“Stay humble, never stumble”
Humility is not the same as humiliation. Humiliation is when I had fallen down a set of stairs at Sam Diego’s bar in Plymouth on a crowded Friday night completely wasted on margaritas. That was humiliating, embarrassing and a little frightening. Did I stop drinking after that? Yes…about 15 years later.
Humility to me means being in a state of grace and appreciation. It means valuing the life you have and the acknowledgement of the gifts we have been given. It’s a feeling of non entitlement. Only 1 out of 36 people who come into recovery, who will try to stay clean actually make it.
I also believe humility is giving “credit where credit is due” so to speak. If I acted arrogant and spouted off to the world that I am clean and sober today because of me and me alone, then I will surely pick up a drink or drug again. I have seen others do this.
Humility keeps me “right sized”. It reminds me that I am one bad decision away from losing everything. I don’t mean the material things either, although those will go as well. If I pick up or “relapse” I lose my connection to my higher power because I am no longer able to focus there. I would become so obsessed with getting and having the drug of choice that I want – that I value nothing on this earth more than that. I am back on the hamster wheel chasing, getting using and then chasing again.
Today humility gives me the sense that I have made it out of some sort of hell on earth and I am ever grateful to God for that. I did not have the power by myself to stop using. Believe me I tried. I have to call on or ask a power greater than myself to not pick up on a daily basis. I then get to say thank you to that power every night.
When I think of where I was and where I am today it is nothing short of a miracle. I am humble enough to know that I alone do not perform miracles but something greater than me, that actually resides within me, does.