Step 10

"Staring into the Dragon's jaw, one quickly learns wisdom." --Steven Brust


In my recovery meetings there are a lot of old cliches. You know the ones I'm talking about, "One day at a time" and the Serenity Prayer are a couple that come to mind right away. There is another one I thought I had forgotten. I was remined by a loving friend this last week and it has been on my mind ever since. The acronym is H.A.L.T.
Never get too Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired.

I'm thankful that I have in my life people who care about me. I have people who care about me enough that they tell me the ugly truth about myself, even when I don't particularly care to hear it, even when I think that they are perfectly wrong.

Step Ten:
Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promtly admitted it.

I have been wrong. I have behaved in ways that I am ashamed of. I started to think again, that I could control everything in my life that hurt, confused, or upset me. I can not. I will however, do the best I can, what ever happens next, to be true to me.

"Whenever we were troubled by things other people said or did or by what we feared they might say or do, we needed to make a quick assessment of our own spiritual condition in order to gain perspective on ourselves and the other person...
One area in which we often experienced difficulty was in continuing to be open and forthright about our feelings and motives, and our expectations of others. We would hide dissappointment, hurt, fear or anger under a facade of acceptance...
Then, too, we continued to learn about how the defects we had already identified could emerge in milder but still troublesome forms. Sometimes a new defect in our charecter was discovered, such as selfishness that had been lurking under dependance, or the fear of intamacy that hid behind restlessness...
In all of this we were coming to know that our own attitudes and actions were the only aspects of our lives which we stood any real chance of influencing. We had always been, were now, and forever would be powerless over the deeds and motives of others."

The Augustine Fellowship Big Book