings almost always followed old ways of thinking and behaving.

The longer I'm in recovery, the more I understand the value of steps six and seven. My old behaviors will continue just so long as I remain unwilling to give up the character defects that cause them. But when I do become willing, something wonderful happens - my Higher Power does for me what I can't do for myself - and that is relieve me of my old ways of thinking and acting.

Today I understand when they say, "It's not an old behavior if you're still doing it."