The 3 Cs

[MajestyJo]

Those three C's- Didn't CAUSE it, can't CONTROL it, and can't CURE it are very powerful. They helped me realize my powerlessness over the disease of alcoholism and addiction.

I met someone today when I was down in the mall and we had a mini-meeting. One of the things I said to her was, "If I have to control it, it is already out of control it." She is a retired nurse and she had a difficult time with the program; because she tended to intellectualize things and look at things from a religious point of view runs a muck with the spiritual aspect of recovery.

Just accepting the fact that it is an incurable disease and that we are giving a daily reprieve through the Grace of the God of our understanding and the gift of the 12 Steps. We can't control our drinking, and yet we can change our thinking, our actions and behaviours by working and applying those 12 Steps to our life, whether we are the alcoholic/addict or the family and friend of same.

We didn't cause it. I can remember my mother saying, "Look at what you made me do." I didn't know that I didn't know that I didn't have the power. No one can make me do anything unless I give up my power to them. Once I pick up that drink or drug, it takes over my life and every time I picked up, I lost a piece of me, so I lost power. Yet when I surrendered, reached out and asked for help, I was empowered to do what I needed to do to stay clean and sober, one day at a time. I was told that sobriety meant "Soundness of mind." That applies to all of us, "alcoholics and non-alcoholics." You can't live with an alcoholic and have soundness of mind. I am a daughter of an alcoholic, was married to an alcoholic, became an alcoholic, and have a son who is a self-alcoholic, and have had several recovering alcoholic boyfriends.

I thought I was the cause, the cure, and in control and what an illusion that was.