Changing your life only takes a single, simple decision. When our lives appear to be out of control, taking small positive new beginnings takes courage. Learn to focus on choosing new small beginnings.

The following quote is reprinted from a website that I can no longer access. If anyone knows the author’s name or new website, please email me. I believe wholeheartedly in what he is saying.

“You see, I believe we can get past this thing called alcoholism and addiction. We can get past it by taking advantage of every opportunity for abstaining that we encounter. For most people that includes a period of time in a 12 Step Program. If it’s not AA right off the bat, almost ALL Treatment Centers refer clients to the 12 step programs anyway. So if you haven’t done it already, go ahead, bite the bullet and put a little time into AA.

One thing you’ll learn there is what Not to do if you really want to stop drinking. You will have many, many opportunities to study people as they stumble through the obstacles they place before themselves on the way to sober living. There are tricks to not falling prey to self-destruction while learning to not drink, and it’s less painful to learn those lessons second hand. I learned a lot of them there.

The bottom line for everyone is that if you really want to get sober, you will get sober. It doesn’t matter what your gig is, it could be the fishing cure, church, a hot new babe, 12 steps, or plain hard assed self-preservation. When the nickel drops and you know what you need to do to get the job done,,,, go ahead and do it. And do it like you never did anything before, because getting sober takes all the passion you’ll ever have. Staying sober, it gets a lot easier after the first 10 or 15 years.”

I love reading and writers who know how to use words to make me feel something. I don’t live in my head any longer. Nor do I allow my feelings to dictate the direction for my life. I was reading through my favorite blogs today and came upon this: Ragamuffin Ramblings: Seeing what God can do..

What really got my attention was part of one of his sentences:”the blasting cap that started the implosion of my old life, and the beginning of new life out of the rubble of the old.” I never tire of reading about new beginnings that lead people to change their lives in radical ways. William James reported over 100 years ago that college students are particularly prone to spiritual conversion. He recounts 2 types of conversion experiences. One is the sudden, immediate conversion which is what I experienced. The other is a slow growth into the spiritual direction of God leading a conversion experiences.

Lewis Rambo has attributed seven characteristics to conversion experiences. “Conversions 1) take place within a given personal and social context, including the symbolic; 2) are catalyzed by a crisis, which can assume many guises; 3) involve an active search or quest for an answer, provided the potential convert is intellectually, emotionally and religiously ready; and 4) are mediated by an encounter with an advocate for a particular resolution, whose strategy and methods must match the needs of the potential convert. Conversions also require 5) interaction with the community of faith and result in both 6) a commitment to the new faith in the form of experienced surrender to it and 7) significant personal consequences through the exercise of it.”

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